LOVE OR NOT

Hi there, I totally apologise for the longgg break. I found myself in a place where electricity was luxury and any network connection above Edge was a miracle. But, I am back now. For a while, i’ll be sharing a short story with you (non-fiction + fiction). Comments and questions are welcome. If you recognise yourself in this story, well, that’s good.lol. enjoy…

My story is about failed love and life dealing me unfair blows. Simple. You might think you have heard all there could be about these things. Believe me, you have not heard mine before. Or maybe you have, but not from me.

START: CHAPTER ONE
Innocence is bestowed, a temporary endowment. I had it and once I realized I did, I held on tighter. All around me, faces of guilt flew by day after day. They carried guilt that came from knowing too much. I knew little, if not nothing of the plot of the drama I had been born into. This explains why I was a lesbian for a year of my life and I had no clue. Don’t ask.

Gradually, my innocence began to erode. That did not scare me as much as the discovery of my desire to be rid of my initial endowment. I wanted to belong and this meant total abstinence from my innocent ways. This desire burned within me with an unbearable flame and lit up all the hidden exposures to the evils around me.

But, really, is there anything wrong in being exposed? Getting away from being shelled, cocooned? Letting myself be seen? Really, because, I don’t think it is that bad to be visible.

So, i stepped out. I left what I had known as shade and decided to feel the warmth of the sun. That’s when he walked into my life. Okay, let me rephrase that. That is when I noticed that he had always been in the periphery all the while.

Richard had always been a part of my extended family. He attended my uncle’s church and had become part of the family. He was a talented drummer. The few times I attended service, I always felt the effect of his beats on the worship and he always looked like he was totally enjoying himself.

The longest exchange we had was the usual “goodmorning” and most times, it was said hurriedly, like any attempt at taking any extra time would be our death. He seemed so shy and withdrawn, like he hadn’t taken the step I took to leave innocence behind. I rarely saw him smile but I saw no frowns either. The look on his face was mostly that of intense concentration. But, the first time I saw him smile, I felt the warmth of his smile even though I was far from him and wasn’t the recipient of it.

I took the first step. I said more than ‘hi’ and surprisingly, he gave back more than a ‘hello’. It was a moment of shock and relief. Actually, there were many more emotions involved at that instant when he talked, to me, for more than five seconds.

Even though the ice had been broken,many factors still kept us from really conversing the way we ought to. For one, I and my siblings were living free in an enclosed world. Our parents, especially our mother, had this strict rule about not ‘poking’ our noses in other peoples’ ideas. It was more or less like we were to relate only with people when our parents were around.

One thing that really influenced our exposure was our Christian faith. Our parents were devout Christians and it was and still remains their utmost desire to teach us how to love and obey God. Even though I understood little of all these at that time, I was not about to disobey my parents, at least, not right under their noses.

Also, Richard was already in the university and I had just begun my senior secondary school. His world was kind of more different than my life in secondary school.

So, we kept on waiting for the rare times when our worlds merged. At such times, we were content to just stare at each other, smile and walk away before family from either side noticed anything.

All of a sudden, our worlds grew apart totally. We saw nothing of each other. In all our few times together, exchanging phone numbers had never come up as a possibility. At first, I thought it was a temporary situation but as months merged into two years, I let my mind forget.

During those two years, I finished my secondary school education.

It was also during those two years that I experienced the most intense crush I have ever had. Let me tell you about him.

His name was Will.

#peo