Hearken

Chapter 21: Symptoms Of Love

I was behind the wheels when I reduced the speed and allowed Somidah to zoom past me. She was so excited about winning the car race that, she stopped in front of my apartment and came down to welcome me.

“I won!” she screeched, raising both hands in the air in excitement.

“Yeah, yeah! How did you do that?” I pointed, faking a surprise. “Are you taking driving classes again?”

“No, it’s just an improvement.” She joked, and I blushed at her words.

“Well, I’m impressed. Let’s go in.” I told her as we drove into my compound, stopping the cars in front of my house instead of the parking lot. Excited, we got in and I walked towards one of the inbuilt fridge, getting a bottle of fruit juice for her.

I closed the fridge and a thought of Adam closing it behind me came up. Shaking off the pestering thoughts from my mind, I closed my eyes to a sudden headache that hit me hard.

“Evelyn!” Somidah called, throwing her handbag on the middle table. Her smile dropped while watching me from the distance. “Are you alright?” Concern plastered her face as she ran up to me, collecting the bottle of orange juice.

“Yes, I am....I’m fine, Somidah.” as if I was the odd one in the room, I held back the pain.

“What’s it? Come, let’s get a seat.” She said, holding me by the waist as we walked to one of the cream coloured sofa chairs. “Would you tell me now?”

“I don’t know how it happened... We had an argument, and he wants me to apologize.” Opening up to her, my breath hardened as if it was difficult to breathe. The words came rushing out of me.

“Who are you talking about?” she rolled her eyes to the ceiling, trying to connect the dots. “I do not know.”

“It’s Adam. Adam Hudson, the guy I told you about.”

“Okay, what about him?”

“We had a dinner date on Saturday night and Luke bumped into us.”

“Who’s Luke?” She asked, more puzzled than earlier.

“A guy I met on Twitter. We only had a date once, and he embarrassed Adam, calling him my son. I just had to lie to him, he was my nephew. Telling Luke that I was in a relationship with Adam would ruin things. He might take a picture of us and paste it all over social media, and I don’t want that. Not yet... I had no choice... Adam played along, but after Luke left, he blew all his anger on me. He told me to apologize properly and accept him as my man.”

“Oh, the young dude said that to you?” Somidah tried hard to hold back the smile, and I rolled my eyes at her. Pulling out of her grip.

“It’s not funny... He broke his Sim card because of that and warned me never to reach out to him unless I am ready to accept him as my man. I’m so confused right now. It’s just two days without him and I can barely eat or sleep or even work. I don’t understand. I feel so lost.”

“Uh.. Evelyn. Earlier, I would have said you were joking, but right now, I know what is wrong with you.”

“What’s it?”

“It’s the symptoms of love.”

“Symptoms of love?” I repeated, taking my hand off my forehead while glaring at her.

“And you’re infected. You should be happy.... Love is not a crime, okay?”

“Why is it that, everytime I am on the verge of being happy or finding something good. Something untoward will just happen and mess it up. Merely after I took my first breath, my mother died.” I sighed, pausing to the disturbing thoughts.