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inkfulinsight · 1 year

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Coffee Talks - Chapter 1

There are many things I do not know of love, or I haven’t desired to know about love. Something about the whole love package makes it seem undesirable. Telling pieces of myself to someone that could wake up one morning and decided I was irrelevant in that first morning stretch. Then my stories do they keep it to themselves, or do they tell it as a joke at the next hang out or gathering with some friends? Over a glass of beer with his guys in a dimly lit bar he would say, “I was with this girl once, she was so insecure she’d have me tell her, I loved her many times, I realized she liked to hear it, so it didn’t matter if I meant it,” and then they’d all laugh like he’d told a funny joke. I am sure there’d be one person who wouldn’t laugh but I was certain he was the bottom of the list for all the friends they probably still kept him around because he was rich, or they’d known him for too long to leave him. Both chances were equally weighty.

It didn’t matter though because what he had said was true. I was the pathetic girl who had wanted to be sure she was loved by someone who wasn’t even capable of loving himself. I am sure deep down he was as self-loathing as I was. The only difference is that I was more vocal about how I despised myself while he buried his under gym weights, beer and a false believe that he was the best thing that happened to my life.

Initially I believed it, that he was in fact the best thing that happened to my life. I was a young girl approaching her mid-twenties with a heart opened to love. I was becoming less pessimistic and more optimistic which is why rather than narrate a fake number I gave him a real one. Rather than wear a scowl, I wore a smile that day. Rather than reject his call, I answered the phone. Rather than cancel that date, we went on it, a date that turned in to several dates and by the third week he asked me to date him. It should have been worrying he knew nothing asides the things I told him about me. I mean people only know what you tell them of yourself which meant a person could probably lie to you your whole relationship and the scariest part is you won’t even question it because from their first encounter it had been lies and off, they went building you a castle of lies. When it crumbled, the pain must have been intense. However, this wasn’t the case with Jack, that was his name, short for Jackson, as bland as a name gets, he really told me that the first time we met. “Jack short for Jackson” like I thought it was Jack short for ‘Oluwajackson’ or ‘Jackrine’. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for him I found it funny then, no not what he said but the weird name assumptions I had made in my head.

Anyway, Jackson who we have established isn’t one to dig further or pay much attention to anything but the obvious had only known me through my spoken words or texts. That meant if I had told Jackson I liked milk and he saw me take milk and get irritated by it, Jackson would still have said I liked milk if he spoke about me. He was a little dense and though it was initially charming because it meant he wouldn’t probe into the parts of my life I wasn’t comfortable divulging, it later dawned on me that Jack really didn’t care that much for me. It was very tasteless too the way he broke up with me. A text message that read. ‘I don’t think we are compatible’ to which I replied, ‘I know’. I don’t know what he said after that because I deleted his number and then the application off my phone and I cried myself to sleep. No not because Jackrine had dumped me and over text at that- I would deal with that humiliation another day- but because I had stayed with him that long tolerating his nonsense and surface level conversations only to be later dumped. All my hard work and forced smiling and pretend happiness and he dumped me. He should have at least said thank you. Thank you Dami for putting up with my nonsense, thank you for ironing my rumpled clothes so I don’t go out looking homeless, thank you for the cooked dinners and for always replacing my milk and eggs. Thank you for putting up with me! That is what he should have begun his text with before he proceeded with the astrology things. I am sure his sun or moon probably told him to do so, he believes in those star sign things.

That was another red flag I had ignored because I was desperately trying to give this love thing a chance for the benefits of those who found my singleness to be loneliness. They were two separate things; sure, I didn’t like being by myself, but it necessarily did not translate to being involved with someone else and I am sure anyone else would have been much better than settling for the first fish I caught.

“Hey,” I hear as someone taps my shoulder, I look up to see my friend. His brown eyes soften on meeting mine and then I see sympathy in them. I must have been frowning, he only looks at me this way when I am sad or crying. When I am angry, he hugs me, so I don’t see his face. “Are you still upset about Jack?” he asked softly, sitting in the chair by me. I push my half- drunk coffee forward; I had added too much sugar and now it tastes too sweet. Tom drags my cup to his side, he touches the body of the cup and when he sees it is still warm, he brings it to his lips and drinks it, right from the point I drank, his lips planted on top of my lipstick stain.

