CHAPTER SEVEN
May 2019
Kate and Tara held a ‘roomie intervention’ the weekend before exam-prep week. In their words, “Things are getting out of hand, you’re running out of time” and “You have to make a decision and stop acting like a player”, I’m sure by now you know who said what.
Sometimes you have to make practical decisions. Mo was set to graduate in a couple of weeks yet I still wasn’t sure how truly platonic our ‘platonic friendship’ was. Jacob Jones had a year to go, it was a no-brainer. Jones was practical, and as much as I wanted him to be, Mo just… wasn’t.
Two weeks after the intervention, I found myself standing on a balcony with a group of girls in my hostel. We were watching the final-year students’ rally. Despite my nerves, I couldn’t help but be filled with hope.
The exam I had written earlier that day didn’t go the way I planned so I wasn’t feeling very confident, but their rally was a reminder of what I was working towards. They marched and danced, sang and screamed, jumped and ran; their noise disturbed the entire campus.
I went out to get something to eat later and they had all convened in front of the second cafeteria, dancing to music blasting from the speakers. I knew getting into the cafeteria would be almost impossible, plus I didn’t want to run into Mo. In a bid to avoid him and the not-so-feelings brewing within, I decided to take the long route past the boys’ hostels and get food from Smoothie Shack.
I got to the junction and walked over to the ATMs across the road from TDC. While the ATM was dispensing the money, I noticed the silhouettes of two people walking in my direction, they were far off in the car park behind the College of Sciences building across the road on my left. As they got closer, one of them started to look familiar,
Jones?
They crossed the road and walked onto the grass beside the ATM station, the light from the machine confirmed my suspicion. It was Jones and a girl I hadn’t seen before that day. As time went on I would see her a lot more often than I would’ve liked.
“Hey, boss! What’s good?”
Jones said with a huge smile on his face stretching his arm towards me for what I thought would be a regular handshake. He did the loud clap, finger snap and everything.
Did this man just dap me up? Are we guys like that? Why doesn’t he smile like this when we hang out? Who is this babe? What’s going on here?
I responded with a nervous chuckle,
“I’m fine oh. Am I safe? Which one is ‘boss’ again?”.
Jones laughed and took a step back to stand beside the girl,
“You’re a boss now, it’s nothing new”.
It is in fact ‘something new’.
“Okay, no wahala. Who is the fine girl?”
I said with a soft smile before turning to speak directly to her,
“I love your hair by the way, it’s so cute!”.
She didn’t say anything back but her face lit up with a friendly smile, she seemed a bit shy, her eyes pointed towards the ground. She was slender and light-skinned with a head full of thick ginger afro hair. Jones introduced her to me as ‘Grace’, and me to her as his guy’s ‘babe’.
I am NOT Ceekay’s babe for god’s sake!
The three of us walked to Smoothie Shack together and from our conversation on the way there, I gathered that Grace was a 200-level Social and Management Sciences (SMS) student. She didn’t say much but I had never seen Jones so chatty. I got my food and said goodbye to both of them, leaving them in the mini cafeteria.
I went back to my hostel the same way because the last thing I needed after all that was to run into Mo. I burst into my room and saw Kate watching a movie on her bed, Tara walked out of the bathroom just then and they watched expectantly as I stood by the door in a dramatic pause because neither one of them could have predicted the words that came out of my mouth,
“Jones has a girlfriend.”
“EHN?!”
Once the exam weeks were over, students started going home for the summer holiday. All except the final-year students who had to defend their projects before an external panel and freshers —like myself—in sciences, engineering or pharmacy who had practical exams in either Chemistry or ICT.
After my last practical, I fished out my phone buzzing in my handbag,
“Yeah, hello?”
“Come upstairs please, I need to s-see you”
“Mo?”
“Y-yes, look up”
I tilted my head up and sure as day, there he was on the third floor, smiling and waving down at me. The labs were on the ground floor so I took off my lab coat, stuffed it in my bag and walked towards the main staircase in the middle of the building. Two minutes later, we were face-to-face by the railings where he waved at me.
“Gosh! I hate these stairs”
“S-see this guy!”
He laughed, more so at me than with me.
“You seem especially happy this afternoon”
“It’s a beautiful day, i-is it not?”
He replied looking at me. I started walking and he followed. We walked around the top floor, talking and laughing for about half an hour, I did most of the talking and he laughed the whole time. I don’t even remember if I said anything particularly funny.
We came to a halt by the railings in front of one of the lecture halls, 16D, opposite the offices beside the right-corner stairway.
“You sounded super excited bro, I thought there was gist. You just wanted to see me?”
“You a-always think there’s g-gist”
“Is that a crime?”
I turned to look at him, my arms folded to my chest. He smiled wide and genuine, he had such nice teeth.
Snap out of it!
“Tekeme, I — ”
“You should go back to the hall. What if they’ve called your name?”
“T-they already ha — ”
“I shouldn’t be here then. You need to get ready for your presentation.”
“Guy, just let it — ”
“We’ll see later tonight, I promise.”
“No, w-wait, I — ”
“Success!”
I chirped. As I turned around to leave, I heard him sigh but I waved and walked away. I tried my hardest not to look back at him.
He will be fine.
I said to myself. I turned the corner and went down the stairway. When I got to the second floor I heard rushed footsteps from the floor above coming down.
Please don’t be Mo. Please don’t be Mo. Please don’t be —
I looked back and saw a guy on the landing charging towards me. I moved out of the way just in time for him to turn the corner. He ran down to the floor below without even so much as an ‘excuse me’ or a ‘sorry’. I looked out the nearby window long enough to see him run out the side door of the college building and into the road.
Headless chicken.
I hissed, staring out the window still. The campus was so quiet, I was consumed by the serenity of it all, I didn’t hear a new set of footsteps close up behind me. A familiar voice pulled me out of my trance,
“I’m happier at noon… because the sun makes me think of you”
I meant to turn and face him quickly, but it ended up being slow and cautious like I was scared of what he would say next. Mo continued,
“I have been enthralled by you… All semester”
He took a step closer and went on,
“I don’t know what to do with myself… I don’t understand how you don’t see it… I am a finished man.”
He had a hand behind his neck and chuckled as if it was so unbelievable. It didn’t last very long, he went serious again, focused even,
“Seeing you at the game… Your skin had that caramel glow… As it has right now”
He took another step closer, twirling one of my braids around his left index finger,
“You gave me the motivation I needed to score that goal… I needed to see you today, you’re my lucky charm.”
He had the most beautiful, most sincere honey-brown eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was the heat from the sunlight in the window, the tension between us or my nerves about my practical, but whatever it was, I felt like I was melting under his gaze.
He kissed my forehead, it was short, light and sweet. Then he took three steps back, and let go of my left hand—I hadn’t even noticed he had my hand in his. He walked away and left me standing by the window, unable to move, stuck with my thoughts,
Platonic love confessions are a thing. Right?
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, or incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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