…One day, the girl ran into the room “Cynthia! Cynthia! Deola is outside, I just saw him in front of room 3” I jumped up from bed, and went straight to wash my face and freshen up. The plan was to act like I was going out, then unintentionally run into him on the corridor and act surprised 🤣
I was ready, heading out, after a few steps, I looked up and there he was staring at me. He walked closer, smiled and said: “Hey Cynthia, how are you?” I replied “Fine, thank you” he asked where I was going, and I said “Out” He decided to see me off, and we chatted all along the way.
For someone with no bearing in mind, I mean I had nowhere to go so it was easy to get lost in the conversation before I knew it, we had gotten to the Faculty of Social Sciences. All it took was a glance at my phone for me to lie and say “Oh, the person I was supposed to see cancelled on me” We decided to sit and talk.. we talked the whole day, I indirectly asked about his relationship with his coursemates he replied, “we’re all cool, I guess but sometimes they’re weird, especially the girls” i.e, I’m a ladies man – Red flag. It was dark and it was time to go back to my hostel. The conversation rekindled everything that I thought was dead in me. He gave me his phone and I put my number in it.
I got to my hostel and downloaded all the gist to Tinu, I was hoping he’d text me immediately but he stayed off campus, his journey back would take a while so I didn’t sleep and decided to wait it out. About 2hrs later, I got a notification, “Hey, just got home, it was nice seeing you today” I of course, waited about 20 mins to reply (girl code: never let your excitement show, especially when it’s a new man – you want to make sure the energy is reciprocated before overdoing it) Anyway, that text would be the beginning of our award-winning “textversations” we called it that because we texted like we were talking in person, back and forth every single minute of every day. In class, we texted, in the toilet, in the salon, on the bike, on the bus, first thing in the morning till someone sleeps off at night. Sometimes we would pick outfits for each other via texts. No cap, I’m sure MTN made 6 figures from us. There was no break, this was our routine and I was down for it. I had never been in love so I didn’t know what love felt like but this felt like it. I would meet him outside my hostel some evenings after class and we’ll hang out till daybreak. Sometimes we’d take strolls, I met his cousin again and we laughed about the classroom incident, he said Tinu had a big mouth but became soft when he had to repeat it in her presence. Soon, they became friends and we’ll all hang out together – Adeola, his cousin, Tinu, and I. We went to New Bukateria for pounded yam almost every day and skipped classes just to sit around and do fashion police on random people’s outfits. It was fun and with time the fondness grew.
One night, I went to see him outside my hostel as usual. It was a cold night and we decided to walk around to get a little warm. We were walking, I was doing the most random things on the road like dancing, laughing, going in the opposite direction and just being intentionally stupid, he laughed and laughed. He begged me to get it together cos he wanted me to listen to his favourite song. He brought out his phone and played Westlife’s “Queen of My Heart”. I had heard the song in the past but it never really made any sense to me like it did that night maybe because I always saw it as a random love song and mostly because I heard it with no heart. I realized it’s pointless listening to a love song when you have nobody in mind; It’s like pouring water into a basket. That night, with him by my side, that was the most sensation I had ever earned out of music.
I can still hear him singing the words “This memory will last for eternity… till I find my way back to your arms again and until that day, you’ll know you are, the queen of my heart” He sounded like an angel, his voice wavered from one note to the other in a professional manner. I had never heard a man sing like that, it was so good so much that I was intimidated to join in the singing cos I was very sure I would contaminate it, I just let him do his thing. He hugged me and whistled into my ears, walking from faculty to faculty just living in the moment. We were young, crazy, dumb and free, it was 2 am and we were on our third album of the night. He’s an old soul and enjoyed archaic music; “they were solemn and meaningful” he explained. He had a beautiful and dour taste in music but wasn’t dismissive when I took over with my playlist, he enjoyed my strange music even though he said the vibe had no flow, it went from, Adele to Olamide, from Kesha to Shatta Wale, from Brymo to Soyoyo. My playlist was dissonant yet he listened, sang along, and danced to it. We were having the best time, so we decided to sit and rest a little. He put the right earbud of his earphones in my ear and the other in his.
The weather was bleak and we were sharing his jacket, he moved closer to me and I leaned my head on his shoulder. He smelled woody, like a base of fougere, lavender, and oakmoss creating a heady herbaceous scent. A good scent is such a huge turn-on for me, and so I wanted to eat him up, literally. His jacket smelled of the fog, it was warm and generally pleasing. We eventually ran out of things to say or we got tired of talking and just decided to listen to music in silence. He carefully selected the songs such that every song was particular to our situation, I blushed and soon the silence became awkward. He was looking and staring into my eyes, I pretended to be falling asleep. He started to touch my hair in an oscillatory motion, I chuckled and readjusted then he said: “I knew you weren’t asleep” I smiled and said, “I’m a light sleeper” he asked if I wanted to lie down on the slab and put my head on his lap, which I did.
Ok, so here I was, lying face-up on his lap looking straight into the stars and at him, he was head down looking directly at me. It was awkward and suspenseful. My heart beat faster and faster as his face came up to mine. I didn’t know what to do or say and so I just laid there like I was lifeless. When he got close enough, he slowly pulled my hair back, smiled and kissed me, I didn’t kiss him back. I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear, I tried to pay attention. He stopped and asked, “Is it okay?” I said “Yes” he smiled and asked “Sure?” That was when I knew I had to participate, I nodded, pulled his head to mine and kissed him, with all the passion in the world. His lips were soft like butter and cold as ice, I pulled his bottom lip out every chance I got. We didn’t stop and before I knew it, I was sitting, legs opened on his thighs in a manner in which my legs were crossed behind his back. I wrapped my hand around his neck and tickled his hair, we kissed slowly and randomly paused to say stuff like “Your hair smells nice” and “Are you still cold?” after about 30 minutes of locking lips, he stared at me like he was staring into my soul, I stared back and we both burst out heavy laughter. He asked why I laughed, and I asked why he laughed, none of us had an answer but we both continued laughing.
Why we laughed is still a mystery to this day.