“You enjoy kissing me,” I say to him. He drops the cup and there is a look of confusion on his face, and I just shrug in response.

“Are you out of it?” he asked bringing his hand to my face, but I push back so he drops his hand, “Sorry I forget you are allergic to touching,” he says with his tone dripping with sarcasm. “However, the rule didn’t apply to Jackson, did it?” he said with a brow up. I can feel a bile coming up my throat as I remember some spot in this coffee shop- I sit up turning around, yes, there in the back, away from the eyes of the public I sat with Jack, his hand around my shoulders, while he had his strawberry milkshake- which grown man had a strawberry milkshake for breakfast?-his hands would play with my braids, he’d nudge my face with his nose, he’d kiss my cheek repeatedly with his sugar stained mouth from the shake and then he'd make a lame joke saying “look now, I sweetened you up” and I’d giggle and say he was funny. I was truly pathetic, worst of all for putting up with it for that long.

“He wasn’t very funny,” I say turning back to the table.

“Hun?” Tom responds he had turned to face me fully; his legs are spread apart in front of me, and his chair pulled so closed to mine he’d have to shift if I wanted to get out from my seat. He is wearing a white shirt with several buttons undone, his collar bones are exposed and so hollow you could store coins in them. His sleeves are partially rolled up and he is wearing dark blue jeans with it and white air forces. He looks like your standard definition of ‘I belong to the streets’, and I would happily have him there than attempt to pull him from it. I have seen the tears and messages and occasional threats of those who have attempted but somehow, he had been stuck with me as my best friend for a while now that I have grown used to just having him around me, so much so that this attempt of his to completely invade my personal space it something normal between us.

The lights reflect in his eyes as he leans into his arm resting on the table, his hand acting as a stand for his head, his beard his well-groomed framing a perfectly chiseled jaw and his black hair has been cut into a fade. His coffee skin glitters even though I was certain he used Vaseline on it, the same Vaseline that if I had used would have me looking like burnt-out coal, not even the shiny unused one but here was Tom looking like he was on his way to shoot an ad for them. Then there was me who on less than 10 days out of 365 looked like a real beauty queen but the other days I resembled a homeless hobo. Today was one of those hobo days and it upsets me that it has to do more with boring Oluwajackson than anything else.

“Why are you spacing out a lot?” Tom says using his free hand to tug on the silver necklace on his neck, the necklace I gave him 2 years ago on his birthday. I bring my hand to his neck taking the silver leaf pendant from between his finger, he doesn’t resist dropping his hand and allowing me to play with the pendant.

“I am glad you like it this much,” I say dropping my hand, it falls lazily on him, and he take my hand in his and begins playing with my fingers. I stare out window watching people hurry off to several destinations. Time seemed to be running except in this little coffee shop, where George Michaels is singing out his heart -to a possibly betrayed lover- from the pink wall speakers that matched the coffee shop’s aesthetics. “How is Kira?” I ask and his fingers playing with mine go rigid for a bit. For several seconds it is the sound of careless whisper playing lowly out of the speakers behind the counter that fills the silence that envelopes us.

“She left me,” he blurts out and I turn to him my shock evident on my face. He scrunches his pointy nose at me. He looks cute like a child when he does that, but I’ve never told him that. Anymore ego boost and his head might just explode. “She said I wasn’t ready to be someone,” he added.

“Well haven’t you heard that line before,” I said to him and nodded his head, resuming to play with my fingers.

“Are you upset about Jack?” I heard him whisper and I realized I had been ignoring his concern this whole time.

“Not really,” I answered honestly. “I am more upset with myself for putting up with him,” I tell him.

“Well, it is kind of our fault, my fault for pushing you out there,” he says solemnly. I find his eyes and I can tell they are sad, and I shake my head indicating it wasn’t his fault. Nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to be with Jack. I chose to be with him- maybe slight peer pressure might have played a part. Also, I did actually kind of find him interesting initially my mistake was mistaking interest with love. The love you see, never came, it was just buckets and buckets of tolerance for very terrible jokes.

