IS THIS LOVE – Episode 67

IS THIS LOVE – Episode 67

A story by Kennedy C Katongo

 

THE ART OF FORGIVENESS

@CHILESHE

I heard a soft knock on the door. That was had to be Matimba. She always knocked as though she was being forced.

“Come in please.” I called out. With out wasting a second I turned the television off.

“How are you…” She asked me. She had a warm but faint smile on her lovely face as she spoke.

“Am doing great thanks. Thank you for coming.” I told her.

There was no chit-chat between us, I offered her a glass of juice and she kicked off the conversation.

“I know you said you have f something to tell me, but, is it okay if I can go first?” She asked me.

“Sure… You can go ahead.” Now, it’s not like I wasn’t in a rush. The thing was I still didn’t know what the best way would be when it came to me speaking my mind. Little did I know that allowing her to go first was an advantage on my part.

“Firstly, I would like to say am sorry for the way I’ve been behaving lately. The truth is, I haven’t been busy per say. I just didn’t want to talk to you…” She was calm as she spoke, to the point someone would think she had rehearsed her words. There were few times when I had seen Matimba give off that ‘I don’t give a damn’ vibe.

If I could put it nicely and lay it clearly on the floor, it was more like a rich man who finds out the talkative person is actually a nobody. That kind of arrangement is how closely I can depict how Matimba spoke to me. She was worried about how my reaction would be, rather, she just wanted to be done with everything.

“The truth Chileshe is that I like you a lot. Regardless of that, I’ve learnt that I can’t ignore the fact of us being two different people. We are not even different sides of the same coin. Please forgive my play of words if they sound offensive.” “Lately have been battling with how to tell you this… The thing is, I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything. What I’ve done for you; I did out of pure love.” She added. I knew were the story was going. Furthermore, my mind began to ask questions.

“If you felt that way, what were you planning on achieving… By going mute on me?” I asked her.

“Well, the truth is, I thought you would her tired of calling me and just decided to move on. It took my cousin to paint a clearer picture of how wrong my line of thought was.” She told me.

After a bunch more of explaining, she was done talking. Her slow, but fluent went of talking had a way of just amplifying thing. To make this point clear, imagine if Barack Obama told you to eat your vegetables. Now compare that with your parents telling you the same… Words from Barack just sound so important. In this incident, that’s how Matimba’s words felt to me, and that pained me.

I never expected the feeling of being dumped to be so hurtful. It was then that I realized why she wanted to go first. Matimba had anticipated why I wanted to see her and avoided being dumped first, rather, she dumped me.

“You wanted to tell me something?” She asked me. This was at the end of her little speech and I was left in awe of what I had heard.

“Yes!” I responded strongly.

“I called you because I wanted to tell you that our relationship wasn’t working out. Like you, my fear was the same as yours. I thought of how you’ve helped me, the way you turned around my families life. You might not see it, but more than once you came to my aid.” I went on to tell her the truth way I stopped going for work opposed to the lie of me being fired that I had told her.

“So, this Lydia… Have you guys being doing it?” She asked me.

“No. We are just close and have kissed on a few occasions. That isn’t the the point though. My request from me to you is…” I paused a bit. I was hesitant.

“You want to ask if we can be friends?” She said loudly. I nodded my head in agreement.

“I will say yes. Buy then, both of us know very well that won’t be possible. I just wish we could have stuck to being friends, don’t you think so?” She asked me.

“That wouldn’t had worked.” I laughed, “you said it yourself, ‘we are different sides of two different coins’ but what you’ve forgotten is that both of us are curious people. This might has just been an experiment gone wrong.” I said in my calmness.

“Oh! I love you way of thinking. Though it sounds offensive and insulting.” She giggled.

“So this guy you’ve been seen, Ben. How is he like?” I asked her.

“I don’t think talking about him is a good idea. But, if you insist…” Matimba went on to tell me about how her childhood friend had now become the man she’s always wanted. Even though I lied about ever sleeping with Lydia, I kept everything else truthful.

Both of us understood that we weren’t meant to be with each other. Even though that happened, non of us ignored the fact that once upon a time, our feelings for one another were true.

.

.

.

BEN: ‘Hey, is everything alright? You’ve been quiet on me today.’

MATIMBA: ‘I promise to get back to you love. There was just something that I really needed to take care of…’

“Am guessing that is Ben?” I asked her.

“Why would you take such a guess?” Matimba asked.

“Well, Mwenda says, ‘that we smile different when we talk to the ones we love.’ and I can tell from the way you blushing.” I teased her.

“You just being crazy. But yeah, it’s Ben. I cancelled on him to be hear with you today.” She told me.

“Matimba, do you think we are bad people?” I asked her thoughtfully.

“I doubt we are. At least for you she’s not in the dark. As for me, he knows nothing about you and I would like to keep it that way. In case we run into each other one day.” She said worryingly.

“You don’t have to worry. We friends and that’s the truth. On my end, I have just lost two beautiful girls… Talk about bad luck.” I said.

Matimba laughed about it, then comforted me concerning my own fears. Lydia was still with her boyfriend. Both Matimba and Mwenda spoke strongly against me asking her to leave him. In there defence, ‘what’s yours will always come to you.’

After we were done talking, Matimba arranged to meet Ben at East Park. Since he had told her he was somewhere in Kaunda-Square.

 

To be continued…