DILEMMA

 

 The tears finally stopped, leaving trails on my full cheeks like an old footpath. When Adom walked back into the room after his extensive visit to the john, I was composed, or so I thought. Today is one of the days I would call good for a breakdown. You see, we have a complicated relationship. We aren’t lovers, no, but we are close, very close. As close as we are though, we have a sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ unspoken policy between us. We only talk about really sensitive ‘somethings’ if the party concerned brings it up for discussion. In our own way, we are seasoned politicians.

We grew up together, Adom and I. We played counters’ ball together, jumped ‘high jumps’ together. We’ve been friends forever. If there is one single person on earth who knows me better than all, it would be him. My girlfriends think we are dating or at least, that we have the hots for each other. Maybe we do but it’s a terrain we would rather not explore. Like I said; it’s complicated. I don’t know what his reasons are but I for one have plenty of reasons why dating him would be a not so good idea.

“Are you ready?” he asked me, taking me away from the musings of my over thinking brain.

“Yeah, let’s go”. I said.

“You might wanna take care of those zebra-like streaks on your cheeks first”.

Embarrassment threatening to undo me, I delved quickly into my handbag for my compact mirror. After a few tries, I became frustrated that I couldn’t find my mirror and already the damn tears were threatening again. Seeing my predicament, he offered me the use of the mirror in his bathroom, which I would have remembered had I not been so flustered.  My reflection in the mirror was ok. The flowery knee-length dress I had on accentuated my curves perfectly and its baby-pink colour was very flattering to my skin tone. My face however was a minus, with those puffy eyes and hideous streaks made by my tears. I cleaned myself up, applied fresh make-up, put on my sunglasses even though it was 4 going on 5pm, and was good to go. We were on our way to the airport to pick his parents up from their vacation abroad. My best friend comes from money, at least enough of it to afford the old couple a vacation abroad. He is that one friend you have whom you could never outshine even if you tried so you learn to get over his luck.

“Wow! Sunglasses in the 5pm ‘noonday’ sun”?

Slowly taking the glasses in question off, I glared at him.

“Okay, not in the mood for jokes. Got it!”

We got in his car and were on our way.

I still haven’t told you guys why I was crying, have I?

Well, it’s like this; I have a boyfriend. His name is William and I call him Bill. He is a Christian, sometimes he preaches in our church and he condemns pre-marital sex at every opportunity he gets (which is annoying because we are having sex at every opportunity we get). Just one problem: he is a womanizer which means he is a hypocrite. I was crying because we’ve just had one of our episodes on phone. Me accusing, he denying and taking the defensive, blah, blah, blah, it never ends.

We got into his car and were on our way. I adjusted the passenger’s seat to a more relaxed angle and rested my head on the head-rest.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

No reply

“Amanda?”

“Yes?” I turned my head sideways to look at him.

“Do you want to talk about what he did this time?”

“No, not now. Later.”

“Okay”.

I mentally shook my head. Adom, my gentleman. When you meet him for the first time, the first thing that strikes you is what a gentleman he is, then you keep waiting for the act to fail and it never does because it isn’t an act. Trust me, I should know. I’m still waiting for him to grow horns and be a jerk which he, thankfully, hasn’t yet.

It will be a shame if you don’t come back next time to read what happens next. Something interesting happens on the drive to the airport.