Can You Love Me Once Again

Steph!!! My name bounced off the walls of the iron tank we crouched in. I picked up a piece of iron and used it to scratch the walls grr grr grr! Steph! Steph!! Steph!!! The iron scratching at the wall and my name leaping out of Afam’s mouth made such beautiful music that we spent all afternoon making it over and over again. Punctuating it with the occasional stare and the persevering excited grin.

When my mother came home, she hollered for us and got no answer. We had gotten tired of our little game and fallen asleep on the filthy floor of the tank. Mother was livid when she dragged us out and we both received smacks as we ran into the house.

Steph! My mother bellowed at me. I stared at her angry face in terror. “How many times will I tell you to leave that filthy tank alone?” I stared at the floor. An ant walked past my left leg and I wondered why she was scolding only me, what about Afam? Hadn’t we been in there together? It had been his idea! Why did I always get the blame while the little toad cowered in the corner?

I flung a look of disgust in his direction and found him almost in tears.

It took three hours for my mother to forgive us. Thankfully she had returned in the afternoon and not in the evening so she brightened up in time to serve us dinner. I was relieved. I had gone to bed many times with an empty belly just because I had misbehaved too close to dinner time.

After dinner, I and Afam went to our room after kissing mom and dad goodnight. Our room was down the corridor so I raced him to the door. I stepped on the threshold and did a little victory dance, shaking my hips and flinging my hands over my head until Afam pushed past me into the room. We flopped unto the bed but I didn’t feel like sleeping so I suggested we play a “game of stories”. It was a game we invented, we would tell each other stories, the plot of these stories were our dreams, what we wanted to be when we grew up. That night it was Afam’s turn to tell a story he went:

‘Once upon a time, there was a handsome young man, Afamefuna. He was tall, big, and huge like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know how big that man’s muscles are eh? That’s how. He was big enough to not go to school anymore so he got himself a job, a good job like the one daddy got. A job with plenty of money, so much money that he built his own house and bought too many cars. Yet, Afam was lonely, he had no one to play a game of stories with so he went in search of a wife. On his way, he met an old witch who gave him a stone. She told him that if he found a lady he liked he should give it to her and the stone would transform to the lady’s greatest wish. Afam asked if that would make the lady marry him and the old woman said it would. So Afam went on his quest and found…’

“Who did he find?” I interrupted. Afam gave me a scathing look. Then his eyes lit with mischief.

“Steph” He replied.

“What?” I asked in shocked disbelief.

“He found Steph!” Afam said laughing so hard he bent down holding his belly. I leaped on him, hitting his shoulders but he was stronger than me so he threw me off.

“Shut up!!!” I shouted at him. He ran to the opposite end of the room.

“Steph! Steph!! Steph!!!” He sang. I put my fingers into my ears and buried my head under the covers. I could still hear it a little so I knew when dad came to shut him up.

Afam was the son of my mother’s best friend. His mother was a single mom who at that time was trying to build a relationship with her boyfriend and possibly get married to him. That was why Afam spent so much time at my house, his mother and her boyfriend needed privacy. Furthermore, It was so convenient that I was an only child causing Afam to fit right into our family. I wasn’t pleased that I would have to be sharing at first; My food! My bed! My toys! I threw tantrums and wailed that I wanted him out of my house and back to his. My mother calmly told me I didn’t have a house and the house was for her and dad. Hearing that made it even harder for me to cope with him. I pestered him any chance I got. I would chase him out of my room some nights and leave him crying like a girl behind my locked door. Then my mom found out about it. She made me sleep outside the room for two nights on a blanket on the floor. On the floor!!! I learned my lesson. I cried myself to sleep both nights and on the third day, my mom graciously announced that I could sleep in my bed on the condition that I never bothered Afam again. I bit into my finger and signed the pact with blood. lol.

***

Two years later we were both eight years old and Afam was still living with us. His mother Auntie Lola had gotten married to the man of her dreams. Unfortunately for her and me, the man didn’t really like Afam around him. The last time she visited I overheard Auntie Lola say he didn’t actually say it but his displeasure was always there, just hanging in the air. September came and Auntie Lola’s husband traveled for a job opportunity and she came to live with us. The day she arrived Afam and I had been playing in the driveway when a cab honked at the gate. We both ignored the noise and continued our games. It wasn’t our job to open the gate, that was daddy’s job. Auntie Lola got out of the car and I noticed that her belly was slightly swollen but I pretended not to notice and hugged her as usual. Then I let Afam drag her into the house while I ran excitedly to my mom.

“Mommy!” I called in a hushed whisper, pulling at her dress.

“Yes? What is it?” My mom asked me

“I saw Auntie Lola’s belly, it is big! Do you think she might be pregnant?” I asked hopefully. You see, as an only child, I had never seen my mother pregnant before so the whole concept was unreal to me because all the information I had about it I had gotten from books.

My mother looked at me with mingled disgust and disappointment “How many times have I told you you shouldn’t gossip?” She asked. Looking at it now I realize my mother must have thought me an over-inquisitive little rat. But then, I also think it would have been more prudent and smart of me to have just asked Auntie if she was indeed pregnant. So now, Afam had a little sister and I had none. What pained me the most was the fact that unlike Afam, I wasn’t allowed to spend time with this little baby because soon after Auntie gave birth her husband came and took her home. He didn’t ask Afam to come along.

Royalty Schools, that was the name of the school I and Afam attended. It wasn’t a school for the rich or royal though. Most of our classmates belonged to middle-class families. Afam and I were the same age so we were in the same class. Our parents, (yes our parents by this time Afam felt like part of the family) never bought textbooks in twos. They expected us to read together and we did, you would see us sitting on the balcony floor and studying with our heads together. Mom was mighty proud of us and also very grateful to Aunt Lola for giving her a son, for free as she would say.

