WHO'S GOT YOUR BACK?

For oloyal who are ganna read this, go head and toss in some microwave popcorn and pop open a coke cuz this is a gana be a block buster ride…!

Disclaimer: It has been over 4 months since Garry and I parted ways. I am still in love with him.

PART ONE
About a month ago, there was this huge rugby tournament in Adelaide, Australia. The Kenya sevens team was going to be taking part and so of course the entire Kenyan diaspora in Australia would be attending.

Remember one of my best friends who I named *Daisy on here? She studies in Adelaide. And as you all well know, Garry’s in Melbourne.So… a week before the rugby tournament, Garry and me have a HUGE fight and he says he never wants to speak to me ever again. “We are cutting all modes of communication Purple!” he retorted into my ears over and over. (ref to former blog)

During the rugby tournament, Daisy sends me a text on ‘whatsapp’ (as will be our main mode of communication for the rest of this story) telling me that she just spotted G in Adelaide at the rugby after party and he was wearing the t-shirt I bought him. Garry had just gotten them into the club for free and he looked good. Et cetera … so I ask, “is he with another girl, who is he with, has he talked about me?”… this went on for… a while. I'm excited she tells me all this! And then she was back to partying.

I didn’t talk to her again that whole weekend cuz I was losing my mind thinking about Garry and I didn’t want to hear what he was up to just yet. Finally I think what was a week or so later I texted her… How was it, How was G, did he speak of me? And her response was vague and somewhat evasive. She probably thought that her response was normal but I pick up these things from people who are close to me. How we talk, has always been very detailed and lucid, and given that I was asking about the so called love of my life no-man-has-ever-had this-impact-on-me person, her formless words raised a warning sign pretty much instantly. After a few more attempts she did mention that when she brought up my name on the table (they sat together at the club) he stood up and walked off. Oooooo-ooo.

A couple of days later, after everyone was back in their respective cities, she tells me that Yes indeed, he did mention my name. He pulled her aside from the crowd and started to tell her why me and him broke up. That he wanted her to hear his side of the story. That he genuinely liked me and he meant everything he said to me, and that I am a good girlfriend and know how to treat a man, but the long distance and the realization that this was heading to a serious relationship scared him half to death and he just couldn’t go ahead with what we had planned together.

Question: what role did she have in Garry’s life that was so important that he had to defend himself to her?

She said to me, girl he really likes you. But I think G is the kind of man that you have to wait for to grow up because he is immature. You should date him when he is like 26 cuz he was oogling over chick’s asses like he was 13. I was so irritated.

Question: He is a free man, I am nat he’s woman no more and I know I gat my own fine behind so I’m nat insecure there thank the Lord ( and ma mama)…but why on earth though do you give a damn what he’s oogling over? Why were you irritated? Mmh…

A couple weeks later I am sitting at my office cubicle bored out of my mind and I start to entertain my suspicions about Daisy. I write a song, about it. And I love it. I show it to Ronnie (6ft dark chocolate candy mayn ladies I can hook ya’ll up) and he thinks it’s awesome. He says “maybe you should ask this girl you’re talking about if she’s creeping with Garry” (so he knows the whole G story but nat about Daisy et cetera) And I say “she’ll think I’m crazy I don’t have any basis for such a question” and he says as a matter of factly, “Yeah you do. Look at what you just wrote”

I took out my phone two days later, and asked her…
“Babe I need you to be real honest with me. Is Garry hitting on you?”
She took thirty minutes to respond.
“Honestly, babe, I think he is.
But I’m not sure… he wouldn’t leave my side during Adeleide sevens (the rugby tournament – and this is like two weeks later). He was always where I was, saying stuff like he doesn’t want niggaz to hit on me /disturb me, at first I thought it was because I was hanging out with his baby cousin’s friend!”
I say, “Its okay. I knew. I just wanted to hear it from you”
She responds, “OH mY GOD HE TOLD YOU?????????!”
And I’m taken a back by her surprise and say, “No, I just felt it…”

I walk to the ladies bathroom and lock the door behind me and break down. Last time I cried like that was when Garry told me that we should break up. Thirty minutes later I go back to my desk.

I ask her if she feels him, if she is attracted to him because let’s face it, Garry is fucking attractive… and she says alarmingly, “OMG no way! Purple I would never ever go there! I know what the two of you shared. He’s so immature and he smokes I don’t even like that.”

This back and forth goes on for a while and eventually I am settled knowing that she is not in the least bit interested in him.

One week later, it’s heading to Easter Holiday. Daisy is heading to Melbourne with a bunch of her friends from Sidney. I wonder if she is going to Melbourne because of Garry and think I’m overreacting. Daisy is too mature for this kind of shit. She wouldn’t do that to me. She was there for me every day when he broke my heart. That week on Thursday night, day before easter, Im out with Black Rose at Bachus drinking wine. We wanted to catch up… I’m a light weight and the wine was sweet. I didn’t realize how quick it was getting to my head. Ronnie says he’s leaving and confirms if I’m okay to go home on my own and I say “yeah of course! Thanks for everything Love.” And he’s off. Something was odd about him that evening. Black rose and I catch up…we are both drunk. The conversations get emotional…I tell her of my suspicions of Daisy and Garry. She is grounded on the fact that Daisy and I go way back and I have nothing to worry about.

At the peak of my drunken stupor, I text Garry. A first communication attempt since he lost his temper with me. “She’s my best friend G. For fuck’s sake, get with someone else”… I hit send.

