Pat

More than Friends

One Saturday afternoon she called me over at her place. It was about five months after we first met.

We decided to watch a movie after we had lunch. The atmosphere was different that day but I couldn’t quite put my finger at the difference.

“Liz,” she called me when we sat at the sofa to watch the movie.

“Yes Pat,”

“Thank you,”

“What are you thanking me for?”

“For agreeing to hang out with me and for sharing your limited time with me, it means a lot,”

“Well, thank you too, for letting me share my time with you,”

“Here’s to more of those,” she raised her glass.

“To more,” I toasted. “Now hush, the movie is about to start,”

A few minutes into the movie, I felt her eyes on me. I turned and saw her looking at me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked

“Yes, everything is fine. Better than fine,”
I went back to the movie but I could still feel her eyes on me.

“What is wrong Pat? Why are you-

She pulled me closer and kissed me. I was still dazed when she pulled away from me.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I apologize if I offended you,’

“What took you so long to do that?”

“You. I didn’t want to scare you away,” I got on top of her and kissed her. We forgot about the movie and I forgot I was supposed to go back home. That was the first night I spent at her house.

I left early the following day in the pretext that I had a lot of work to do but I was simply embarrassed. She didn’t call to ask if I got home safe like she often did and neither did I hear from her for the rest of that day.

“Maybe my aggressiveness scared her off or she got what she wanted,” I thought to myself.

I wasn’t naïve, I knew some studs were like men with slightly more patience and studs with money were worse. They could do and say anything, for as long as it took to get what they wanted. That was why I was always careful not to get my heart involved too soon with any stud and Leon had proven me right.

We had known each other a month before we got serious and less than four months later it was over. With Pat, I’d only miss her company and occasionally her omelette served with rice or ugali.

She called me the next morning around ten.
“Can we meet for lunch at my place?” she asked.

“I’m kind of busy right now,”

“There’s something we need to talk about and it is kind of important,”

“Okay, I’ll be there at two,”

“I’ll send over a taxi,”

“There’s no need for that,”

“Please allow me,”

“If you insist,”

I found the table set and food ready when I got there.

“Where do you get the time to do all this?”

“You have to create time for the things you want and love,”

“What did you want to talk about?"

“Let’s eat first then we’ll talk,” After lunch she sat me down on the couch. “I wanted us to talk without any distractions,”