During the worst time in her life Waridi meets Nikolai and despite all the things that are going wrong, Nikolai becomes the only thing that's going right. But are they really meant to be? Is the difference between them too great?
Are Waridi and Nik...
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I know what I expected to feel when I woke up this morning, elation but sadly all I feel is apprehension. I don’t know why I feel last night was the first shoe dropping and now I have to wait for the other shoe. I wake up early and leave Nikolai in bed. Somehow waking up next to him is the most comforting thing in the world but it is also disarming. It’s not something I think about but what if last night was one of those nights were I snored? What if I farted? It’s ew but I can’t help that I think about it. I can’t help that I worry about that more than I worry about how I look. I brush my teeth then proceed to go to the kitchen to make breakfast. I’m thinking of making Chapatti and roasted liver. I have some liver in the fridge so all I have to do is roast it. I set everything to make the chapatti and when I’m done I make the roast. I proceed to boil tea and then when I realize he might not be the kind of person that likes to have tea in the morning I leave to go buy some juice. I consider buying coffee once I’m there but it isn’t like he would prefer the cheap kind that’s being sold in the shop, so I forgo it. He’s waiting by the door when I come back. “Where did you go?” he asks, I can tell he is a little flustered and he has his phone in his hand. He was probably calling me and my phone was here the whole time. I show him the boxes of juice that I got; I didn’t know what he liked so I got different kinds. “I cooked breakfast for you,” I tell him as I set the juices in the fridge, he trails behind me “I don’t know if you’ll like it because obviously you’re used to different types of foods. But how does chapatti and roasted liver sound?” I turn to face him and he hugs me before placing a kiss on my forehead. “I was so worried,” he says before letting me go “Good morning,” I laugh and place my head on his shoulder “Why would you be worried?” He looks at me for a while then shakes his head “It’s nothing,” He sits on a chair on the dining table and I set a plate for him with two chapattis and a bowl of roast. He prefers orange juice so I pour him a glass and I take a cup of tea and proceed to show him how I would eat the meal. I use my hands to cut the chapatti then take some of the roast with it and I eat it. I laugh when he tells me he has never eaten using his hands before. I have assignments to do but I don’t care about anything other than spending time with this man. While he’s here I have decided to ignore all of our issues. We can discuss them when he goes, on the phone like we usually do. But it feels wonderful to finally watch a movie together. I can’t explain the joys of cuddling or talking about nothing with him actually here with me. I try to tick as many boxes as I can; I only have him here for a week. We go to the movies, we go swimming, we go to a fancy dinner at Hyatt (I finally get to eat inside that hotel!), we make out in our car and we are currently having a nice home cooked meal. I’m cooking for us, of course but we’re still going to dress up because every day that he's here is a date. I decided to make Biryani with roasted chicken and hard boiled eggs. I made a fruit salad for desert and seasoned potatoes as side dishes. I set the table then proceed to get ready for the meal. Nikolai is already dressed in a light blue dress shirt and black pants, it is simple but somehow he still seems so immaculately dressed. “I’ll just be a minute.” I tell him before I get into the bathroom. I take a quick shower and then dress into a simple black bandage dress that hugs all of my curves in just the right way. It goes all the way up to my knees but the stretchy material clings onto my body so much that it moves all the way up to my thighs by the time I walk into the living room. The best thing about having a fancy dinner inside is that you don’t have to worry about shoes. I don’t even bother to wear any make up, not that I am well versed in that area. Make up constitutes of eye liner and lipstick for me. I lose my breath when I walk into the living room, the lights are off and only two candles light up the dining table. The other chairs are moved so that there is only two chairs and the lilies we got yesterday are in the middle of the table. It’s so sweet that he actually bothered to go through all my drawers to get those candles, I’m not sure if even I knew where the candles were. “Oh, wow.” I prepared the meal but “This is beautiful,” Nikolai is standing by the chair closest to me, his eyes roam all over my body so I saunter on my way to him playfully swinging my hips. When I finally get to him he says “You’re the one that’s beautiful.” I blush; I can never quite get tired of being told that by him. I have been called beautiful before but there is only one word for beauty in Swahili so you never know if someone thinks you’re pretty, cute or beautiful. And whenever people said that I was mzuri was over the phone. They never looked at me the way that Niko does right at this moment. His eyes are serious and his jaw is set, almost like his sentence is a fight that I have to lose. “I think you are even more beautiful,” I tell him as I throw my head back to meet his gaze I wrap my hands around his neck then rest my head on his chest before I breath him in. I am intoxicated. I might be dying and I wouldn’t mind. He kisses my forehead then says “Come on,” before disentangling me from him “It all smells exquisite, I don’t think I can wait another second.” He pulls my chair out for me and I take my seat. I prepare a plate for him and wait for him to eat before I do anything else. I love how much he relishes my food. He doesn’t have to say it, I can tell by the way he swallows. He swallows like he wants to take another bite even as the food is going down. I can almost hear the mmh sound even though he does not make it. “This is amazing,” he says and I thank God for my mother’s teachings. When we are done eating we both clear the table. He insists on washing the dishes but I can easily tell he doesn’t know how. So I let him rinse the dishes. When we finish we kind of just stand there by the sink staring at each other and he offers me his hand, I go willingly. He takes out his phone and connects it to the sound system and a little while later the familiar voice of James Bay starts playing through the speakers. It’s I Found You. It's from the album I played him in Arusha. We've talked about it so many times that I know that even though Niko doesn't like somgs with words, he likes this one and the guitar solo is his favourate part. He takes my hands and places them where they ought to be before wrapping his hands around me. And then slowly he twirls with me. I lay my head on his chest and let him take the lead. He’s so good at this it almost feels like we are gliding. The same song plays on and on and we dance to it in the same manner. The candles still flicker and I am still intoxicated by his smell and nearness. I feel like I am soaring. My heart is full of so much love it feels like it's about to burst. But as usual the negative thoughts creep in. It starts out innocently at first. I find myself wondering what if it were like this every day and then right after that I remember that this is it. He leaves the day after tomorrow. I try to be an optimist and concentrate on the things that took place this week. It was the best week of my life. Honestly being twenty was so much better than being nineteen. “I am only four years younger than you now,” I tell him. “Not for long,” he says with a laugh in his voice. Niko’s birthday is in two months’ time. He promised to come back by then to spend the entire month with me. By then I would be done with my certificate and we would be looking into diploma programs for me to start before the year ends. He told me he wants me to move to Europe. I preferred an English speaking country because even though languages did fascinate me it would be absolutely scary to go to a country that spoke a language I didn’t know. I had decided that I wanted to major in Linguistics. I wanted to learn several other languages, maybe three more so I could boast to being able to speak at least five language. One of those languages had to be Niko’s mother tongue. When he told me of this plan I was both delighted and apprehensive. I told him not to make promises he cannot keep.
