Closer than Close

This is not the first time I will be waiting at the airport to pick Obinna up but today, as I sit and wait for his plane to arrive, I am apprehensive, no, I am scared. I am shaking so much I am sure the lady sitting near me can feel it.

I love Obinna so much and being with him is always exhilarating but today I am scared. I am nervous because this visit is different. Obim is coming to town because you see, after five years of tiptoeing around the issue; we have finally decided that on this visit, we will finally cross that line.

This decision is really really huge, so huge that I lost my nerve last night and nearly called everything off because Obinna and I are both married but not to each other.

 Even though we have known each other for five years, we only see once a year and have successfully kept from getting intimate. Initially, we didn't even touch aside from the very first hug. I remember how we would sit on opposite ends of his hotel bed and just look at each other for hours, afraid that if we sat next to each other, we would not be able to stop ourselves from doing all the crazy stuff we had been doing together in our heads. Over the years sha, we had graduated to hugging and then more and finally, even that was no longer enough, hence this visit. 

 I still remember so clearly the first time I first set my eyes on Obim. It was a Wednesday afternoon in June and I was at the DSTV office to pay my subscription. I remember being so annoyed because there was a small crowd there. I was waiting impatiently in line when I suddenly felt uncomfortable, you know how you feel when someone is watching me so I slowly turned and my eyes met this guy who was staring at me without blinking. I quickly turned back. Soon after, I paid my bill and left.

 I momentarily thought the staring stranger but shortly after I got home, I totally forgot about him and got busy with the twins. My twins were barely six months then and Alex was not a hands-on dad or much of anything else and I always had little time for myself once I started attending to the twins. Alex and I had been married for two years and already, I felt like I had made a huge mistake. I often felt trapped and hardly ever smiled, especially when he was around. He worked abroad and came around once every quarter and we would fight almost every other day over virtually everything and sometimes over nothing.

Anyways, several months later, precisely in August, two weeks or so before my birthday, i got a call. In fact, i got sixteen calls from the same number. Alex was not around and i had left my phone in the living room while i bathed the twins, dutifully read two bedtime stories and put them to bed. I momentarily panicked. I am sure you know that when you have aged parents in the village and younger siblings scattered all over the place, sixteen calls from the same number can trigger a mini cardiac arrest. I started to redial the number in a near-panic when my phone started to vibrate in my palm, it was the same number and i broke out in a sweat.

‘Hello’; i croaked. The caller identified himself as Obinna and apologised for calling. At this point, i am thinking who on earth is Obinna nah? I don’t think i know any Obinna, no way i would forget any Obinna with this really nice voice.

Anyways, i dragged myself to the present and he was still speaking. Again he apologised for calling and explained that i didn’t know him as we hadn’t actually met and that he had stealthily copied out got number from the DSTV register. He explained that he had stood a few paces behind me in a queue tp pick DSTV subscription and had taken the liberty of copying my number because he wanted to talk to me. He explained that he had made sure to count how many people were ahead of him so he would get the correct name and number. Lol!

I was more intrigued than upset and asked why exactly he was calling.

(c) teejaydogoh

 

To be continued.