Our Ex

‘Oh my God, he is soooo cute!’

‘I know,’

Biola tuned to me, ‘you are over him aren’t you?’

‘Was I ever under him?’ I roll my eyes.

‘I am serious,’ she is.

‘So am I!’ I breathe an exaggerated sigh. Biola was at that stage of her relationship where she was excited, unsure, giddy, scared and the whole range of human emotions made worse by being a teenage girl. I feel a little sorry for her.

‘Biola, you know we never went out, we are family friends, I have known him forever…’

‘That makes it worse.’

‘How?’

‘You are more familiar.’

‘Omo, if we were going to go out, we would have gone out a long time ago, come on, be reasonable.’

She sighs, she knows it’s true. I did have a massive crush on Kunle but nothing ever developed between us. We are family friends, our mothers were schoolmates and had kept in touch. When Kunle was old enough, he started driving his mum wherever she wanted to go in exchange for using her car when he wanted. This included taking her to and waiting with her at her various friends’ houses. He would lurk around their homes as he was too young and too uninterested in their conversation to join in, besides, it would have been considered rude if he did. Lucky for Kunle, some of his mother’s friend’s had children his age or there abouts so it wasn’t always unbearable.

As kids, we played together, Kunle, his siblings and mine, though I remember his sister more than I do him and his brothers. In those days, I spent more time with her because whenever we went round to theirs, the boys would of course run away and we girls played girly games. His sister was younger than me, Kunle was older than us. In order to get our attention, she always showed off what she had learned in dance and gymnastic classes. I remember marvelling at her splits, she would stand astride and then lower herself down, bit by bit, all the way to the ground. How did she do that? She was just showing off anyway being the youngest of the gathering.

Then we all went off to secondary school, our family moved to a different house, his family moved to a different area and we lost touch.

I was home one day when I heard his mum’s voice calling out in greeting, I went over to the stairs to receive her as she came up.

‘Good afternoon aunty.’ I bend at my knees to greet her.

‘Good afternoon my dear, how are you?’

She struggled to get up the flight and a half of stairs. Aunty was the shape of a typical mother, plump and curvy which suggested she had a good life but it also meant the smallest exertions became a task. She had her helpers and her grown children to order around so she was used to sitting back and bossing everyone about, an earned right I suppose, most mothers did the same. I lead her to the kitchen to have a seat and offered her a drink and went to get my mum from her room. She was in the same state as Kunle’s mum so needed a few minutes to get herself ready, off the bed and to her friend in the kitchen. While she got herself decent, I went back to the kitchen to attend to aunty. She might want another drink, something to eat, or just someone to talk at. When I returned, there was someone in there with her. It was a boy not much older than me, the first thing I noticed was his hair, it was so perfect, cut in the style of the day, it defined his look. Everyone had this haircut but he made it his; a high-top, slanted at the top but his hair was curly, not that unpleasant Jheri curl yuck, goodness no. What had he done to it to make it so amazing? He looked at me and smiled, I did not recognise him at all but I knew who he was.

‘Do you remember Kunle, or were you too young?’ his mum had shifted her weight to the front of the chair and had twisted her frame round to look at us.

‘Yes aunty.’ I said not necessarily answering her question.

‘Hi.’ He said,

‘Hi.’ I respond and give him a small wave,

We stared at each other, auntie carried on talking but I wasn’t listening to what she was saying, she had faded into the peripheries. When I realised I was ignoring her, I cut her off mid-sentence to say my mum was on her way.

‘Would you like another drink aunty, can I make you something to eat?’

‘Just some more cold water please…’

‘Kunle do you want anything?’ I ask as I make my way to the fridge, unable to take my eyes off him,

‘I am fine thanks.’ He is still smiling.

‘Ronke how are you?’ my mum calls out to her friend from the doorway. They both talk at the same time as my mum plops herself in the chair beside her friend.

‘Are you ok here or do you want to go to the living room?’ My mum asks her,

‘I am fine here.’

‘What of drinks? Are you ok for drinks?’ my mum turns to me before she gets a response, ‘Bose, bring a jug of water for us.’ Back to her friend, ‘would you like a soft drink?’

