The power was back on, and my cell phone was charged and staring right at me. Three missed calls from Omotola. I felt awful. For a moment, I considered picking it up and calling her back right then and there, but she was probably asleep, and I still hadn’t figured out how on earth I was going to explain things to her.
I hadn’t let things go THAT far with Ginika, but I had still betrayed my girlfriend’s trust. I had, to whatever degree, been unfaithful for the first time in my life, and it was killing me inside.
I knew I needed to tell Omotola. No twisting things around to make me sound like the victim, either. But that would come later, when we could actually have a conversation. For the time being, I sent her a quick text explaining about the power outage and promised to call her after work.
Which sucked.
For the first half of the day, Tamara barely acknowledged my existence, always finding something incredibly pressing to busy herself with whenever I tried to explain what had happened. She was professional, but dismissive.
Ginika, on the other hand, just tried to avoid me altogether. I had hurt her more than I realised, and she seemed too embarrassed to even look me in the eye. Since I couldn’t exactly talk to her with all the other people around the office, I had the bright idea of writing her a discreet letter of apology, explaining that I thought she was great, and I was so sorry that I had hurt her feelings.
She tossed it in the waste basket without even reading the thing.
I spent about 10 hours at the office that day, and every second of it was so awkward that it felt more like 10 weeks. When I finally made it back home for the evening, I got out my phone and called Omotola.
“I love you,” I started simply. Right off the bat, my tone of voice told her something was very wrong.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“No, I’m not. I… let something happen. Something really stupid. And I need to tell you about it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Every word took tremendous effort for me to force out, like I was pushing a boulder up a mountain. “There’s… these two women at my new job. Last night, I—”
“Last night you WHAT?”
“One of them kind of had a thing for me and—I didn’t push her away when I should have.”
There was a long, painful pause while Omotola gathered her thoughts.
Our relationship had been going great. She was supposed to move in with me in a couple of months. A year from now, we both knew I was probably gonna start shopping for a ring. What if my behaviour last night had put a wrench in all that?
“How far did things go?” Omotola finally asked.
“Second base.”
“What the fuck is ‘second base’? Is that like a blowjob or something?” she snapped.
“What? No! It’s, you know, second base. First base is kissing, second base is feeling a girl up, third base is—”
“So you spent all night making out with some random girl and grabbing her boobs?”
“No, it was just for a couple of seconds, then I stopped it. I swear.”
She made me sit through another of those horrible pauses.
“You promise that’s all?”
“I promise. And I promise it will never happen again.”
“This is so stupid, Ikenna.”
“I know, babe, I’m so—”
She hung up.
“Sorry.”
******
The rest of the week creaked by in pretty much the same miserable way, with Tamara and Ginika refusing to talk to me, and Omotola refusing to answer her phone or return any of my texts. I was so scared of losing her, I even considered flying back to see her in person—but ultimately accepted that she wasn’t talking to me because she didn’t want to. Using my pathetic little savings to buy a plane ticket wasn’t gonna change that.
I should have spent that first week going out, trying to get a feel for the city, making new friends and building a new life. But frankly, things were so weird I never felt like leaving my apartment. So instead, I cleaned and unpacked, organized all my shit, and then cleaned everything all over again. I filled what free time I did have, discovering just how terrible most television shows really are when you watch them all by yourself.
When Saturday rolled around and I carted my dirty clothes downstairs to the dry cleaner, I stumbled upon Tamara, just as she was cramming a load of clothes into a bag. We both froze awkwardly at the sight of one another.
We were all alone. After four days of getting the brush-off from this woman, I finally had her cornered. Finally had an opportunity to explain myself:
“Tamara, please just hear me out.”
“No need, Ginika told me what happened. Honestly, I kind of expected more from you.”
“I know, I know, I’m so sorry things got out of hand. But I had to stop it before we went any further. I didn’t want anybody getting hurt.”
She frowned at me and shook her head. “No, you just didn’t want YOU to get hurt. Look, I respect that you’re not the kind of person who fucks around behind his girlfriend’s back, but I told you—I TOLD YOU—that Ginika was in a vulnerable place and you still took advantage of her.”
“Whoa, whoa—I never took advantage of her! She was the one seducing me! I never did anything to lead her on!”
“You knew exactly what she wanted, and you did nothing to discourage her. You let her keep coming onto you all night because it was stroking your ego to have some hot chick batting her eyelashes at you.”
Tamara walked right up to me, her icy eyes flashing with anger:
“And then, at the worst possible moment—when she was all excited and happy to have someone being affectionate with her for the first time since her breakup—you pushed her away. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
I looked down at my shoes. “I guess not,” I sighed.
“And there are other people out there,” she choked, fighting back tears. “People who would treat her so much better than you did. People who would love her and cherish her, but instead, she set her sights on you.”
And then it hit me, all of a sudden. Everything about Tamara clicked into place. She wasn’t just mad at me for hurting her friend—she was jealous of me. I looked into her eyes, realising that Tamara was hurting, too. Maybe worse than any of us.
“It’s Ginika, isn’t it? That big, unrequited love you were telling me about the other night. It’s your roommate.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped.
But I did. There was a sudden, desperate fear in her eyes now that I brought it up. Fear of being found out.
“Tamara, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. Does she know?”
She continued to glare at me, furious. But then, ever so slightly, her shoulders slumped, and all at once the steam went out of her. Tamara’s face fell, and she just shook her head. She had been holding back a tidal wave of a secret for god knows how long, and the pressure finally overwhelmed her.
The tears came back, more freely this time, and Tamara slumped against one of the unused machines, trying desperately to force her sobbing under control. I sat down beside her, and when I went to wrap a reassuring arm across her shoulders, she didn’t move away.
Halting words spilt out of her between breaths of air: “She’s the best thing to ever happen to me. She’s the best thing in my whole life. We do everything together! If I told her, it would just scare her off.”
“How long have you two been friends?”
“Less than a year, but—but I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. It’s so great, but it hurts SO MUCH.”
I hugged her, firmly as I could, trapping her inside the warmth of my arms.
“Does she even know you’re lesbian?”
Again, Tamara shook her head.
“Look,” I whispered soothingly, “under the circumstances, I know I’m probably the last person in the world you even think about taking relationship advice from—but you need to tell her. If she’s really your friend, she won’t push you away. You need to trust her to do the right thing.”
“What if everything changes?”
“Of course, everything will change. There’s no going back from an ‘I love you.’ But look at what’s happening to you—This is tearing you up on the inside, and it’s only gonna get worse.”
After a few more deep breaths, Tamara finally got herself together and withdrew from my arms, apologising for the wet spots her tears had left on my shirt. She looked hard into my eyes and managed to quirk her lips up into a bittersweet, twisted smile.
“I don’t get you, Ikenna. You’re, like, a stupid asshole and a really nice guy all at the same time.”
“I really am sorry I hurt her. And I really, REALLY like to be friends with you two.”
“Please don’t say anything to Ginika.”
“Hey, it wouldn’t be my place.”
That seemed to reassure her, and for the next forty-five minutes, we chatted about nothing particularly important, just being friendly with each other. Neither of us mentioned Ginika.
When Tamara went about folding her clothes, I caught an eyeful of several pairs of skimpy little thongs and panties, in all shapes and sizes.
“You have some sort of fascination with my underwear?” she teased.
I just shrugged my shoulders, caught:
“Honestly, I’m trying not to think about how they look when you’re wearing them.”
She rolled her eyes.
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