The Dice#15

Moses sighed in frustration as he tried Dunni’s line. It was engaged. For the past thirty minutes, he has been trying to call her. He dropped a chat hoping she would respond. “Hey! Buddy, hope you are fine. Just checking. Please call me when you can.”

Dunni responded immediately by placing her call on speaker and typed away. “Hey, you! Feels like a lifetime ago we really talked. Anyways can’t talk right now- in a middle of a call, heard your chat come in and still on the phone but had to reply. Talk to you in our catch-up meeting later in the week.

 Moses frustration rose a notch higher. Was Dunni his curse or nemesis? Why could he not get her out of his system? There were many girls out there. Why can’t he get attached to one of them and save him from this misery? How long would she begin to see that he loved her beyond their friendship and work partnership?

“Calm down, man,” he chided himself. He needed to try harder and make her see what they could have together. With Dunni, it was mixed signals. Sometimes, he could feel she cared for him as much as he did, and other times she had this strong wall built around her heart.

 He could recollect the first time, he saw her. She was walking down to the lecture centre for the general studies class. GST 001 but looking lost as she wandered from one lecture room to another one. Moses and Ola were sitting outside, waiting for the rest of the other students.

 She walked up to them with a shy hello, asking if they were waiting for the GST 001 class. Ola answered while Moses stared at this gangly teenager with beautiful light brown eyes. She had her braids falling everywhere but her face all the way to her hips. The softness of her voice felt like the taste of butter in his mouth. One look at her and he was smitten. He knew without a doubt she would be in his future but what he did not know was the pain she would bring him.

Dunni as she introduced herself, got talking with Ola while he pretended to be too busy reading his notes with an occasional nod here and there but stealing glances at her. The caramel-skinned girl was getting under his skin, and his hormones were going overdrive. He was not looking for a girlfriend at this point. He had his academics to focus and could not afford any distraction.

 Just when he was about to join the conversation, a guy who he had not seen walked about to them.

 “Hi, Dunni,” his deep-voiced boomed from such a small frame as he greeted them.

 She smiled up to him shyly, Moses’s heart stirred, and all he could feel was jealousy for this guy.

 Dunni walked away with him, not before dumping her books on Moses lap.

 “I will be back. Please save a seat for me,” and skipped away without a backward glance. The excitement in Dunni’s eyes dulled any hope in his heart, but he quickly shrugged it off.

 Ola called him out when she left. “Do you dislike her?”

 “No, there was nothing to say, so I left the chit chat to you.”

 “When have you ever left the chit chat to me?” Ola inquired with a raised eyebrow. His curiosity peaked.

 “There can always be a first time,” Moses argued. How could he explain, in just the first five minutes of their meeting what the mere sight of her was doing to his heart? He felt pain and excitement together and was as confused as can be. Was this love at first sight?

Dunni came back and sat by him this time, taking her books from him, he could feel the electric shock when their fingers touched. He knew Dunni felt it too with the way she opened eyes and grabbed her books quickly as she stood up.” I think I have to go now,” she stuttered. Moses smiled; he was not the only one. Campus life suddenly looked attractive. He was not going to do anything about his feelings. He had a 2.1 to leave school with that he owed himself and whatever his heart was feeling now, had to go with what his head was saying.

 If the feeling was mutual, then they had years ahead of them. Moses was just 18 years old, although he still could not tell her age, he could guess that she was younger than them.

 “Was that your boyfriend?” Ola asked matter of fact.

 “Just a friend,” she replied and wanted to know why he asked. Moses pretended still busy reading the book opened before him although he could not make sense of what he was reading, he was all ears on their conversation.

“Nothing,” Ola shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. “We need to know your friends and special friends so we can treat them nicely.”

 Moses was not sure what Ola was working at, but he had a feeling the guy must know something. These were questions he was dying to ask. For some reason, Dunni changed her mind from leaving and hung out with them, waiting for the lecture hall to be opened.

They chatted while they waited for the lecture that was later cancelled. The best thing that came out of that day was the friendship Moses, Ola and Dunni forged, and how inseparable the threesome became. Having Dunni around him was good enough. He could monitor and counter any other guy that came. Between Ola and him, guys stayed away thinking she was a girlfriend to one of them and he was contented with that.

 Their boats were rocked when Benji began dating Dunni. He’d never seen her that excited.

