She couldn’t stop talking about how bad I fell “you were down there on all fours like you were playing with your son that rides you like a pretend horse”. I hated it when she roasted me. It had taken me less than two minutes in that class to be on the floor.
By the end of lunch she was telling me about all the teachers that I was yet to meet since I had reported a week late. Atleast we were almost past the “unfortunate incident” as we had agreed to call it. Our first bilateral agreement.
The next day I brought her a chocolate éclair as a thank-you present. Since it was already wrapped by the chocolate company, I didn't have to wrap my present. I continued bringing her one everyday for the rest of the term, year and years. She had gotten used to these small treats that she looked up to them everyday. God forbid if I forgot to bring one or was in that broke period of the term.
“do I mean anything to you?” I was often asked. “but you're my one and only” I’d reply.
“sure doesn’t feel like it” she’d reply sarcastically
Natasha was a talker. For the quiet person that I was and a good listener, she was just awesome. She talked about everything. The book she had read. The newspaper article. School gossip that went as deep as the staffroom. Conspiracies. The bible. Sports. She loved sports. It was unbelievable. She liked rugby though for the wrong reason(the buffed up sons of men). Me on the other hand, still loathe the useless sport todate. Sometimes it felt like she could read my mind. She always brought up things I had been thinking about. Had the wildest dreams which were filled with riches mostly. To wrap it all up, she was outrageously gorgeous. Breathtaking. Outstanding. With slunt Asian-like eyes[that I often teased her about], full lips and slightly raised cheekbones on a dog face. Her dark skin was just immaculate. No wonder I fell for the goddess on my first day. Literally.
In senior three we started dating. I had Veronica from the next stream and she had Jeremiah from our stream. Though I had fallen for her she never fell for me in a similar way. I had never admitted it to her that I liked her that way and I wasn't planning to. As years went by I forgot about making her my girlfriend and endured her as a good friend. My best friend. We were each other’s love doctors. We took our relationship problems to each other and so did our patners. Veronica to Natasha and Jeremiah to me. Jeremiah disliked me at first. Probably because he was jealous I was close to his “sweelie” at a level he could only hope to achieve. Took him a year to wrap his head around the fact and eventually treat me like a friend instead of a threat.
“do you think Jeremiah is the one for you?” I asked her one day.
This was after they had a small fight over why he hadn’t come to see her all day despite it being exam time and he had had two papers to write that day.
“I guess so. Do you think Veronica is the one for you”
“well... she dislikes sports so i don't know”
"Ew. How do you put up with her?"
"She has her good days"
“I tell you what, were only seventeen now. If ten years from now none of us is in a perfect harmonious relationship that’s going somewhere, we should date or even marry each other”
“you serious right now?”
“...as a heart attack”
“i'm going to need that in writing”
“deals made verbally can still be legally binding. Besides by 27 i'll be desperate. I wouldn’t say no”
“Okay. Shake on it”
To be continued...