Ah! My head protests as I try to sit up in bed and get myself ready for the day. The room spins for a few moments and my legs feel asthough they are carrying lead of some sort. Yes I am definitely not work material today, I feel like shit and probable look like it too. I decide totake my time before venturing into the busy Lusaka town although independence road should be fairly clear. At least my car does not get confronted by athousand street vendors all trying to sell the same commodity- newspapers. I crawl back into bed and decide to snooze for a little bit longer.
‘Aunty, aunty,’ It is Charity at the door obviously trying to get me up. ‘Aunty mwachedwa (you are late) I jerk up out of bed and checkthe clock only to find it is already 10:00 hours! Oh my God my boss is going to have my head. I rush round getting ready and do not even have time for a quick one soap one water. As I head out of the bedroom I bump into Hope. I feel like strangling her right here and right now. She looks as raggedy as she calls others. Her hair is a mess and her mascara is everywhere giving her panda eyes. She is still in her pyjamas, the one’s carrying the slogan ‘naughty but nice’. Couldn’t be more accurate.
‘Good morning Shey. I took the liberty of cancelling worktoday after all it is Friday.’ I look at her bewildered! When will she ever stop with the meddling and the constant ambition to irritate me? ‘Relax they were pretty cool about it. I just told Jasper that you had a toothache and he miraculously remembered that you were suffering from one and wished you a quick recovery. Come on it is 10:00 hours and you want to go to work with a raggedy coochie? No mama that is not the business and no Zambian boss in his right mind is going to allow a junior to walk into his office casually late. Don’t worry you can thank me later’. I hate to admit it but she does have a point. My ass was going to be toast especially if I want to work my way up this would have been detrimental to my strategy. I can’t help but think Jasper only accepted theexcuse because he has a soft spot for Hope.
‘Why on earth did you think that bringing him would havebeen a good idea and even more so a surprise?’ I ask pissed at the memory.
‘You are welcome.’ She says unconcerned.
‘You cannot just go around fixing life for people. I had my reasons for not wanting Dante around’
‘Then please tell me what it is Shey because I am getting sick of this lifestyle of yours where you tip toe around everyone and everybody. I have been friends with you for so long and by the way so has Dante and I just do not understand how you could go from outstanding love to downright hate’.
‘Because for you hope everything in life is simple and everything is a joke. Some of us are not like that. While you can go around and date and sleep with any guy you want, some of us are conscious about what we say and do and how we are treated’ I say hardly believing anything that I am saying but I am sure university has taught me how to tell any lie convincingly. But what is worse is that I am a prisoner of words unspoken once again. The truth is that I have an insecurity that I cannot understand. The truth is when you look at me you see an ambitious strong determined lawyer to be but in actual fact am just a girl with a broken past. I feel lost in this small world of Zambia and yes I dated Dante from high school right up to 2nd year of university. I was present physically but emotionally absent.
See there is something about guys that’s makes me sceptical.My papa was very loving but when things got bad he was not man enough to stand up and protect me. No. Instead I watched Trevor scoot around the house for a while before mama made him disappear. I did not ask any more questions after that. I just agreed to accept that he had disappeared but soon after that mama said we had to move from that house. She could not have been more right. Chisanga had said we moved because we had to leave papa behind. He was not a strong man. I loved my papa but I never understood why he never protected me. To this day I live with the fear of getting close to a man because I think they will not be able to stay the minute things go wrong yes it is safer for me to be alone and if things go wrong, I can only have myself to blame.
What kills me most is that I do not know how to tell Hope the real reason we broke up. She is such a pro when it comes to guys and her confidence oozes like it is the stepping stone to heaven. I don’t want to be as loose as her but I want to be confident enough to be able to go into a relationship without over thinking things. I normally sabotage my relationship before I am actually hurt.
Dante and I had an awesome relationship and after grade 9 we both made it to the famous DK. He was still the shy guy that he was at primary and we both maintained the friendship. Needless to say he was the technical brain and I had just made it to David Kaunda not for that type of brain but for my linguistic ability. French had just been introduced at the school and so voila! There was my ticket into one of the most prestigious government schools in the country.
Hope went to Ibenga girls in Luanshya but by some miracle that girl always managed to see me in Lusaka at least twice a month! Dante was in the class in front of mine.
Most of the time he just sat there in his classroom drawing stuff in his notebook or on his covers. My friends in place of Hope, Mumba and Chola could not get why I was so fascinated with Dante. They could have sworn that really and truly Dante was gay. Either that or he just was plain weird. I knew he was neither because he and I had come far enough to know that although it was not exactly out there, we liked each other a lot. Even more so, I liked the fact that he had maintained his quietish personality except when he was in the company of his mates. Anyway I made it my ambition to make him mine.
So when we hit grade 11 and both made prefect, well him headboy and me a mere prefect, it was the icing on the cake. I got a lot more time to spend with him and after a few ‘study sessions’ in the dingo, I was besotted by him. I called him my ‘man of destiny’. I would write to Hope frequently about him and tell her how far we had gone with our relationship.
‘Dear Hope,
Can you believe that we had wasted so much time in actually becoming a couple? Dante is absolutely amazing and I think it is by some miracle that I will pass my exams because really and truly all I think about is him! It is that kind of feeling that makes your stomach flip and you can’t tell whether you are anxious or genuinely need to pee.
Oh you should see the many gifts he brings me every time he gets a chance to go to the shops. It is either a card or some chocolates or simply a letter that he has written for me. Mumba usually delivers the letters seeing as they are in the same class. Can you believe she actually told him off for sealing the envelope? Says the schools policy is no coupling so if he wants her to keep the secret he ought to keep them open. Oh Hope I am so in love with him!...’
And so on the letters went. It was no surprise therefore that when we both made it to the University of Zambia, we stayed together and our relationship progressed except for one area….he could never manage to penetrate. One day after another failed encounter, I witnessed him coming out of Lombe’s room shirt unbuttoned. Not to mention it was early hours of the morning too. I refused to pick up his calls or entertain any of nonsense after that. He never really knew why I decided to cool it off with him. I figured,typical man! When it gets tough, they run!
No comments:
Post a Comment