A meeting with the girls

Surprisingly, I sleep the sleep of the fatigued that night. Perhaps all the things I have seen and heard today have tired my little brain that much. When I wake up on Saturday morning the first thing I do is check my phone; there are no messages from Chris, not a single missed call. I check my WhatsApp; the last time he was online was last night when I checked.

I wonder where he might have gone and who he might have seen to cause him to put his phone aside for so long. And then I ask myself, what if he had been online until the wee hours; would I be wondering who he could be chatting with in my place?

GET-TOGETHER

‘No use overthinking it,’ I tell myself as I go through my morning ablutions. Instead, I will focus on my afternoon get-together with the girls because truth be told, I need to be distracted by the sagas of someone having a harder time than me – and I know for sure that Fatma, with her never-ending drama with Steve, is one such person.

And so I get dressed, attempt to eat a fried egg and fail, and decide to do some shopping to kill the time before I have to head on over to Jo’s house.

Three hours later I have purchased a pair of shoes, some flowers and a bottle of wine for Jo. And when I look at my watch I realise that it is time for me to make my way there – which I do. It’s light traffic and I make it to her house in record time, to find Fatma and Mariam already there.

BROKEN HEART

“Liz!” Mariam exclaims when I walk into the house after Jo opens the door and gives me a warm, consoling hug. “We heard you were having some love trouble and since you’ve always been here for us in the past, I dropped everything and came right over,” she beams, holding out her hands for a hug. But rather than accept her embrace, I turn to glare at Jo, my gifts for her clutched closely to my chest.

“You told them?!” I frown.

Jo simply shrugs and reaches over to pull away the wine and flowers. “Let me help you with those. They look heavy and you look like you could use a drink.”

I glare at her retreating back as she heads into the kitchen to vase the flowers and get a wine opener and some glasses, as I hear the sound of snickering behind me. I turn around to see Fatma, hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle. “What are you laughing at?” I snap. My goodness, she looks so happy today; it seems I will not have the break from sadness that I was hoping for.

“Aww, come here,” she says, walking over to me, reaching around me and rubbing my back consolingly. “Even if she hadn’t said anything, the look of thunder on your face would have told us the whole story anyway. You get in such phenomenally bad moods when you are suffering from a broken heart.”

SUGGESTIONS

I sigh and collapse into a chair. “Ok, tell us everything, start at the top,” Mariam says as they settle in as well and Jo comes back to pour us all a drink. I explain everything up until the last words we spoke to each other last night.

“And now you’re stressed because he hasn’t gotten in touch?” Jo leans back in her seat, an amused eyebrow raised. “Girl, you know you are probably the last thing on his mind right now – he’s probably thinking about taking his car to the garage or watching Formula One with his boys. Trust me. I know these things,” she winks.

“He’s not thinking about me?!” I wring my hands in distress.

“What I meant was, he probably doesn’t think there is a problem and he’s probably just assumed you are busy today and he’s giving you space.”

“I agree,” Mariam says. “Look, if you want to talk to him why don’t you just call him?”

“Because I want him to call me,” I wail. “I want him to show me he wants me. I want him to chase me…” My face falls. I don’t care what the girls say; his silence is telling.

“Honey he already has you, why does he need to chase you?” Mariam poses.

I take a deep breath; let’s assume they are right. “So what do I do now?” I ask them.

“Here’s what will happen,” Jo says, leaning forward while I hope to the heavens she has the magic bullet to help calm my mind once and for all.