“Damilola!” I hear forcing my thoughts back to the present.

“Tomiwa!” I reply equally shouting and he cracks a smile, and my heart feels full in this moment just watching him smile. His phone goes off and my eyes flicker to the screen, Kira with a red heart calling. My heart deflates. His eyes travel to the phone then back to mine.

I give him a small smile as he unlaces his hands from mine, get ups and answers the call. “Baby,” I hear him begin as he picks the call, I force my attention to the music to avoid listening further as he walks out the coffee shop door, his tall framing forcing him to bend his head as passed the door. A sigh escapes my lips as I pull the coffee back to myself and then I drink what is left of it. Another lipstick mark on cup to avoid drinking from where he drank from. Kira with a red heart. Of all the many girls he’s date he’d saved them with a blue, green, yellow and the red heart with an exclamation mark never a just red heart. Asides his mother no one else is saved with a red heart. Even I that was somewhat important to him was saved with the heart with an arrow pierced through it. I was saved as cupid’s shot on his phone. He says it is because he feels he cannot ever really get away from me and he doesn’t know why. I shrugged when he told me that because it didn’t really sound like a compliment. He is saved as Tomiwa (TIMF)-The TIMF meaning ‘thorn in my flesh’- with a red heart on my phone. I do value using red hearts but not as much as him and to be entirely honest, when he is not annoying me, I find that he is that important to me. Sometimes however, I don’t know if I am that important to him. I shake my head because I cannot deal with this thought right now on top of the thoughts, I have of Jackmantha.

————————To be continued—————————

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inkfulinsight · 1 year

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Coffee Talks - Chapter 2

Out the window I watch Tom pace a bit on the phone, with a hand in his pocket. It looks serious. As though sensing someone is looking at him, he turns to the coffee shop and finds me, just behind the glass after at the exclamation mark on the sign on the glass that read “Just Coffee!’ but they didn’t stick to their word, they had pastries and milkshake and a whole breakfast meal. Couldn’t blame them though, the economy was tough. Tom stared at me as he wedged the phone between his shoulder and his cheek and placed his fingers over his left eye in the form a heart. It meant I love you. Eye + love+ you (you, being the person that was being stared at). It was a trick we had seen in a movie we watched a while ago. I raised up my head and brought it down in a nod. A frown formed on his face, and I could tell it was because I failed to do it back. That was another problem I found with love, did people love because they expected it to be returned? Wasn’t it enough for you to just love someone and not expect it back, just your love being sufficient for both you. Wasn’t the case with Jacktrina but what I felt for him was on a very different path from love.

I feel the need to be loved back by someone simply because we loved them stemmed from greed and a strong desire not to feel foolish. Unrequited love stories almost always have you saying ‘he/she must be really foolish for still going after him/her’, ‘couldn’t be me,’ ‘know your worth’ and blah de blah. However, if the love is reciprocated, even just 15 minutes left of a 2-hour 30 minutes movie it becomes a great love story of how that same love than seemed rather foolish 45 minutes ago should be something to strive for. I wasn’t pathetic, we all were. Tomiwa had gone back to pacing, then I watched him drop the phone from his ears and place a thumb between his teeth a habit he did when he was lost in thought and after nibbling on his thumb a bit, he dropped his hand and came back in.

“How did it go?” I asked as he sat back in his chair. I really didn’t want to know; I didn’t care much for his love life, but he cared for mine, so I felt the need to reciprocate. He leaned over me and saw the cup was empty.

“You finished our coffee,” he whined with a small pout, his thick black brows coming together. I rolled my eyes.

“My coffee,” I retorted and then I asked my question again, “how did it go?”