“Finally,” she beamed with a full smile lightening her face, as she stepped into the room Moses shared with Ola on campus.

 “Finally, what?” Ola asked

 Dunni twirled around. “Benji asked me out, and I said yes. I was beginning to think there was a problem with me. You know how no guy was hitting on me like my other roommates. It appeared they had something on me shouting, she’s taken. Stay away from her!”

Moses drawing pencil fell from his hands in shock. He grimaced with pain, engulfing his heart like none he had felt before—a feeling of emptiness, loss and despair.

 Dunni sashayed over to Moses workstation, with her chin resting in her palms, staring into his eyes from the opposite end of the table. “Are you not happy for me?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

He shrugged. “Don’t know what the fuss is about. It’s not like you are getting married. The relationship could fail, especially when the guy wants something that you are not able to give.

 He smirked. He knew Dunni’s virginity pact, and Benji did not look like the guy who would help her keep it.

 “Oh thank you, friend,” she stressed the word with a distaste he could feel in his mouth, “for your vote of no confidence. Killing my relationship before it even started.”

 She left him angry and went to Ola.

“Congratulations!” He celebrated with her and twirled her around. Raising his glass cup of water and passing another to her. He gave a toast, “To the boyfriend.” May this be the perfect one and lead to marriage.”

“Thank you.  Good to know one person is happy for me, unlike some people,” she pointed her chin in Moses direction.

 “I have a meeting with the departmental head,” Moses grabbed his sandals and rushed out of the room like one being chased by a thousand demons.

 “What’s wrong with Moses?”

 “Nothing, it’s his big brother instinct at work as you always say.”

Dunni giggled. “You guys are both my curse and nemesis. I left my brothers at home and met you guys in school.”

 “You sure Moses will be alright?” She worried.

 “Don’t worry that intelligent head of yours. He will be fine. His paranoia of someone taking advantage of you will wear out when he sees how Benji cares for you. You know we’ve taken you as our sister, and we have to protect you, but your happiness is more important.

Dunni walked up to Ola, dropping her glass cup on the table and hugged him.

 “Thanks, Ola. I desperately needed you guys to approve Benji. You are my friends, and I want you all to get along well.

Seeing Dunni with Benji was a constant pain, Moses learnt to live with. The problem was his feeling for Dunni did not just disappear. It increased like an inferno that threatened to consume him.

 Not too long, he started going out with a girl in another department but the same faculty.

Joke was petite like Dunni, but that was where the similarity ended. She was fair-skinned, mixed-race as her grandmother was American. She had the long Caucasian hair mixed with a little of the African texture which she most often than not braided without the extension. She was not the beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous type, but she was pretty and lovely in a way that got people drawn to her.

 Her eyes were grey with a mouth always coated in pink lip gloss. She could be loud and brash and in one instance and display the finesse of her American heritage at another. Still, all that would disappear when she spoke the Yoruba language with the air of one who grew up on the streets of Idumota market.

Moses and Joke had too many fights bordering around Dunni. Joke was obsessed with his relationship with Dunni that was becoming draining. Dunni was a name he rarely mentioned in their discussion as it always ended up in a fight. The girls were good together, but it was when they were alone that Joke seemed to find everything and anything wrong with Dunni. She had the most outrageous idea that Dunni was interested in snatching her boyfriend from her. Moses would not have minded if it was true. Joke was good for him, and she was his reality. What she did not know was that being with her was helping him get Dunni out of his head. He has even started avoiding her as much as he could, although that was difficult considering they attended the same classes and were in the same study group.

Moses had been with Joke for almost a year when she broke up with him. He was devastated as Joke had become less the anchor against the pain, he felt for losing Dunni and someone he could fall in love with. Joke walking out of his life really shook him, but that brought Dunni back into his life as she practically nursed him out of his heartache and not too long Benji broke up with her.

 Dunni hid the pain of her breakup by pouring herself into her studies and her friendship with the boys. But he did note that she built a strong wall around her heart and was weary of having any relationships after that.

Sixteen years down the line, they were not anywhere nearer to dating than they were when they first met. Moses wondered if he had been wrong in not making his feelings known when they first met. Was he wrong to think that chemistry will withstand the years till when they were ready? This was an unfinished business that Moses had to sort out upon his return to Lagos. It was time to lay the cards plain on the table, and if it did not work, he had to move on with his life no matter how hard that sounded.