Love, Flicker, burn: Entry 11

Tiide Olufola- Carson

Lagos.

Ugo and I were done. He had no idea what he wanted or maybe he had too many ideas about what he wanted. He clearly wanted to be with this girlfriend of his .......he bought her a ring! Some girl actually got Ugo to buy her a ring. And in less than five months?! Who was she?

Ugo wanted us both. He literally said that. Out loud. He also offered that I be his side-chic. He didn't use those words but he gave me the "Give me some time while I sort things out with her...." line, then added "...till then, let's just lay low". You would agree with me that that sounds inconclusive.

I, Tiide, had been reduced to a side-chic. How?

Who was this girl?! Was she some French girl? South American?

Her name was Adira. He said her name with masked ardour but I could see the way he averted his eyes whenever he said her name. Adira. I hated the name, it was so pretentious. Ok...I liked the name, a little. I found her on Facebook, naturally. She was Nigerian, technically anyway. She had diving, bouldering, paragliding, zip-lining photos up, not the typical Nigerian girl. I could deal with the ruby-woo selfie-taking girls but Ugo had found a version of himself. I couldn't compete with that. 

She was also one of those team-natural girls.

You know, if she was in the early transition stages I might have felt better. She had a huge mane of hair! Achieved by determination and resilience.... clearly her tools for getting Ugo.  She had a blog, some health and wholeness nonsense, talking about maca root, fenugreek (whatever that is) and seaweed (who eats seaweed?!!). I had become slightly obsessed with her the rest of the weekend; she and her mane and her healthy eating, her extreme sports, her ring in the blue velvet box in Ugo's pocket. For a few minutes, I thought she might be a professional blogger, then I remembered Ugo said she worked at Airbus. Quick LinkedIn login. I was filled with the closest feeling to horror when I saw her profile. She was where I wanted to be in 7-8 years. Ugo would never leave a girl like that.

I said nothing to him that night. He slept on the sofa and before he woke up the following morning, I was on a train to Aberdeen. He sent me messages and emails. He believed we could make this “thing” work. Yeah, probably on another planet. I cried the whole trip back to Lagos behind my sunglasses. The guy next to me was wearing sunglasses as well for other reasons, unjustifiable reasons. He thought it was a great pick-up line too. 

I decided to tell Lanre everything. It was the decent thing to do, even though I wasn't the queen of decent these days. Dara thought telling him was stupid. She said I'd probably never see him again. His friends would call me names and drink in his honour for dodging a bullet. ‎His sister, Lara, would stand outside Omicron with a placard that had profanity scribbled all over it.

I was still going to tell him anyway but when I opened the door and saw him standing there, I caved. He was one of the good ones and I'd be stupid to let him go. He was Lanre. "Tiide’s Lanre" (that's what everyone called him at work). I couldn't shake the guilt though; I had disappeared on him and slept with Ugo! The tears were building. I was panicking. He wouldn't want me anymore. Then he asked me if I still wanted us together, of course I did!

We held each other for a long time. Mosquitoes had probably filled my apartment but that was OK, Lanre was back. More like my sanity was back. This was what I needed. Stability and maturity. Not Ugo.

My phone vibrated in my back pocket breaking our little moment there. I smiled shyly at Lanre, as I brought out my phone. The smile faded a little and my mouth went dry as I read the message.

New message : " Hey, totally unplanned trip to S.A. Landing in Lagos tomorrow night. Told you we could make this work. Chronos finally working  for us. :) . Ugo. "

To be continued...........

photo: covet fashion