“Sorry,” he began, tossing his phone on the table, it wasn’t locked, and I could see his call history. Kira with a red heart was staring at me. I could see she was in the favorites section of his call history and because he had just spoken to her, her name was above mine even though alphabetically c came before k. Something about that didn’t sit right with me. “She mentioned something about me not being very attentive which I thought was very hurtful because I am very attentive, I mean I noticed your sour mood since Jack boy left your life,” he said with an emphasis on the Jack boy part and then he stood up mid conversation and went to place and order at the counter.

Another habit of his I was used. He’d get up or do other things mid conversation and sometimes in the middle of a sentence and then expect I’d wait which I do and then he’d come back and continue like he never left. I drew the line when he expected me to wait on the facetime call in his house while he quickly ran a grocery errand for his grandma. I asked him why he couldn’t call and run the task at the same time he answered saying the gossip was too sweet to be distracted for a second. He got real mad when he came back and saw I had left the call. I had to find ways to appease him for several days and sign an actual contract never to do such again. He was a weirdo but at least he was my weirdo, my eyes flickered to his black screen of his phone, well he used to be. “What was I saying,” he said on returning to me. “Yeah, she also brought up something which kind of didn’t sit right with me, so we had a mini fight about it.” My brows drew together. I wondered if it was about me, if I was the problem, it had occurred in the past where an ex of his thought he spent too much time with me.

“Was it me?” I whispered. Though the whisper was for show because I kind of liked knowing how important I was to him. I liked that he also let people know of my importance to him. I liked that he never denied my importance.

“Ohh no, she said I smiled flirtatiously at the checkout lady at supermarket we went to last week,” he responded and like that my joy deflated. Like someone had taken a pin to a balloon.

“Oh,” I said in response.

“Why, did you want to be the problem again?” Again. I echoed his words in my head and I realized how toxic I sounded right now as a friend. As I opened my mouth to respond the waiter brought a tray with 2 cups of coffee, a plate of a slice of lemon cake, 2 small spoons and 2 small plastic forks and he dropped it on table. I was relived he showed up when he did, he had saved me from an awkward situation.

“Thank you,” Tom said to the waiter and then turning to me he said. “I got you another cup since I drank most of your first one,” I nodded. Then he got up to get the sachets of sugar and milk on a tray by the counter.

“I noticed you saved Kira with a red heart,” I said as he sat down. He nodded and I nearly slapped myself because I was beginning to dive into territories best left untouched. “You like her that much,” he nodded again pouring the 2 sachets of sugar into a coffee cup, he had already poured the milk and then he passed it to me and repeated the same with the second cup.

“The first one was too sweet,” he said as he brought his coffee to his lips. I nodded. “Ahh ahh ahh,” he yelled slightly, dropping the cup. “I burnt my tongue,” he said sticking out his tongue to me. I smiled, shaking my head at him.

“Are you five?” I asked rhetorically and then inspecting his tongue I said, “there is no burn mark, though I don’t know if those show on your tongue but just be careful.” He nodded his head and then I gently pat his back and then it turns to gentle rubs up and down his back. This goes on for a bit and the next question leaves my mouth. “Why?” I ask.

“Because it was hot,” he responds pausing from blowing his coffee and glancing sideways at me with an ‘is it not obvious’ look on his face.

“Not the coffee,” I begin, rolling my eyes. “Kira,” I say.

“Ohh,” he takes a sip of the coffee and sets it down, “the same reason applies, but that is a very shallow thing to say,” he goes on to say and then he turns his body fully to me, his eyes as staring into mine very intensely like he does when he is serious and rather than answer my question he asks his own, “Why did you stay with Jack that long if you didn’t like him?” “That obvious?” he nods his head.

“Well, it was to me at least, I cannot say the same for Jack, he is a little self-centered,” he adds. I nod in agreement.

“I guess, I just felt I had invested so much of me into the relationship, I didn’t want to see it crumble. All my hard work and effort to put up with him and his friends and I don ‘t even want to re-call my encounters with his family who act as though it was their first encounter with a black person. He was cute,” I could see Tom make a face of disapproval at that statement. “He was, kind of at least, but he was just not for me or in his words we weren’t compatible.”

“Was that how he broke up with you?” I nodded. “What did you say in response, tell me you replied,” he pleaded, hoping I didn’t let Jack have the last laugh.

