Love's Second Chance

by Myne Whitman

  Ofure came to sit beside him. “I used to agree with you, but I watched her in the car park,” he said, “She looked just as upset as you were, so maybe there’s some truth to what she says. I honored your wish not to discuss Efe after you discovered she left the country, but do you remember when I searched for her in UniBen? Students were on holidays then, but I found that in her rush to withdraw she did not wait for a transcript. Don’t you wonder why she gave it all up? Is it possible she was ignorant of the crash, and forced to leave, maybe by her parents?”

  Kevwe shut his eyes. Seven years ago, he forbade Ofure from probing into his heartbreak because he felt it was the best way to put the episode behind him. With his parents refusing to get involved, the search for Efe began two months after the crash because only then would Ofure agree to leave him for any length of time.

  The accident happened in March, and in the months before Ofure returned to America in August, Efe and her family had disappeared into thin air. Before leaving for Germany in the December of 2002, Kevwe put the lid on any wishes or thoughts of Efe coming back to him.

  “But however deep you buried it, you still want Efe.”

  “Yes,” Kevwe murmured. He looked up, baring his deepest thoughts. There had been no woman since, and now maybe there could not be anyone other than Efe. The feelings for her he’d thought dead only needed to be scratched to surface again. They had been simmering since last week when Ofure told him about her.

  “You do love her.” Ofure met his gaze.

  Kevwe let his head hang. Her betrayal may have wounded him, but it hadn’t killed his love, he knew that now. But love needed a strong foundation of trust, and he wasn’t exactly sure if they could ever find that place together once more.

  He turned to his twin with vulnerable eyes. “How can we start again with the past shadowing us? I don’t know how to do this.”

  Ofure placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, “Kevwe, take things one at a time. Go and see Efe, listen to what she has to say, and listen to your heart. Love doesn’t go wrong. By the way, did you ask her about Adetiba?” Ofure raised an eyebrow.

  Kevwe shook his head. He’d been so caught up in the moment when he’d stood with Efe in the car park, he forgot everything, any other person. The years had rolled back when she hugged him, and he’d imagined she was all his. Then when she claimed to be unaware of the crash, the turmoil had overtaken the joy and thrown him back into the pain and anger of loss.

  “You know all this won’t matter if she’s engaged?” Ofure raised his eyebrows. “You may never get her again?”

  “You don’t understand. Efe is like a part of me, we were meant for each other. If we can work this out, we’ll be fine. I know it.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Ofure asked, getting up to pick some charts.

  Kevwe shrugged, remembering the way she’d talked, her tears, how she looked into his eyes, and touched him. It was possible Efe still cared for him. Even if she was engaged, he had to find out his chances; he couldn’t just let her go. “As far as she’s not married, we’ll beat this.”

  Ofure stood at the door. “Love will usually help work things out, but go slow, don’t fly off the handle. Remember the patience you once used to woo her?”

  Kevwe studied the card in his hand after his twin left. He preferred to believe Efe had feelings for him, and he only had to find a way to get them past this block. He would contact Efe and then try to recreate the sweetness of their first love.

  **

  Efe returned to the office quivering. She knew no more meaningful work was possible that day, so she took permission from her boss, picked up her bag and left. Thank God for all the times she’d worked late; Mr. Akinyele usually frowned on staff leaving before their shift ended, and hers was to have run till ten.

  At home, she sat on one of the dining-room chairs staring with unseeing eyes at the plate of rice she’d microwaved. Her mind was far away, and when the phone rang, she jumped. She was disoriented at first, and didn’t know whether it had been the doorbell or the phone. When it rang again, she picked up the BlackBerry, her hand shaking.

  “Who is it?” she asked in a small voice.

  “It’s me, Kevwe. We have to talk.”

  Efe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t as if she had not been expecting this, she’d been hoping he would call. The tears were close, but she blinked several times to stop them.

  “Where are you?” Kevwe continued.

  “I’m home.” Efe decided to be open and vulnerable. The meeting with Kevwe had rattled her, but it made one thing plain, she still cared a lot for him. And if he had come to Abuja to meet with her, then it was the least she could do. “I couldn’t remain in the office after what happened earlier.”

  “Forgive me for spoiling your day. I knew we would meet, but I didn’t think about how it would affect you.”

  “That’s fine. I thought I was only going to see your brother, so it was tricky to get faced with you too.” Efe recalled the past few hours. “It didn’t help too how you tried to jump down my throat in the car park. I only told you the truth.”

  “I’m sorry, believe me, and I do want to hear your truth.”

  After Efe gave him her address, he said to expect him within the hour and dropped the phone. She saved his number to her contacts and then changed into a long, colorful sundress with small sleeves. Washing her face, putting on fresh make-up and tidying up the apartment kept her hands busy as thoughts swirled in her mind.

  Except for the brief moment at the beginning when Kevwe’s feelings had been written in his eyes, he’d been a different person. Now, listening to his voice on the phone, she could see the emotional man again, the one who’d stolen her heart.

  **

  When the bell sounded around 8pm, nerves dogged her steps as she went to get the door. Kevwe walked over the threshold, and she was struck again by how much it seemed like time had not passed and yet so many things were different. With the shock of the first meeting out of the way, Efe now noticed how fantastic he looked.

