Renting Hearts

five- driving away

Jonathan

It had been about twenty minutes since Kachi and James left me behind and went home to their respective families. Ever since they left, I had been seated in my car, feeling no urge to move from the parking lot.

The air conditioning was running to keep me cool, but it felt suffocating in here. It felt like I was trapped in a web of guilt as the picture of Mom's smile, filled with hope and happiness when she learned that I was getting married, invisibly danced in my face.

I lied to the one person I wanted to protect from any more pain, and she believed in that lie. She believed in the possibility of meeting her future daughter-in-law soon.

Letting out a frustrated groan, I gripped the steering wheel, trying to steady my racing thoughts. What was I going to do now?

The faces of Kachi and James when I lied to Mom invaded my mind and I sighed, hoping for it to disappear. But replacing it was the faces they made when I suggested calling Ugochi to ask if she could play a pretend fiancee for some amount of time. They both came at me saying it was over their dead body. They swore to never let me do that.

It wasn't like I was okay with that option either. It was going to take a lot of swallowing my pride to do that, but it was the only option I could think of.

They insisted and after spending several hours together with none of us coming up with a better option, we decided to sleep over it. But with the amount of things going on in my head, I might not be able to get any sleep tonight.

I just realised how mentally exhausting lying was, especially when one needed to figure out many more lies to cover up the previous lie. I was never the one to lie. I never had a reason to, well, until now.

As a heavy sigh escaped me, I dragged my hands down my face in frustration before grabbing onto the steering wheel to drive out of the parking lot.

Outside of the hotel premises, the dark sky towered over the road, punctuated by occasional streetlights, and the other cars finding their way to their destination.

Meeting up with occasional traffic around the hotel area, wasn't new to me since it was a busy road that was connected to so many different routes. But right now, I wasn't in the mood for all the navigating and impatient horrible drivers.

One of them was blocking my route right now, and not just me but the other drivers were just as impatient. But unlike me, they were on a honking spree and I was feeling frustrated about the whole noise pollution.

Hissing out a cuss word, I rested my head on the headrest but that didn't last a second because something caught my eye. The familiarity of the figure on the other side of the sidewalk had me glancing in that direction again.

It was the man from the hotel earlier, Ayomide by name as James called him. According to James, Ayomide's father who was a member of the House of Reps was an acquaintance of his father and they were both a native of Lagos.

His earlier actions didn't look like one with a father holding a political office. I mean, those politicians guide their reputation so much. It was surprising when James mentioned how popular he was because I never heard of him. But when he mentioned some of the few things he was known for, I understood the disgusted eyes people gave him back at the dining lounge.

On a closer look at the girl he was gripping and dragging forcefully towards his car, a frown appeared on my face.

Realising it was the same girl from earlier, I felt a slight tug in my chest. It was obvious she didn't want to go with him earlier, and remembering his words to her at the lounge, the frown on my face deepened.