“I said I know and blocked his number and deleted the whole application. Couldn’t delete text message app, because he sent a lot of petty mean things later, like I wasn’t beautiful-”

“He is lying about that,” Tom said matter-of-factly. My eyes widened slightly, but I just continued speaking.

“My poor attitude is why I was single all those years. I have abandonment issues; nobody would ever find me attractive-”

“Lie again” Tom interjected nibbling on the cake then he handed me the fork he used with some cake on it even though there was another untouched fork.

“You like kissing me,” I whispered as I took the fork eating the cake. I could taste the lemon zest. It brought some happiness to my aching heart. “I am surprised you ordered lemon you don’t really like it.”

“Well, you are having a bad day,” he said taking the fork from me and scooping some more cake into his mouth. “Go on,” he said urging me to continue. However, I didn’t want to say the last part of all the things he said, true or not this last bit sort of stung because a part of me had believed it and I felt terribly bad for even believing it in the first place.

“He said,” I began my voice growing quiet.

“Hmm hmm,” Tom said urging me on as he stuffed himself with more cake, then he handed me the fork again. I shook my head, he tilted his head, dropping the fork and his eyes studied my face. “What did he say to you CS,” he said. It was short for cupid’s shot. “Tell me please,” he said his voice low and full of worry. He dragged his chair closer to me to the point his knee was pressing into my thighs. I didn’t move I just sat there very still hoping I could freeze myself rather than open my mouth and repeat what Jackila had said and now I had made such a show of it that no matter how casually I said it, Tom would take it very seriously.

“He said,” I paused again. At this point I was beginning to annoy myself. why couldn’t I say it? Why couldn’t I say he told me Tom hung around me because he pitied me and there was no real value in being friend with people like me. I could feel my eyes tearing up as I remember going to delete Jacket’s messages that had piled up and saw that one as the last message. I remember feeling the air leaving my lungs looking at my biggest fear on the screen, forcefully brought from my head to real life, just like that. The phone slipped out of my hand, and I think I accidently pressed delete between crying myself to sleep and waking up in the next morning because by that morning the messages were gone. I spent the whole day in bed that day. I scrunched up my old brown braids I should have taken out a week ago in my left hand and let the strands fall slowly out of my hand. Tom just kept watching me patiently. “He said you were friends with me out of pity and that there was no real value to hanging out with me.” I had finally said it out loud. Tom was silent for a second or two and then I heard a loud bang startling me. I blinked in shock and a tear slipped out of my teary eyes. I refused to sniff. On seeing it I heard the loud sound again. Tom had slammed his hand on the table.

A waiter rushed over to us, his eyes flickered between us, and he noticed the tear down my cheek. I turned away, but from the side of my eyes I could see his worried expression. “Sir, ma, is everything alright?”

Tom smiled at him and then he apologized, and I guess he felt bad cause he ordered another cake, and it was still lemon flavored. The waiter left and the silence stretched.

“Say something,” I said without looking at him. He didn’t respond. Seconds passed and I turned to him, he had been staring at me the whole time.

“You believed it didn’t you,” I was about to shake my head, but he shook his telling me to stop. “You believed what he said and that hurts me so much I cannot even comprehend it,” he said and I rather than feel bad, an anger within me flared.

“You?” I began with as much venom I could muster in my voice. “Why should you feel bad?” I asked him incredulously. “It is not you that is being pitied so please save me the nonsense pain,” I spat at him.

“Ouch,” he simply said as the waiter dropped of the lemon cake at the edge of the table and quickly walked away. He heard me, now thanks to Tom I have made a scene and won’t be able to come here for a while. He was like that, ruining good things for me. That wasn’t a very truthful thought, I take it back. He was probably the one of the few good things I had. “Sorry,” I said after some time. I had returned to staring out the window. I wasn’t really look at anything or for anything, my eyes just stared off into the distance without really capturing anything.

