Consequences

Chapter 10

"Ola? Stop the car and give me back my keys!" I shouted. He was driving and ignored me.
"This is harassment you know that?"  He kept ignoring me until I finally shouted at the top of my voice.

"Ola stop the car, now!" With that he swerved the car dangerously to the  right and stopped abruptly in front of a supermarket. I held my breath when he did that. When he stopped he looked at me and smiled.

"Are you alright?" I managed to nod. He placed the back of his right hand on my forehead.
"Here, let me get you something to drink." He didn't wait for me to reply but just got out of the car and went inside the supermarket.

When he came out he was holding a nylon bag in his hand. He quickly got into the car and took out a small bottle of water, opened it and handed it over to me. I slowly took it from him and observed as he took a bottle of Guinness and used his teeth to open it.

Why was he doing this? I asked myself. Why was he being so possessive about me as to treat me this way? Couldn't he be nice to me instead? For a few minutes we sat down in silence ignoring each other, and focusing our attention on drinking. When he finished he put the empty bottle inside the nylon bag and started the car.

"I'm hungry what about you?" I ignored him but he touched my cheeks with his fingers as if he was caressing them. I slightly moved my head towards the glass, but he stretched his hands and reached for my cheeks.
"Tola why don't we go to a restaurant and eat before I leave you to go home?" I looked out of the window pretending to ignore him, but I reminded myself I was on a kind of mission to find out more about him.
"What do you think Tola?" He asked. I turned and gave him a menacing look.
"Ola what is the meaning of all this?!"
"What do you mean?"
"I dey vex big time for you!" I shouted
"Aha, what have I done now?"
"So you don't know what you did?"
"If you tell me  maybe I can realize my mistakes and apologize." I looked at the display of sudden sincerity on his face and wondered why he was playing the good boy now.

"Listen I want to go home. I'm not interested as I have food in the house." I looked away as I didn't know how he would react. There was silence in the car, a silence in which I could hear only my heart beat. Then I heard him sigh and this got me asking myself what he was up to.

"Fine, that means I'll leave you from here and go home." He removed the car keys from the ignition.
"Here are your keys." He said handing me the keys. I turned and looked at him from head down. I was angry.

"Ola you think you can mess up my life? You think you can bring me here and dump me? If that is how you treat other women, I won't take that nonsense from you okay?!" He widened his eyes in surprise when I said that as if he was hardly expecting me to say that.

"Tola how many times did you tell me to give you back your keys? It's exactly what I am doing."

"Oh, since I was singing it into your ears, are you only now realizing what to do?"

"Look Tola I am hungry and want to eat. If you keep up with your rant I will lose my appetite. So you know what I'm going to do? There's a restaurant a few blocks away from here. I'm going in there to eat. Decide what you want to do."

He got out of the car and headed straight for the restaurant. It was a walking distance away from the supermarket where we had stopped. I watched him go and sighed. But as I watched him go, a sudden feeling like I was about to lose him crept into me. In thinking that way I asked myself if all of my annoyance against him was necessary.

Reluctantly, I started my car and headed for the restaurant. I drove in and parked the car in one of the parking spaces reserved for customers. I looked at my face in the rear view mirror and wiped it, and then adjusted my hair.

When I went inside the restaurant he was already seated in a corner table looking at the menu book. I stood at the entrance  and observed him. He was taking orders and telling the waiter that he was expecting someone.

When the waiter left I walked up to him and stood in front of him.
"Tola I thought you had gone home, what are you doing here?" He said getting up. His closeness touched me like a breath of fresh air.

We were so close I could feel his warmth vibrate around me. I wish he could just be nice to me. I tried to convince myself that our closeness would make him hold me for once as a way of apologizing. But he only pulled a chair out for me to sit.

"Sit down Tola." He said. I reluctantly obeyed and sat down. He signaled for the waiter to come. When the waiter came, he asked me what I wanted to eat. I took my orders and the waiter left. We were alone now and I looked at him. I had nothing to say to him as if my mind had gone blank.

"So how are you feeling now that we are here?" He asked me. I put my hands to my jaws and stared at him. I could only stare at him as I didn't know where to start from and how. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask him, that I knew I could ask him while we were here in the restaurant.

"Tola you are not talking to me. Say something now." He smiled at me but I kept on staring at him. He got up and sighed.
"Okay I guess I'm not good company for you so I better leave. Maybe Lanre would be more entertaining."

The mention of Lanre woke me up as if I had all along been engulfed in a deep sleep.
"What do you have against Lanre? Is he not your friend?"
"He is my friend, of course."
"So why do you suddenly despise him?"

"Lanre has been a long time friend so I bear no hatred for him. My only concern is he's been having too much fun around you."  I looked at him sharply like I could hit him. He was not only possessive, but also jealous.

I kept wondering how it would be between us  if we got married. But just then the waiter brought our food and we started to eat. Halfway through the meal he raised his head up and looked at me.

" I haven't really taken the time to look at you properly."
"And what is wrong with me?"
"I'm only realizing how beautiful you are. So na wetin my guy dey enjoy since?"
"Well until I have a decent boyfriend, its not a problem having friends."
"So what am I to you?"
"You?" He nodded. This was one of those moments when I realized why so many women in their online profiles wrote: its complicated.
With him it truly was complicated. Complicated enough I had no idea what I was doing sitting with him in this restaurant.

"I don't know." I replied.
"So you don't know what we have?"
"No I don't. And besides...." I paused and looked at him. I gave a long sigh.
"What? Go on, say what you want to say."
"Look, I'm still angry with you. So don't make me get too angry." If there was a smile on his face I think I had just made it disappear.

He looked at me seriously and then got up. He went up to the counter and had a brief talk with the staff. I saw him bring out his purse and drop some naira notes. He then excused me to go to the men's washroom. It was the last time I saw him.

For the next one hour I sat waiting for Ola to come out of the men's room like a fool. The waiter saw me still sitting and came up to me.

"Ah  madame you've been here for over one hour. Are you still waiting for your man?"  I smiled when he asked me that question.
" Where is he, is he not in the toilet?"
"It seems he left." I couldn't do anything but stare in disbelief at the waiter. Why would Ola decide to abandon me like that?
"Are you sure?" I asked the waiter wanting to be sure. He nodded.
"Okay thank you. I hope he has paid?"
"Everything has been taken care off." Yes, everything else except me. Anger boiled in me. What did I do to deserve all of this? And why was Ola treating me this way? I reluctantly got up and left the restaurant and got into my car and drove out of the restaurant.

It was still early in the day and with all that went on between me and Ola, I didn't feel like going home. I called Nancy and when she replied I told her I was coming to her house. She agreed and in a matter of minutes I was there.