Broken | ✓

CHAPTER 50: BURNT AND CRASHED

                                                                               JIDE

Everything in me wanted to grab Ireti and kiss her last night. I spent last night chastising myself for not going in. But the moral part of me kept blaring like a siren the words "she's engaged, she's engaged". When I fell for Ireti, I assumed it was going to be us for the rest of our lives. Love sure does make you think life is Barbie's playground.

I was not a stalker but the love of your life being engaged to somebody else can make you one. My Ireti induced insomnia had me ransacking the internet till I found Calvin. He was quite the family guy. His page was filled with pictures of his daughter and him. There were no pictures of him and Ireti except their engagement picture and one that shredded my heart to bits. It was taken last Christmas. Ireti and dumb Calvin were seated on a couch with Tife and his daughter on their laps. They were also wearing the same sweater. The picture had dumb Calvin and Ireti kissing while the kids laughed. The caption read "Merry Christmas from me and mine to you and yours".

Last Christmas, I was with my family. I was wrapped up in their love but somehow, I was lonely. Home doesn't quite feel like home when a piece of it is missing. While I was nursing what was left of my heart, dumb Calvin was taking loved up pictures with the piece that completed home.

It was a good time for alcohol. The perfect time to drown my sorrow in a glass of vodka but I had bidden alcoholism goodbye two years ago. Sobriety sucked. Sobriety forces you to stay sane in a world that is insane. Alcohol gave you a momentary escape but sobriety demands that you adult this thing all the way. In the absence of alcohol, art became my solace once again.

Aunty Taiye had complained severally of how much of a workaholic I was. This was because I had given up alcohol. So, when it itched, my paintbrush scratched. My feet were steadily planted in the art world because of sobriety. That was one thing I could thank sobriety for. Also, Aunty Taiye and Dunnie didn't have to go pick me from a ditch anymore.

Morning met me in my studio with a painting of Ireti. It was the first time I painted her since that afternoon in my house. Not that I didn't try. It was too hard to paint her. Many unfinished portraits of Ireti laid scattered in my storage room. I hid the one I had in a corner till the exhibition. The paintings that hung at the exhibition were painted with me bare. It felt right to hang the barest part of me amongst the others.

"Jesus Christ! Did you stay up all night?" Dunnie squeaked. My eyes were blood shut and my face was smeared with paint.

"Kind of" I sighed.

Dunnie walked in and glanced at the brown eyed woman with a high puff on my canvas. She instantly recognized her.

"You are doing it again"

"Doing what?" I got up, wiping my hands on a towel.

"This" she gestured to the painting.

"Jide, she's engaged"

"Yeah. To dumb faced Calvin" I took off my apron and walked out to wash my hands. Dunnie followed behind.

"Jide..."
"I don't know what she sees in the guy. He's white" I turned on the tap.

"Don't be racist" she scolded

"It's not racist if I'm black!"

"It sure is" she scoffed.

"Do you know he has a daughter? Why not focus on his daughter instead of fulfilling his I have never been with a black women fantasy" I scrubbed my hands harder than normal.

"You are going to injure yourself and how did you know he has a daughter?"

"Social media" I muttered.