“You know, sometimes, of late actually, I think you just put up with me, like how you did with Jack,” Tom began with a sadness in his voice, and I whipped around finding his eyes and they were equally as sad. He was smiling but it was also sad. “I try my best to make you smile but the moment I take my attention away or you think I have, you revert to this icy form, and I wonder if your smile was just for show. It is so fast, and it never lingers. You rarely laugh, and you just sit there looking bored and I wonder what I am doing wrong. Sometimes you’d laugh with others but if I come, you’d suddenly shut up and I feel the immediate need to leave the room, I want you keep laughing freely even if it doesn’t have to do with me. Even though it hurts me that I don’t experience that genuine laughter,” he finished and then he put some cake in his mouth again. He ate some more cake and he just kept eating cake and drinking his coffee while I looked at him processing my thoughts. I didn’t know he felt that way. More so I didn’t know I acted that way. He was my safe space, but he also drained me a lot mentally because of a truth I had refused to accept. With him I was always on the edge between love and friendship. He’d do or say certain things sometimes that blurred the lines. Others saw how he acted around me, and they’d say things too. Then the line gets blurrier, and I don’t know which side I am standing at but then I get scared to act on it because what if it is all in my head? What if I lose him? What if we do fly but it is only temporary? What if we then crash and he is out of my life? Then I’d lose him, his voice, his laughter, movie nights, his hugs, his scent, his face in my hands. I don’t want him to stop calling me CS. I don’t want girls to stop wondering where I stand in his life. I don’t want to cross any lines that don’t need to be crossed. I think I really don’t want to know where I stand because what if it is disappointment waiting for me with his answer.

All I know that is certain is that I want to remain in his life. I want to remain important in his life. I want to be as important to him as he is to me. I want to be listed as one of the good things in his life. I just want to be by him and be in his sight forever. So, I tapped him bringing my hands to my eyes in the form of a heart. He smiled on seeing it, a genuine smile. I sighed in relief dropping my hand.

“You are one of the good things I have in this life,” I began dragging what was left of the second plate of cake, “I thought this was for me,” I snickered bringing it completely to myself indicating he had had enough.

“One of?” he said with a raised brow. “Bummer! I wanted to be the only good thing in your life,” he said with a slight whine in his voice.

“Take what you get,” I joked.

“Wow, you treat me this coldly and still I cannot break away from you. If I ran far away, I am sure I’d still end up back to you,” he said. He had blurred the lines again. I felt an ache in my chest.

“I’d run faster,” I responded, and he used his knees to press into my thighs playfully. “And shift,” I commented pushing him a bit.

“Wow, wow wow,” he repeated sounding like an ambulance as he pretended to be offended and pushed back his chair but dragging my coffee with him and once again drinking from my lipstick mark. “I guess I do like kissing you,” he said so lowly I almost didn’t catch or maybe I had misheard him, but I didn’t ask and like that everything dissolved between us. I still didn’t know why Kira had a red heart. He still didn’t know why I became somewhat guarded around him, but we didn’t ask each other any further questions, that intimate moment where we hoped over each other’s walls had passed and now we had returned to our usual settings. Maybe another day we’d pick up from where we left off, maybe one day it’d be clear where we stand. Unfortunately, or would I say fortunately that day is not today, and I am okay with that. I am okay with just having him in my life and I’d like to keep it that way for a long time. As to Jacktilda I am so happy he is out of my life. I’d probably not see anyone for a long while, but I am sure with Tom around I won’t feel too lonely or have time to ponder over my sad love life or in this case inexistent one and that is okay too. I don’t think I am quite ready to see a person. There are many flaws in me that need fixing before I give myself entirely to someone.

“What are you thinking about?” Tom asks and though I was certain he had moved back some minutes ago he was right back beside me, his knees nearly brushing me. He had his hand propped up on the table, his palm was in the form of a fist, the side of his head resting on the top his knuckles and his eyes were trained on me.

“Thinking about how long we are going to be friends for,” I respond.

“Lol, forever of course,” he said waving it off with his hand. “Where do you want to throw me?” he asked rhetorically, and I mimicked him putting my elbow on the table and resting my head on my hand and smiled at him. He returned my smile. I couldn’t throw you anywhere I thought.

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