Last updated on January 27th, 2024 at 01:51 pm
I was unaware that my dad had traveled to see his family. It still feels weird to say. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was to see on the video call—my brothers, two brothers.
The second one looked exactly like me, more like my dad actually but a lot of people said I was the younger female version of my dad. This used to make mummy roll her eyes claiming that I betrayed her, but it was all humour. I had my dad’s skin tone, height, facial features, and mannerisms. And this boy, my brother, looked just like my dad.
“Angel baby, meet your brothers, Ikedi and Ikechukwu.” He said pointing to the older and the younger one as he mentioned their names.
“Wow.”
“I know you are surprised. Ikedi, say hi to your sister. That’s your sister.” He said as he settled Ikechukwu on his legs. “Say good afternoon.”
I had to stop staring and be the big sister here, “How are you?”
“Fine.” They both replied shyly.
“Ikedi, how are you?” I asked, referring to the older one. He raised his head from his hands and answered. “Fine,” after a pause probably to be sure it was safe, he asked, “What is your name? Angel baby?” At that, my dad and I burst into laughter. Yeah, I was nineteen but my dad wouldn’t still stop calling me baby, not that I disliked it anyway.
“Ikedi, my name is Angela.”
“Oh…kay.” He replied, looking down again.
***
Speaking with my brothers yesterday was definitely new. It also helped me forgive my dad a little bit more, he really could not help being a good father. I was also glad that he and my mum seemed to reach an agreement on this. The kids did not deserve to suffer.
I wondered if I could take back a man that cheated on me though. I thought about it for a bit. Could I take Tochi back if he cheated on me? Speaking of Tochi, I picked up my phone, he had said he was going to call me back this morning when I called him and this was four o’clock and he still hadn’t called.
I opened my WhatsApp and checked to see if he had sent any messages. Nothing. Then I checked the status update and saw that he posted a status a few minutes ago. My heart tugged a bit and I slid to the chat and typed him a message.
You said you would call back since morning but you did not call back. I wanted to add more, but I hit send instead. I opened my timetable for the next day, being a Monday, and groaned when I saw that we had a class at 7 am. I had to sleep early tonight. I brought out my laptop and opened my movie folder.
My phone beeped and I opened it, it was a message from Tochi.
Been very busy.
That was it. Three words from my boyfriend explaining why he had not reached out all day. I chewed on my lips as I thought of the best way to reply. I was familiar with this already, I would reply to him and he would refuse to apologise and we would go for two days without talking, or maybe seven days.
His project was not even that demanding, there were six in his group and they shared the whole work. I rolled my eyes. Joe was a busy student, he literally had bookings all the time, but he’d sometimes sneak out and video call me even if for five minutes. He was also always apologetic when he missed my calls. I was not asking for too much here. I dropped my phone and heaved. I guess men know how to win you over and then leave you hanging once you are in.
***
I had not spoken with my boyfriend in two days. I refused to reply to his message and he did not reach out. I had never mentioned any of these to Zabby. I just knew what she would say. The last time I talked to Tochi about this attitude, he had called me overbearing.
‘Babe, you are… you actually act overbearing sometimes. It can… get tiring.’ We did not speak for three days after he said this and even when he reached out, he did not apologise, he insisted that he was saying how he felt and it was me that should look at my attitude and fix up.
…
What do you think of Tochi and Angela’s story so far?