Easily Erased

Ceased To Exist

It took both of them a while before Adimchi broke the staring contest and shook his head in denial. He turned around to leave immediately.

“Adim?” the lady called, and he halted. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest. His breath became unsteady, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

He twirled slowly and stared at her with a blank face. “Do I know you?” he threw the question at her.

Perplexity covered her face, and her shoulders slumped in disappointment. “Adim, it’s me, Mary. What happened to you? Did you suddenly get amnesia?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know you. Maybe you have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Adimchimkpa Aku, not Adim,” he replied sternly with a cold gaze. An abrupt silence fell between them.

“Yes, I-“

“I beg to take my leave. I have some ladies waiting for me,” he cut her off and walked away without giving her a listening ear.

Mary stood up and wanted to go after him, but she stopped when she realized she wouldn’t catch up with him with the way he was walking. She stared down at her belly and sighed heavily. Her mind was peeved, knowing that because of her condition, she couldn’t trail behind him as fast as she would have liked. She watched until she lost sight of him.

Adimchi hastened his steps to find his best friend so they could leave the beach together. When he found him, he was surprised to see him laughing with the ladies and even dancing with them. He drew closer and stood next to him, “Hey, we need to leave this minute.”

“What?!” Tobi’s head inclined towards him.

“We are leaving now!” Adimchi yelled and took the cup from his best friend’s hand. He handed both his cup and that of his best friend to one of the ladies.

“What happened? Why are we leaving?” Tobi asked.

“I don’t like it here anymore, let’s leave now. Do me a favor and ask no further questions,” he held his wrist and nodded for him to obey his request.

“Hey, handsome, are you leaving us when the fun has only just started?” Selena whined, and Adimchi gave her a once-over.

“Some other time, sexy,” he flashed her a brief smile.

Selena and the other ladies frowned, but Adimchi didn’t care about that at the moment. The only thing on his mind was to get out of this place. Tobi glanced back and flashed the ladies an apologetic smile before he was dragged out of there. The moment they got to the walkway, Adimchi let go of his best friend.

“What’s up, man? Why are we leaving all of a sudden?” Tobi questioned.

Adimchi was silent, a lot of thoughts going through his mind. He wished he could answer why they were leaving, but he couldn’t do that knowing the kind of friend he had. The last thing he wanted right now was for his best friend to cajole him into something he didn’t want to do.

“I asked you a question, man,” Tobi dived into his thoughts.

“Oh yes, you did. We are leaving because I got bored of that place and saw someone I shouldn’t have seen.”

“What do you mean? Who did you see?”

“Uh, a fan of mine, I guess. She was all over me, saying she knows me from somewhere, meanwhile I haven’t met her in my life. She was insistent, so I had to escape from her and the beach, you know.”

Tobi’s eyes flickered, and his eyebrows rose suspiciously. “Okay, I get you’re good-looking and all that, and every lady wants you, but a fan shouldn’t scare you off a place you were having fun.”