As she fusses over her friend, I fill a jug with some ice, get some water from the tap, leave it on the table in front of them with four clean glasses and make a quick exit from the kitchen before they have me running more errands, I motion for Kunle to follow.

‘These old women sef.’

‘Tell me about it, I am her driver now.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want anything?’ I ask him again.

‘Are you sure you want to go back in there?’ he was right, those two would have us balancing balls on our noses while juggling flaming torches.

‘Bose…. Bose…’ I heard my mum shouting for me so I grabbed Kunle’s arm and run out of the house towards his car which was parked out front, he followed without resistance. We were out of the way now and proceeded to make ourselves comfortable on the bonnet of his mother’s car. We chatted like old pals which we were even though I have no recollection of a friendship. He came round on his own on a few more occasions after that, I don’t remember when the visits stopped.

Then I met Gbenga who I had fallen head over heels in love with, a relationship that almost obliterated any thoughts I may have harboured of a ‘thing’ with the perfect hair Casanova. I wasn’t in touch with Kunle in that time so I didn’t know what he was up to, it turns out he had been busy wooing Biola (who lived much closer to him) and now she was on cloud nine. I know the feeling, Kunle has that effect on people.

‘How come you guys never went out?’ Biola was still unsure.

‘Let me see…’ I put my finger to my lip, and squint at the sky.

‘Alright, stop that.’ She says.

‘Small matter of finding the absolute love of my life... for a few months.’

‘You guys were inseparable sha.’

‘When you are young and foolish…’ I swoon.

Biola kissed her teeth my comment. ‘So…’ she is like a dog with a bone, I drop my head onto my hands as I know what is coming next. ‘So if not for Gbenga …?’ she continues.

‘Biola!!! Damn it woman, ok, maybe we would have gone out for a while, but he is not my type, personality wise.’ I get up and walk to the other side of the gate. We were sitting outside her house where we carried on chatting long after I announced I was going home. ‘He may be damn good to look at but he can be such a prick…’ I stop myself as I realise that in an attempt to prove to my friend that I had no interest in her man, I could tarnish his image and I didn’t want to do that, after all, the fact that we weren’t suited didn’t mean that they weren’t.

‘You know what I mean Biola, don’t you?’

She did, she knew me quite well, she was unfortunate enough to be the friend at the other side of my roller coaster relationship with Gbenga, she knew when I liked someone and she knew when I wasn’t interested and she finally saw I had no interest in Kunle. I hope. She tended to be less volatile than me and wasn’t prone to short intense bouts of relationship’s, she was more measured, more sensible, the grown up of the two of us.

‘It’s getting late, are you taking me home or do I have to get a drop?’

That was almost three years ago, Biola had lost so much weight from being love sick. Now she had lost even more weight from heart break that followed. It seemed that Kunle and I had more in common than I thought, not that three years is a short, intense period in the life of an adolescence. It had ended badly, Kunle had walked away and on the face of it, was unscathed. My friend was left devastated. She had never overcome feeling scared and unsure of Kunle, now to add to that, she was sad and lost. I hadn’t seen much of Kunle or his mum during the tumultuous relationship, not that I would have been able to influence the outcome.

‘Is this why you didn’t go out with him?’

‘Eat something please Biola.’ I ignore her question, I was so angry with Kunle even though I know relationships are a two way street but my friend didn’t deserve this, I wanted to shout, ‘I told you he was a prick!’ but I am quite certain that would not have helped.

‘Are you going to his wedding?’ she asks. She knew he had invited me, the quarrel wasn’t with me plus he knew we were close so it was a dig at her.

‘Kunle should be careful what he wishes for cos he really doesn’t want me there…’

Biola looked at me through sunken eyes, ‘what would you even do?’

‘I will talk what I know, spill my guts, I will scatter the place.’

She smiled for the first time in a long time, we both knew none of that would happen, I had too much respect for his mother, my mother would kill me and it wouldn’t stop the wedding anyway. Still it made Biola smile,

‘Maybe it’s not such a bad idea that you go then.’

‘No bloody chance,’ I squeeze her hand to reassure her, she needed that. Her smile faded and her eyes sunk again. She shifted in her seat like she needed something,

‘Are you ok?’ I ask.

‘I am so hungry.’ Music to my ears, I jump up and go to the kitchen to prepare something for her to eat.