Tolu didn’t see the hurt in her eyes or the way she folded her free hand into a fist as she got up.
All he saw was her unbothered look… a clear indication that she wasn’t emotionally vested in him. As he watched her speak, he let the relief wash over him.
She was indeed of the mindset that they were no more than friends. ‘Tee, she just needs some time. Like, you rightly said, you just can’t force her when she’s not ready. You need to patient, okay… like you were with me. Remember? Remember how many times I closed up on you and you had to wait?’
Ni continued ‘Remember how you would get so close and my courage would fail every time leaving you in that place with nowhere to go. Remember? If you could go through that then, you can go through this now Tee. Tee, it’s never easy for a girl to give it up especially when she’s too scared of the consequences.’
Before he considered his thoughts, Tolu said ‘I also remember a girl who would ask me what she could do to make things better for me and I remember how she would choke on my d**k and then try again until she pleased me right. Remember?’
Tolu wasn’t sure if he saw something cross her face before Ni smiled and said ‘Different strokes, Tee.’ But even when she had subtly ignored the images that he had painted, he couldn’t stop the memories from filling his head. His innocent ‘Ni begging for a chance to make him feel better with guilt written over her face for refusing him where it mattered most. Looking at Anita now, he just couldn’t see the resemblance from the young woman that she used to be to the woman sitting before him… looking older than her years.
‘Ni, why do you hold back your emotions?’ Frowning, she took her attention from the papers that she was trying to straighten. ‘What?’ ‘I don’t know. I can’t seem to tell what you’re thinking or feeling.’ As soon as he said it, a smile filled up her entire face
‘Maybe that’s because you’re busy with someone else.’ With that, she continued with her task at hand. If she was trying to end the conversation then, Tolu wasn’t taking the bait. The more that he thought about it, Ni was never looking for someone to hold onto. It was almost like she had trained herself to take care of herself.
At that exact moment, Tolu remembered that night of passion when ‘Ni had begged him for something else. That was one night out of many. When had Ni become the woman that held it all in? He wondered. He could still remember how much love she had claimed to need when he had just met her. She was so sure that she had waited for long for something real so what changed. Never one to be left out, Tolu said ‘I could see all of you sometime before, Ni. What happened?’ he asked.
The more he asked, the more ‘Ni smiled bitterly at the irony of it all. If only he knew who caused her pain. If only he knew all that she was forced to hold back. If only…
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