IS THIS LOVE Episode 15

IS THIS LOVE – Episode 15

A story by Kennedy C Katongo 

 

CHILESHEs SECRET

I stole a glimpse of Matimba as she attentively looked at me to hear what I would say. The words had to be deep and strong.

“You can pass the ball if you don’t want to answer…” I heard Listers voice in the background. Yeah, right. If only I had the money to pass the ball I wouldn’t have minded doing it.

“I would say to her, ‘I wish I could tell you all the things I held back about how I feel, take you on a date and pour out my love for you. I would tell her about how she’s a special part of my life even though I never showed it… Above all I would ask her to forgive me for being late, maybe if I wasn’t – I would have tried to find the courage to show her my weakness.” I said thoughtfully. When I was done, I didn’t even know if what I had spoken had made any sense… A gap of silence was then followed by a charming sound from the ladies ‘oooh! That’s so sweet’ one after another they would say. I checked on Matimba and she was facing the other side.

There was no one to add on the question thus the game continued with Listers boyfriend exchanging the centre position with one of the ladies.

@@ @@ MATIMBA @@ @@

“I didn’t know you could speak so emotionally.” I commented as we walked to the car. It was late and Chileshe had to go and get some rest, Lister was kind enough to dump the car on me, ‘You going to drive him to campus. You will find us.’ she told me.

“Huh, it’s involuntary. It just comes out once in a while.” He responded.

“That’s to bad. I would love to see that side of you more often.” I smiled.

.

.

.

“I don’t get it, why is a beautiful, smart and hard working lady like yourself single?” Chileshe asked me, I wasn’t in a rush to drop him off. So on our way, we did a five question challenge. It wasn’t a game, but it kept the conversation going.

“Well, I guess it’s because am all that. Most men don’t want a powerful lady… They would rather be with someone whom they can order around and be boss over.” I responded.

“I see, that makes sense. But on the other hand it doesn’t make sense.” He giggled.

“What about you… Why are you single?” I asked him.

“Oh! That’s a smart move. I really don’t know. I just suck at relationships. I guess that’s why I have trouble showing a bit of emotions now. For some reason, things just never work out – I can follow the prescribed manner of doing things, I get to know her, I befriend her, we start communicating on a regular basis… however, when I make my intentions known – it’s either am late or am too early.” Chileshe explain, I noticed his face drop a little as he spoke.

“That’s sad. To tell you the truth I think you a play boy, a womaniser.” I told him plainly.

“What! Okay that really came out strong. I wouldn’t be surprised Matimba, you not the first one to say I look like that.”

“So are you?” I laughed.

“Of course am not. What is it with you people.”

“It’s just that men who hardly show their feelings tend to be players and jumpy. So you better work on that.” I told him. We had now reached at Bwijinfumu… Being with Chileshe in person was much better than sharing texts with him on Messenger.

“Emotions make you open to hurt. They expose your weakness and people use that weakness to destroy you. I don’t want that…” Chileshe said calmly.

He then went on to ask me what Lister meant when she spoke of me not wanting to driver. I could tell from the way he switched topics from talking about emotions to a damn question just to avoid talking about deep things.

It wasn’t hard to see that Chileshe had taken a really bad hit when it came to relationships and he was afraid of loving again. I didn’t want to make him feel unease so I dropped my questions about him not being emotional and all.

“You have great friends. I enjoyed myself. Though at first it was kind of heard. That cousin of yours diagnosed me and found me with a temper and she deliberately pissed me off.” Chileshe spoke out of the blues.

“You spoke to my cousin?” I giggled, “Am so sorry. She can be a bit judgemental at times… Well most of the times.” I added.

“She needs to take a chill pill.” Chileshe said as we both began to laugh.

As we were approaching the main gate, my phone rang. It was Ben calling. I picked it up then flipped it over so that it could go on silent. I could tell that Chileshe had noticed the call even though he played a cool card about it.

The security guard opened for us and I dropped him of at the clinic square. He invited me to see his room but I turned down the offer. I wasn’t going to go into those small rooms, my cousin could always say it’s filled with the sweat of people having sex. We said our goodbyes and I left. I had to make sure I called Lister to let her know I was on my way back otherwise I could get into trouble. It was a good thing my cousin came with one of her male friends who could drive.

Again my phone rang, it was Ben… I decided to answer him.

BEN: ‘I’ve been trying to reach you. Buy it was saying number busy. Are you okay?’

MATIMBA: ‘It must have been network just. Am doing fine thanks. How was your day?’

BEN: ‘It was okay. Though you kept crossing my mind.’

MATIMBA: ‘Don’t make me laugh. And what was I doing once I crossed your mind sir?’

BEN: ‘Iwe don’t call me sir. You make me feel old. It was nothing really, I just missed you – thought I hear your voice.’

MATIMBA: ‘Oh! That’s something new. Am actually driving right now. I will call you once I get home.’

BEN: ‘Driving! Since when did you start driving… You hate doing that.’

@@ @@ CHILESHE @@ @@

I stood at the Clinic, underneath the mango tree as I watched her drive away. My heart was beating fast and I felt uncomfortable, ‘what if she had someone and she just didn’t want to make me feel bad?’ I asked myself.

I sat down and began blowing in my palms, this was something that helped me calm down when ever I experienced a panic attack.

“Am sweating.” I said out loud to myself.

I got my phone and called Mwenda immediately, but his phone just rang and rang… There was no response. I took off my shirt and remained in a vest, slowly I continued to blow into my palms as my breathing started to get back to normal.

This was a side of me that not even my parents knew about, Mwenda was the only person who knew that I would tend to experience panic attacks once I got too emotional about something or when I was so upset.

I sat at the clinics car park, underneath the tree for more than 30 minutes before I stood up and began walking to Kariba Hostels slowly. The fact that it had been long since I experienced an attack, it really got me had.

When I arrived at the room, there was no one. Mwenda’s phone was plugged in to the charger. I quickly undressed and went to take a bath. All I wanted was to let the water pour on me… ‘Busy talking about how I need to show some emotions… I’m never going back to being a mess.’ I said to myself.

When I was done. I immediately slept.

 

To be continued…