You will remember her face. It’s the only picture you’ve got of her. You sit idly in the cold evening harmattan breeze; light your fifth cigarette stick while listening to Passenger’s-Things You’ve Never Done and wonder if he also found himself in your shoes when he wrote the song. You feel like crying but you can’t bring yourself to it. So you curse yourself as you watch the smoke escape your mouth and curl upwards until you can no longer distinguish it from the atmosphere. In its place you now see a flock of birds fly towards home and you know that like the birds, she has flown away.
You pace up and down the tiny balcony of your tiny apartment taking hurried drags of your burning cigarette and wishing you could jump down from your third floor apartment, maybe break a few bones and hope you survive it. You will give up the idea but still the memory of the first meeting will remain in your face. You remember her with her friend approach you and your friends on your way to the anatomy department. You would all exchange pleasantries as classmates and you would notice how she avoided your gaze staring at her feet as you inquired after her well-being. Emeka would tell you, as soon as she was beyond ear shot, that she likes you but you would hush him up with a carefree wave of your hand.
You liked her not that you didn’t. In fact, you soon realised you actually loved her. But you didn’t make a move then. You felt on top of the world, your head up in the clouds. She wasn’t your type, you would fool yourself. You were the ladies’ man, the “bad” guy that every girl secretly desired. Fine boy!
Then you had other girls and they were the “bad” girls just looking to have a good time. Those were the girls you wanted. It became your lame excuse. The truth was you were scared that you truly loved her and you may end up being committed to her alone. Coward! You felt you couldn’t give her that. So you continued in the wrong direction, chasing the wrong girls.
You remember her smile. You also remember that pleasant knotty feeling you felt in the pit of your stomach as she blushed because you were one day overwhelmed by her beauty when you sat next to her in class and without hesitation, you whispered into her ear how much you really wanted to kiss her right there. She blushed and smiled and you were dazed because at that moment she became the prettiest damsel you’ve ever set your mortal eyes on. You would go home that day telling yourself that she was all you wanted but once again you failed to make the move. Your cowardice had gotten the better of you. You weren’t ready to give up the other girls. You just couldn’t picture yourself with just a girl.
Now you stare at the bottom of your empty wine glass and wonder why you let her go. Flinging it across the wall didn’t bring the much needed relieve but you did it anyway because you recall that you finally did make the move.
Your undergraduate days were numbered, leading you to finally ask her out. It was now or never, you told yourself. It may be never you realised when you found out you were late.
‘… two months late….’ you recall her words when you held her hands and looked into those eyes that told tales of a patient love long gone.
In exasperation, she would tell you how long she waited and how there was now someone else.
All the little lights is the current song coming from your phone’s speaker and you agree that your lights are going off. You walk into your apartment, open the fridge and you remember it’s your birthday. The cake your sister made for you before she left for her fiancé’s place yesterday still sits there, untouched. You stop and try to recall if you’ve ever had such lonely and miserable birthday since you were born. Passenger’s – 27 plays next and a dry laugh escapes your throat as you wonder at all the coincidences between your life and the song’s lyrics.
‘Happy Birthday!’ you say to yourself, subdued, carrying your cake to a corner of your room where you sit on the floor, set to indulge yourself all alone.
The tears finally come. They are rushing down your cheeks as guttural sounds escape your throat. With a knife, you are now making a hole in your cake imagining the hole being carved out in your heart. You did it to yourself.
