Easily Erased

I Lied

“Finally, you are here!” Adimchi exclaims the instant his best friend Tobi gets to his house.

“Chill, bro. You weren’t expecting me to leave my dance academy and run down here just because of some lady you will still end up dumping after a month or two, just like the other ladies you’ve met,” Tobi fires back.

“How’s that your business if I’ll be dumping her a few days or weeks after our contract marriage? Your only job here is to get a sweet lady that can make me feel good, and when she no longer fills in my needs, then I get another. C’mon, life is so simple. You should enjoy it.” Adimchi’s response threw Tobi, speechless for a second.

“Look at how you just said that without any emotions!”

“Emotions? And how do you define emotions? Tell me, does having feelings for a particular woman for a short time not called emotional attachment?”

Tobi snorted and shook his head. “This conversation is over. You’ve got your life, man, do whatever pleases you. But be careful, you might get bitten one of these days by those snakes you are playing with.”

“That’s not going to happen. Can I see my wife-to-be already? Let’s see if she matches my standards of ladies.”

“She supersedes it,” came Tobi’s response immediately. He dug out his phone from his pocket and searched through his gallery for the photo he had taken earlier. “Here you go” he handed the phone to his friend, and he took it from him.

The moment Adimchi stared at the phone screen, his eyebrows twitched, and his heart fluttered. He was silent for a few more seconds before he gazed up at his best friend, “She is the one?” his voice came out almost like a whisper.

“Of course, she is the sweet lady I got for you. What, don’t you like her?”

Adimchi was silent. A lot was going through his mind as he kept staring at the lady on the screen. It’s not like he knew her from somewhere, but she was more beautiful than all the ladies he had ever had a contract marriage with. Her eyes caught his attention, and he had to zoom in, “Her eyes,” he uttered inaudibly.

“Did you say something?” Tobi inquired, and that made Adimchi gaze up and shake his head. “So, what do you think about her?”

Adimchi’s soul was wrung with sudden nervousness. He wondered why he was acting this way over a photo he was staring at. “What do you call her name?”

“Mary, Mary Sandie.”

“Why are your arms around her like this?” Adimchi asks, just realizing that Tobi’s arm was wrapped around Mary’s shoulders in the photo.

The question got Tobi laughing. “Don’t tell me you are jealous over that?”

“Jealous? Why should I be?” Adimchi frowns, and Tobi shrugs.

“You just sounded like a jealous boyfriend a few seconds ago.”

“Is it just a picture? Why should I get worked up over it?”

“The exact question I’m asking you. Why did your nostrils flare up when you asked the question? I mean, it is just a photo I took an hour ago before coming here after you requested on the phone that you needed to see her.”

“Where do you know this lady from?”

“She is my student. She joined my dance academy two weeks ago.”

“And then today she told you she is interested in a contract marriage?”

“No, not at all. I was eavesdropping on their conversation when-“