Story Series: The Man From My Past [I]

I sighed deeply and sank into my bed. It was a bright Saturday morning and I just got off the phone with Julius. He had called to cancel our beach date, he said something about being needed at the office. He hadn’t even given me time to rant at him and fully express my displeasure, he had just hurriedly explained something I still didn’t understand and then said some people were waiting for him already and then he had just abruptly ended the call! And they say women are overbearing, how can we not be?

That beach date that Julius just casually called off was something I had been looking forward to for weeks. We were supposed to just go away for a whole day and spend quality time with each other to make up for all the weeks that Julius had been too busy to spend time with me. What did I get instead? A called off date at the last minute just as I was about to start making up! I admit it, I was frustrated. Abi kilode gan? Was he the first man to have a bank job?

I decided I couldn’t bear to stay at home, it would rub the disappointment in, so I started calling some of my girlfriends to see who was available to go out with me. Nobody was. They all said they had prior plans – weddings, birthday parties, dates with their boos; it really seemed like I was the only unlucky one. I decided I would take myself out then. A trip to the mall and a big bowl of ice cream should do just fine.

I immediately got up and pulled on a pair of shorts, a bright t-shirt and sneakers. I skipped the make up, there was no point anymore anyway. I grabbed my purse and car keys and headed out. The mall was crowded, which was not a surprise. After all, it was a Saturday and Saturdays are a shopper’s holiday. I had been toying with the idea of seeing a movie, but when I saw the queues, I quickly changed my mind. Instead, I bought myself a stick of cotton candy and nibbled on it as I window shopped at the fancy stores. I later picked a couple of toiletries I needed and got myself that big bowl of ice cream – actually, I bought two bowls, different flavors (I decided I would eat it all and burn it off on the treadmill later in the day, smart move, right?)

The drive back home took quite some time, I just didn’t know where all the cars suddenly came from, jamming the roads. By the time I finally got home, my bowls of ice cream were already in liquid form! Into the freezer they went and while I waited for them to solidify, I set up my small living room for a movie: lights off, curtains down, air conditioning set just right and my movie ready to play at the touch of a remote control button. I also took the liberty of making some microwave popcorn, by the time all of that was done, ice cream was good enough to have, so my home cinema experience began.

The hours rolled by, one movie rolled into the next, two more sachets of popcorn gone and the second bowl of ice cream half gone, that was my state when my phone beeped. I almost didn’t want to look at it because I thought it was Julius wanting to check up on me and I really wasn’t interested. I picked up my phone all the same and it turned out that the beeps were Facebook messages from Bowale, my college boyfriend. I smiled.

The last time we spoke was January 1, if that can even be called speaking. We had just exchanged new year greetings via text. It was funny he remembered me that day. That was how we started chatting and the gist was flowing until he decided to call me, and we spoke late into the night. My movie was abandoned, and of course, so were my plans to workout. The years had made me forget how hard Bowale could make me laugh. His voice had gotten deeper, just slightly, but I noticed the change. He also sounded more confident, more controlled than he had back in school. That was to be expected anyway. He had been very successful at work. I knew, I probably knew a lot more than he thought I knew - thanks to all the hours of stalking on Facebook.

I hadn't meant to stalk him, but Facebook has a way of pushing all that information in your face and making you tend to snoop. It had started with seeing a new photo of him pop up on my timeline, and I had clicked to get a better view, next thing l knew, I was reading comments, and next, going to his wall and looking at other photos and on and on. I had never meant to contact him or anything, the Facebook stalking had just been something that I found myself doing from time to time. Bowale thought we were catching up, but I already knew a sizable bit of what had been happening in his own life. I didn't sleep until the early hours of Sunday morning, we had so much to talk about!

Julius told me the following day that he had dialed my number repeatedly that night and kept getting a busy tone. I told him it must have been the network. I still wonder why I hadn’t just told him the truth...

Cover image via Mjemagazine