At thirteen years old, I had a crush on a boy who just joined our class. He was new. He was a breath of fresh air when compared to the guys in our class, the ones I’d always seen and played with. I was dying to hear his name so when the teacher asked him to mention his name to the class, my ears stood alert.
He said, “My name is Emmanuel.”
I said in my head, “Emma? Oh, that’s easy.”
When the teacher asked us to provide him with every assistance he needed to feel part of the class, I took it literally. He sat two rolls ahead of me and he was easy to reach. During break time, he was walking alone to nowhere while everyone knew where they were supposed to go. I asked him, “What would you like to eat? I can take you to where they sell it.”
He looked at me and smiled first before saying he didn’t want to eat anything. I didn’t leave him. I walked next to him, thinking I was his guide. He didn’t say much and if he did, I don’t remember all of them. Times have passed. Memories have faded but I remember we became friends that day before any person in the class would even think of being friends with him.
By struck of magic or fate, we got to know after school that day that we lived closer to each other. We said bye-bye to each other and still walked in the same direction. He asked where I was going and I told him. I saw a certain level of excitement in his eyes. He screamed, “It means we live in the same place.”
He used ‘we’, that was the first time he put both of us in the same word. “We do? Then let me see where you live.” I followed him until he got to the gate of his house before waving the final goodbye.
Schools had closed but my mind was still open and thinking about him. I didn’t know what I wanted from him but I knew my heart was whistling a tune and I couldn’t wait to dance to the tune.
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One day after school, he told me he had something to tell me but it was too heavy he didn’t know how to go about it. My heart leapt off my chest. I knew what he was going to say. I mean what could be too heavy for a boy to say if it wasn’t about love? I told him, “You can tell me everything. You know I don’t bite. Just say it.” He hesitated. He told me he was going to say it tomorrow. Many tomorrow’s came and passed by but this guy didn’t say anything apart from, “It’s not easy for me so give me time.”
At JHS two, I was still pursuing this guy to tell me what he wanted to tell me. He deflected my questions and at some point decided he wasn’t going to say anything again. I withdrew from him. I stopped going to his house and kept my distance, thinking the distance would make him see that I was hurting. He still did nothing until when we were about to complete school.
Because of him, my dad beat me one evening and woke me up at dawn and beat me again. After evening classes, I was standing somewhere in the dark with him when my dad came to pass. He didn’t say a word until I got home. Emma proposed that night. It took him more than two years. He got the courage because we were about to complete school. I didn’t accept his proposal. I wanted to punish him for taking so long. When my dad also decided to rain on our parade, I decided to let go of him completely.
After school, I had an accident. I was sitting behind my brother’s motorbike when I fell down the street. I broke my hand and damaged my nose. I woke up at the hospital when doctors were working on my broken nose. After the surgery on my nose, it got swollen and made me look like a disappointed monster. I didn’t want anybody to see me but one afternoon, I opened my eyes and Emma was sitting next to me on my hospital bed. I turned away. He smiled. I asked why he was smiling and he said, “You still look good.”
I knew he was lying but that softened my resistance. He spent close to an hour there. He came the next day and the day after. I was at the hospital for almost two weeks. He visited me every day until the day before I got discharged. He didn’t come by. The following day, I was discharged. I kept expecting his visit but each day left me disappointed until I learned he had traveled out of town.
If I knew the last time I saw him was going to be the last time, I would have accepted his proposal or done something memorable. I didn’t know. He also didn’t tell me anything until all I had of him were memories.
It looked like when he left the hospital that day, he disappeared from the face of the earth. I heard from most of our friends and mates but anyone I spoke to didn’t know the whereabouts of Emma. Even the people he lived with knew very little of his whereabouts.
Time did its thing. It moved so I moved on too, thinking less of him each day until I buried the memory of him inside me.
Eleven years later, I came face-to-face with Emma in the People You May Know section on Facebook. He had grown. I shouldn’t have recognised him quickly like I did but his name clicked. I tapped on his profile and started going through it. He hasn’t posted much and the account looked like it had been abandoned for years but that didn’t stop me from sending him a message.
“I don’t know if you will recognize me but if you meant what you told me ages ago, you should be able to recognize me. I don’t believe I’ve changed that much.”
My message hung in the air as I clicked away from his profile. Three days later, no reply. I went back and wrote, “It looks like you don’t come here often but when you finally do, this is my number. Please call me.”
A week later, no response.
“Well, you’re not talking so I figured I should tell you everything about us.”
I went ahead and spilt the story of us in over a thousand words. “Do you know the night you proposed my dad beat the proposal out of me that very night? It was the reason I couldn’t say yes. I didn’t remember what you said.”
For the next three months or so, I went there every day to write something. Stories and tales of the past. I knew one day he would read and I wanted that day to be special. I waited and waited for that day to come but each day felt like an exercise in futility. I stopped. A year later I went to check if he had read and had decided to ignore me. All my messages were still floating in the air of his inbox.
“Or he has forgotten his password “
When people who know you from your younger days call you, they mention your full name, I don’t know if you’ve seen that. So when that call came and the voice was a male and he mentioned my full name, I knew it was Emma.
We screamed, both of us were joyful, we lowered our voices and asked questions. He said he missed me. I told him I missed him too. He apologized for disappearing. I apologized for not saying anything concerning his proposal.
A week later we met.
I looked my best. I was desperate to appear good so he would still find me beautiful. I was there before he came. Immediately he entered the door and opened his arms to welcome me into his embrace, his wedding ring dazzled. I got deflated right there. All my dreams of rekindling what we left to die in the past melted and leaked out of my skin.
“So you’re married. Good for you,” I said. He answered, “I’m sorry…I…I…I don’t even know what to say.” He stuttered as if his marriage was something he had to apologize for. We talked. We ate. He asked why I didn’t appear a year earlier. I told him to check the date I sent the first message.
We both agreed there was nothing the past can do about the present. We hugged after eating and bade each other goodbye. I knew it was the last goodbye that would bring closure to what we started when we were young. I got home and he called. He said he loved me and I said I did too. He breathed and I breathed. That was where it ended.
He Says He Can’t Date Me Because I’m Too Beautiful
I couldn’t write a beautiful story with what we had. We couldn’t own a piece of “And they lived happily ever after” but it was all good. Time and tides are never wrong
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—Prissy
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