***

Then one day Auntie Lola called and gave my mom the news. Afam would be going to live with them. Lola needed to get to know her brother, even her husband couldn’t argue that. I was heartbroken, I couldn’t imagine being without Afam. We did everything together. Clearly, I had no choice in the matter so Afam went to live with his family, his real family. That was when I started to develop my sense of “self” staying alone in the big house with two adults that didn’t understand the social needs of an adolescent I began to look into myself. I discovered I really loved to read and after reading I would go to my dad and discuss the concepts with him. These discussions would eventually dissolve into arguments and my mom would yell from the room that we better keep the noise down and let her sleep.

I joined the debate club, the literary club. I immersed myself in anything that would get my mind working and make me forget there was someone I missed terribly. Sometimes I want to blame him for my concealed misery at that time. He could have just called me, his mother had a phone, didn’t Auntie Lola have a phone? I knew I could have called him too but my pride was my undoing. My natural hotheadedness, the same hotheadedness that had made me lock him out of my room when we were six years old. That same hotheadedness helped me survive throughout secondary school without Afam.

In my third year of university, I was walking through my faculty when I heard a young man’s booming laugh behind me. I rolled my eyes and kept walking irritated at people who couldn’t even conduct themselves properly in public.

“Barrister!” Some of my classmates hailed me as I passed.

I smiled at their antics. I was just a 300 level student. I still had two more years to go in this school and one year in law school before I would become worthy to bear that name. It was thrilling though, such high praise made one feel good about oneself. Made the overwhelming course work not seem so overwhelming with the constant reminder of what we were working towards. As expected, it hadn’t been hard for me to get admission into the university, I wasn’t so exceptional but I was a brilliant girl. Yes, my dad told me that all the time. My life was falling into place nicely and I loved it, just like my mom advised me before I got here “get a man that you’ll marry while in school because it is harder in the outside world” I had gotten a man. Raymond was the love of my life, he was just so perfect. His manners, his looks, even the manner in which he gave me the engagement ring, perfect! He had done it in front of all my friends and kissed my tears away when I wept for joy. Apart from my career as a Lawyer, he was the other reason why I couldn’t wait to graduate.

***

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I didn’t normally go out at night but that night I was so hungry in my hostel and just too lazy to cook. So I decided I would go out and buy food from the nearest cafeteria. I dressed in comfortable clothes. Put on my earphone and walked to the beat of Jon Bellion’s “All Time Low”. I can’t describe how I felt that night walking to that beat, I felt like I could fly, be free with the night cloaking me and my movements, I felt like everything was right with the world. It was almost fitting when I bumped into a young man, slipped, and fell. I felt so sure I wouldn’t be able to fix my pride until my dying day. Lol. Anyway, let’s go back.

Before I got the admission into the university, after a call with Auntie Lola, my mom had hinted at the possibility of I and Afam being in the same school. She had done it very carefully, even though she knew that the Afam topic made me angry and irritable every time it was brought up. I admit that in my first year I had nursed fantasies of running into Afam somewhere in the school. In some of my fantasies, I ran to him and hugged him for hours, some really bold ones even involved kissing. In others however, I saw him and either took another lane or walked away from him, treating him as the stranger he had made himself to be.

All my fantasies died when I ran into Afam that night, some of my pride died with them too. Imagine the massacre. Imagine Afam, handsome young man that he had grown to be, pulling me up, asking me if I was hurt and when I said no he lifted me and carried me close to my hostel gate before putting me down. When he dropped me, I knew he didn’t know who I was. Apparently, I had changed a lot from the last time we saw each other. I had the choice to just turn my back on him and walk away, yet I knew I would just be breaking my own heart. So when I called his name, I did it for myself, did it because I was hopeless and needed to be picked up once again.

Our reunion was beautiful. I still remember us sitting under the shade of a tree that night and laughing at all our memories. I discovered that his laughter was the booming laugh I had heard in my faculty one month ago. We were still laughing and Afam seemed to be getting a bit misty-eyed. He explained that the reason why he had kept away was that my mother told him how much his leaving had hurt me and how continued correspondence would only hurt me more. He reminded me of the story he told me all those years ago and he looked so regretful that I squeezed his shoulder.

“I’m very glad that’s all over now, “ he said as his fingers rubbed my chin tentatively, he looked into my eyes and with a playful smile tugging at his lips just like it had almost twenty years ago, silly boy, he got down on one knee and asked

“Steph! Steph! Steph! will you marry me?”

I realized that for the first time in my life I was staring at my destiny reflecting in a man’s eyes and knew that I had lost it. Afam took my left hand in his, he was still looking into my eyes when he kissed my engagement ring.

***

One year later I broke up with Raymond over where he put the blue mug. I pulled his ring from my finger and dropped it there beside the kitchen sink. The man looked dumbfounded and I didn’t care. I left him there looking as lost and hurt as I felt. On the drive to Afam’s house, I played Jon Bellion’s “All Time Low” the song mirroring my emotions. When I got to Afam’s house I knocked and a lady answered. She opened the door, stared at me, and locked it in my face. A few minutes later she came out and left, brushing past me a little too forcefully. Afam was sitting on the bed. Embarrassed, I spent my sweet time stepping into his room and when I got in He stared at me calmly as I fidgeted at the door. When I realized he wasn’t going to say anything, I brought out the little cardboard I had bought from the supermarket on my way here. I had written boldly on it “Steph! Steph! Steph! Say: can you love me once again?”

Afam’s face broke into a smile as his arms parted to let me in, I didn’t hesitate.

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