The Void Between Hearts ~~ongoing~~

51| Chinny

ᵗʰⁱˢ ᶜʰᵃᵖᵗᵉʳ ⁱˢ ᵈᵉᵈⁱᶜᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ dammmmmmmy ʰᵉʳᵉ'ˢ ᶜʰⁱⁿⁿʸ ˢʷᵉᵉᵗⁱᵉ.
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KNUTZ AND KREAM, a typical happy place, complete with happy smells, happy sounds and happy people. Like me two days ago. Even that day, I was extremely happy until I eavesdropped and heard it. Afterwards, I took a cab home. 

I was broken, utterly broken, so completely shattered that Obinna's taunts were useless. Obinna my older brother seems to always picture me as a horse at an amusement park, and so nothing is more Obinna than neighing whenever I walk pass him and nothing is more me than snorting in response to him being a pig. 

But that evening, in my silver dress, suddenly back home after the week spent at Boma's house, crying as I walked through the sitting room, and the stairs, it was obvious that I wasn't okay so my mom came up to my room for a talk. 

She was silent for more than fifteen minutes after I told her what I heard, after which she pulled me into a hug and I heard her voice break. To clear things up, my mom is traditionally staunch, things don't break her heart. But this one did.

I wasn't so much as angry at Boma as I was panicked and heartbroken. The anger was only a vehicle, a trojan horse to mask my fear and propel my denial. I mean it isn't everyday you hear that your best friend will be kissing the world, and you, goodbye forever. So I can't say I was prepared. I wasn't. 

When Ivan called yesterday, to plan today's meeting, I stayed up all night thinking of what I could possibly say to piece her heart together, because I know Boma, maybe even more than she knows herself and I know that she genuinely couldn't stand to see me hurt through the process of losing her before she left, and that was why she decided not to tell me, and that stuff I said about protecting herself, it's true but not in a malicious way. I mean try living all your life as a series of tragic events, at some point, you're bound to develop coping strategies. 

I stop thinking and look around the restaurant, then at my wristwatch, 1:55pm. He said they'd get here by 2pm. I look up from my wristwatch and at the pink pastel counter. A man, possibly the manager is watching me. He probably thinks I'm here to use their free wifi without buying anything. I smile faintly at him, I'm sure he can't decode, my smile means, I'm a little cheap but not that cheap.

I get up with my bag and walk to the counter. They have a rainbow of bold and soft colours of ice-cream flavours in their showcase. Some of the tags sound mysterious but that's part of why their ice-cream is so good. They almost always have new flavours. I look away so I can curtail my salivating. 

"Hi," says the counter girl wearing a soft pastel blue button up shirt and a shower cap. "What will you like?" she asks.

"A medium sized. . . sorry, make that the small size of caramel popcorn and the small bottle of coke." Sugar on sugar. I shake my head invisibly. 

"Okay." She says, moving briskly to the popcorn machine. I watch her scoop the popcorn. She's a bit too meticulous, like she wants to make sure that I don't have a seed of popcorn more than the small size permits. Then she walks to the freezer to grab the coke.

"That's my bill isn't it?" Ivan says from behind me. I turn around. He smiles and I give him a soft hug. 

Where is she? I wonder, looking around.

"Don't think too much," Ivan says, points at the unoccupied area close to the huge window overlooking the parking lot. I see her, she's relaxed and fiddling with her phone.

What if she doesn't want to see me?

"She doesn't know you're here," Ivan says, smiling. I smile a faint one back.