YET TO COME

..TWENTY SIX..

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Somewhere, a night bird cried out quite eerily. She shook the glass in her hands gently, musing, causing the golden yellow liquid abiding in it to twirl softly. She took a sip out of the glass and sighed loudly. The fruit juice tasted bland in her mouth despite the fact that it was her favorite flavour, citrus mix. It was about twenty five minutes past midnight and yet she was still up. She had no idea why she couldn’t sleep. Scrap that, completely. She knew why, definitely did but was unwilling to admit it. Her unsettling insomnia was the result of several factors.

There was tension; anxiety, nervousness, angst, apprehension, foreboding and the fear of the unknown inclusive, all were in gratitude to her upcoming date with Clement the next day –that was today as it was after midnight already.
She knew why this emotions plagued her desperately, threatening to choke life out of her. She loved him, loved Clement and she knew what dinner on a yacht is supposed to mean. She was ready, bodily, and emotionally but not ready psychologically. She kept telling herself that she had nothing to fear. He wasn’t her father, the Nwabuagu tiger. He was not one of her three exes, John, Collins and Chima. Clement loved her. Well, the others had claimed to love her too until they had seen, beheld all that was her, her true form, unlovable, repulsing, twisted and void. What made Clement different?

She couldn’t find a solid reason to set him apart from his predecessors. They all pursued her relentlessly, tirelessly, claiming to want her, desire her. They all made her theirs, later falling in love with her, building and planning a future with her. Then, they all fell out of love with her when they saw the truth of her form. Tears slipped down her eyes. The first time, with John, she had been devastated when he had rejected her, disgust on his face. It had taken a while for her to recover. She had been nineteen then. Then, Collins had fallen into her life and swept her up in a whirlwind of passion, giving her temporary relief from John. But, she had been on her guard. She was glad she had for Collins disappointed her like John. The difference was that she had been prepared and it made the occurrence less painful. Chima was no different, more vehement than the rest in his pursuit of her, hot on her heels, claiming that nothing would part them if she became his. But, her real self had had him fleeing like a scared goose; So much for nothing would part us. She had built up walls and barricade around her heart after that, completely giving up on love.

Therefore, when Clement had come into her life, she had raised her walls higher, been thrice on guard. Yet, he had slipped past all of her defenses and straight into her heart like cupid’s arrow, melting it along with her walls and barricade. She had had no idea when all these had happened for he had been as swift as an unexpected tide. Anyways, she was not hoping too much, expecting disappointment and rejection anytime soon. Her meeting with Sandra once came to mind then, doubling or rather tripling whatever the fuck was plaguing her. Her mind quickly went into disoriented shambles as she recalled all that the woman had said to her. She contemplated whether the woman had been right. She should mayhap let Clement go while she could or face a brutal rejection. Sandra had been sure as hell when she said that Clement hated deception. He not only did so, he did so with all his heart and she wondered why. She knew how he talked about people who had deceived his clients and how he thoroughly hated them for doing so, hated them to a core, disgusted by them and why he fought so hard to win such cases so that they could rot in jail for their deceptive sins.

She set her glass of juice on the dining table and stood. She pushed back her chair and walked out of the dining room, heading for the living room with something in mind. It was that box, the one that Corinne had received on her behalf. It was the package that had arrived at her home just that morning in the form of a very large box. She knew that it was the dress that Clement had ordered for her for their date today when Corinne had informed her of it. Her sister hadn’t tried to open it despite the curiosity she knew the lady possessed. Well, she was grateful for that for she wanted to be the first to see whatever her lover had chosen for her for their night on a yacht, all romantic, alone.