Desperate Moves

17

Harmattan was beginning to set in so the weather was a bit cold. I heated water for my bath and then went over to my drawer to select something to wear. I stood there just looking inside the drawer for close to fifteen minutes without picking any clothe. I turned away when I heard the water boiling. I mixed the water to a lukewarm state and went in to have my bath. The process was excruciatingly slow, owing to the fact that my mind kept wandering off in different directions. I was finally done after not less than twenty minutes. I am not very ladylike when it comes to bathing. My bath lasts an average of seven minutes.

As I came out of the bathroom, I toweled myself dry and set out on the difficult but unavoidable task of looking for what to wear. After what seemed like ages, I finally settled for a burgundy long sleeved top over a dark blue pair of jean trousers. I dabbed some white powder on my face, and applied some lip gloss on my lips. I was not in the mood for makeup, even though I was not even a makeup freak. I only applied eye pencil and lipstick only when I felt like; which was not very often. I was set to step out. I caught my reflection on the big mirror that stood close to my door; I looked more beautiful than I felt.

I went over to Tosin’s to check if he was ready yet. As I knocked softly on the half-open door to his room, I saw him sprawled out on the floor eating. He had a steaming plate of noodles and a hardboiled egg in front of him. He invited me to join him as I peeked in. I declined the offer and went back to my room to wait for him. I decided to call Sam while I waited. We had not spoken in the past two days. I picked my phone from the night stand and scrolled down my contacts to get his contact. Normally, before now, I would have simply gone to my dialed numbers, being fully sure that his number would be top on my recently dialed numbers but that had changed. Just thinking about that brought tears to my eyes. I felt bad that it was entirely my fault. I had pushed him to the wall!

I sat cradling my head in my hands for five minutes before finally gathering up myself and my courage to dial his number. I was afraid he may not even pick up , but he did.

“Hello!” he sounded urgent over the phone.

I tried to work around the lump that sat heavily in my throat, but it was difficult.

“Hello!” he called again, louder this time.

“Hello!” I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper.

I cleared my throat loudly before saying “Good morning.”

“Morning. Are you alright?”

Wow! At least he cared enough to ask if I was doing alright. How can I be alright? For crying out loud, I was r***d and I may be pregnant for the bastards. I wanted to scream at him but I checked myself again.

“I’m fine.” That was not entirely true but I was not ready to go into explaining to him how I had been throwing up so much in the morning recently. Since we had grown so distant, I also didn’t see the need in telling him of the possibility of me being pregnant.

“Ok...” there was nothing more for him to ask.

We had gone from problem to another. From worrying about spending so much on airtime to not having anything to say to each other.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m fine. It’s just that I’m a bit busy now with work.” he was hurrying me on.

If it was under better circumstances, I would have probably rolled my eyes at that.

“Ok. I just wanted to see how you are doing and to mention that I want to go to the hospital.”

“Hospital? I s everything alright?” he sounded concerned.

“Everything is fine. I’m just feeling a little bit sick.” I tried to sound stronger than I really was.

“Ok. Let me know how it goes.”

“Will do.”I was eager to get off the phone.

“Alright. Have a nice day.”

“You too.” I responded before hanging up.