I show the message to Black rose. She laughs at my spelling errors and retypes it and sends it again.

We move to another club. And then another club... I meet a bunch of other friends – my neighbours. Black Rose heads home I spot *Andrew. He looks so fly that night. He’s a huge Spartan of a man with bouldering shoulders and beastly arms perfect to lift my hips… I reapply my red lipstick and half catwalk half stagger towards him. He’s pleasantly surprised to see me. We chit-chat. God knows I can’t speak straight. He gives me his business card. “Call me sometime…” I kiss the white card stamping it with my red lipstick and ask the bar tender for a pen and write my number on the back and give it back to him… He pulls me into his arms and bursts out laughing, his entire frame shaking from laughter causing my breasts to shift with this ramble. I laugh at this. I guess he thinks I’m laughing with him… He takes the card, and says slipping it into his wallet, “Dew (he calls me by my second name), you’ve really grown up I see.” Andrew’s a friend of my cousin’s husband. We met years before when I was just 19 or 20. I was dating Baby at the time.

I get home. Take out my phone out before bed and see “1 new Message…Read?”I know in my heart of hearts that it is Garry… I open the message.
“Hi Purple. Lets talk. Stuff can really be misconstrued via text. Let me know when I can call you.”

I read the message over and over and over looking for any hint of emotion. Maybe he wants me back. Maybe we can be together now. Maybe I can go to Australia in June like he promised! Maybe I can start art classes in Melbourne and get my own place because I surely don’t want to create a strain in our relationship by living with him! A man needs his space. I read it one last time. I had no idea what the hell misconstrued meant. So I dash to my brother room to get the dictionary. He sleeps like a drunk sailor and can’t hear me knock. Fuck. It hits me like a light bulb! My damn phone has a dictionary.

Misconstrue : to misunderstand, to interpret wrongly.

I blush at my man’s intelligence.

“You can call me now.” I reply. Its 3 am in the morning, I’m drunk, but that would mean that it is 11am in Australia and that’s a good time to have a chat ain it…? He calls…before I pick, I look at his name on my phone screen and savor the moment. I had waited so long for the day I would see his number on my phone again. “Hi!!!!!!” I screamed. He laughed and said hi back.

We talked about all sorts of things. Actually I talked and he did most of the listening. I apologized for my rumbling, he said “no, no you know I like it when you talk…” we didn’t mention the whole thing with him and Daisy until I brought it up probably 10 minutes later. He hesitated. I panicked and realized that being the man that he was, he was about to get frank with me and I couldn’t bear to hear him talk about how she blows him away or anything of the sort. So I said, “No wait, Garry. I know you can be brutally honest, so I’m sorry for making you call me but, I don’t think I wanna hear it anymore.” And then there was silence and he said, “Look, let me at least tell you this, I don’t feel her and I am not at this moment in time hitting on Daisy.”

I went to bed happy that night. More so because I heard his voice again, and I heard him laugh, and heard him say my name. I wondered why he wouldn’t love me and gave up on the stupid fantasy the minute it crept into my conscience.

The next day, he called again. I was on my way out of the house to watch a play and was still at the mirror fixing my make-up. He was at some house party and was talking a little too much than usual. Asking me shit. The last time Garry cared what I was up to was when he was my boyfriend. “Baby are you drunk?” I asked half laughing. “yeah, yeah you can tell?” he asked. “Definitely… are you with Daisy?” I asked plainly. He responded too quick “Yeah she’s here at the party. She just got to Melbourne.” My heart skipped a beat and he changed the topic “text me on my birthday okay” … I didn’t want to. His birthday would be four days away and I didn’t want to go along my week looking forward to talking to him. Because I would start to love him again. I tried to explain this to him cz men just dont get such shit. And he said “Okay then I will call you.”

That whole week, I wasn’t at peace. Andrew and I chatted on phone endlessly. He was a busy man but loved his drink and despised chicks with drama and hoped to quit smoking some day. He liked my forwardness and blunt remarks.

A day after Garry’s birthday, I sent Daisy a message. I asked her if he was still hitting on her. She said that he was still treating them like a gentleman but no, he definitely was not hitting on her anymore.Another strained megs, i thot.

That weekend I met up with Andrew. At the club his white t-shirt molded his torso beautifully. True to his physique, his arms were strong and he lifted me in the elevator as we made out like post teen randys. He walked me to the car and kissed me. “Are you sure you don’t want me take you home?” I looked over at his sexy Audi and then to my gurl who had blacked out drunk in the front seat and said, “Not tonight…” “when can I see you again?” he was towering over me now… I slipped into the car when I felt his hardness on my pelvis, “I’ll call you handsome.”

The following week I tried telling Daisy about him. How I was completely lust over him and couldn’t wait to finally be with a man after 4 months since Garry and that I was worried that he might have a streak of bad-boy in him that I must avoid and so maybe I should call the whole thing off... but as had been Daisy of late, her response was empty and awkward. “awww im happy for you” she said. I hated that the whole Garry hitting on her thing had created a rift between us. I asked her how she was enjoying Melboune and how Garry was. She said he’s fine and that they had all been hanging out together her crew and his. I asked how his birthday went as it was a few days after his birthday… she said it was simple, that his friend bought him cake and that they (they being G and his friends) had been partying all week. “its demonic here!” and I responded “Celebrate your graduation babe to the fullest. Tear it down.”

( ( part two in next blog ) )