“So, you feel ready for a relationship?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. And even if I was, I’m not sure if Kwame is single.”
“What makes you think he’s not?”
“I went to his house, unannounced and…”
“And? What happened?” she demands in the voice that earned her the nickname Captain when we were in college. “Spit it out, Sin.”
I cringe in anticipation of her reaction and just say it. “He was with another woman.” My voice loses a decibel with each word until all that’s left is a whisper. It doesn’t diminish the stab of jealousy that I can’t seem to control.
“Who is she?” she asks after nearly a minute.
I let out a harsh sigh and rest my head on the steering wheel. “I don’t know. He’s never mentioned anyone. He made it seem like he was single.”
And I told him I wasn’t interested.A pang of longing and sadness twists around the unspoken words I let die on my tongue.
“I’m going to Google him.”
“No, Ediri. You know how I feel about that.”
“Fine, I won’t tell you what I find.”
I scoff. “Google search results aren’t even reliable,” I warn.
“Hmmm” she drawls and then makes a series of tutting sounds.
“What?”
“Did you know—” she starts.
“Stop. I changed my mind,” I yell. “I don’t want to know.”
“Too late,” she quips. “Did you know that Kwame Dickson is a pretty common name? But none of the Facebook profiles seem like your guy. Who doesn’t have a Facebook account?That’sshady,” she sings and draws the last word out.
I don’t like how quickly her imagination is spiraling. “Maybe he doesn’t like social media.”
She swats my excuse away. “Only people with skeletons don’t have social media accounts.”
I drop my head into my hands, my remorse growing by the second. “He doesn’t suddenly owe me his secrets just because I’m jealous. It’s silly to feel that way when we’re just friends.”
“Maybe you should stop judging your feelings and listen to what they’re telling you.”
I drop my head into my hand. “I don’t want to have feelings for him.”
“And yet, here you are.”
I snort. “Not unless I choose to be. I just need to remember that.”
She’s still laughing when we say goodbye.
I pull out into traffic, lighter now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest.
Maybe too light.
I can’t seem to wrap my hands around anything. When I’m unmoored, I’ve found that the best thing is to surrender and drift.
As usual, my father’s voice plays in my head. The line between right and wrong is an ever fixed, binary line. There is no gray area.