  Still dressed in the fitted lightweight suit and jeans he’d been wearing earlier, he exuded confidence. A moustache dusted his upper lip, and the scars on his face only added to his dashing looks. Those same features had made her the envy of a lot of girls in UniBen, but he didn’t belong to her anymore, and hadn’t for the past seven years. Her attraction to him had to be subdued; he must’ve moved on by now. She felt his eyes on her and turned away.

  “You look beautiful, Efe,” he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t say it at the hospital. The years have been kind to you.” Her dark eyes were stormy with emotion, negating the severity of her hairstyle which had her braids caught in a bun at the back of her head. Her face stood out, wide, long lashed eyes, and a small nose and mouth. She avoided his gaze, her chin pointing down to her chest, and Kevwe noticed again how much she had filled out.

  She gestured towards the armchair, as she rested gingerly against her teal settee. He ignored the armchair, and joined her on the settee. He continued studying her but she looked away. Sitting beside him, and being alone with him in the small confines of the air-conditioned flat, got to her.

  “Can I get you something?” She broke the quiet and shifted forward, ready to stand.

  Kevwe shook his head. The question struck him with a strong sense of déjà vu. How many times had she asked him that while they were in university? He reached out and placed his palm over her left hand which was closest to him. She was startled but did not move away. “Let’s just do this.”

  After waiting a minute for her to start, he decided to go first. “Tell me why you were not there after my accident. As my fiancée, you were the first person I asked for when I first regained consciousness. It was a blow to hear you deserted me because you thought I was crippled. I was shattered and it drove me crazy.”

  Efe stared at him. “I already told you I didn’t know.”

  “But how can it be?”

  “Please answer
this,” she begged in low tones, putting into words the only sense she could make of what happened. “Did you mean to marry me eight years ago?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And were your parents in total support of your plans?”

  “My father may have had his issues, but when he knew how serious I was about you, he was ready to accept you as a daughter-in-law.” Kevwe was puzzled by her questions. He’d taken her to meet them after all. “My mother loved you.”

  “Then I don’t understand. Why did they tell me you didn’t want me anymore?”

  Kevwe recoiled. “Why would my parents do that?”

  “I’d like to know too.” A strange smile played on her lips.

  “Efe, this is serious. I’d understand if someone had intercepted the message from my dad, but who returned your ring?” That had been the final nail in the coffin when his search for her ended fruitlessly. And there was no way his parents could have deliberately hurt him, not while he was on a hospital bed.

  “I returned the ring, but not willingly!” Her heart lightened at the confusion on his face, he’d not been a part of it. All along, from Utako to the hotel, and back home, she’d wondered if he was playing a charade. Was it possible he’d broken up with her, but now wanted a devious way to get back into her good books?

  “Your parents said they’d convinced you I was unworthy, and you wanted them to pass along your message to me. Your father was ecstatic you never wanted to see or talk to me. Your mother was there too, she took my engagement ring at the end.”

  “Stop this! Don’t make up these stories,” Kevwe snapped, his fingers drumming on his knees as he moved forward on his seat. “It was a miracle I did not die when I learnt you left me.”

  Anger burned low in him. Efe and his father had not got on, but the old man couldn’t have taken matters into his hands. His mother knew how close he was to Efe, and had loved her like a daughter.

  “Do you call me a liar?” Efe asked, her voice rising over his.

  “Someone is clearly playing with the truth.” Kevwe shook his head in vehemence. “Listen, my parents stood by me through it all, my mother in particular. When I wanted to give up because you, Efe, you were not there, she sat at my bedside throughout the night and spoon-fed me. When the POP cast itched, it was my mother who scratched it for me. Where were you when the pain overwhelmed me, and I cried like a baby? Where were you when the physiotherapist pushed me to learn to walk again? Were you there to encourage me? Were you?”

  Kevwe jerked out of the dark past to the present, and heard Efe run out of the room. He followed her, but stood at the bedroom door while she blew her nose into a handkerchief. He bit his tongue and turned his head away.

  Efe had not been able to stop the sobs. It broke her heart to hear him talk about the aftermath of his accident with such pain, and she’d not been there to support him. She raised a face covered with streaming tears up to him. “That must have been horrible time for you. I can’t imagine the terrible suffering you went through.”

  “So you understand why I don’t want to hear any bad word about my parents. They were there for me when you disappeared.”

  Fresh tears sprang to Efe’s eyes, but she blinked them away. This was the worst mix-up of all time, and it frustrated her he still didn’t quite believe she hadn’t abandoned him. She walked to the settee, and this time he took the armchair.

  “I don’t think we’ll achieve anything by going round in circles,” she said, “There are three people who witnessed what I just told you, your father, his friend, Mr. Edewor and your mother. We can find out the truth from any of them…” Efe tried to piece the fabric of what had truly happened in 2002 together. Had it been a conspiracy?

  The calm in her voice struck him, and looking closer, Kevwe accepted she told him the truth as she knew it. It would be convenient to blame Efe for accepting he broke their engagement, but he remembered he had also taken as gospel his parents’ words that she left him. He tugged at the collar of his shirt.

  Perhaps he could accept his father had deceived her, but his mother? He thought of Ofure, but his twin only knew the same as him, exactly what their parents had told them.

  Efe crossed her legs, damning Kevwe for his stubbornness as she watched conflicting emotions flit across his face. She knew she had to consider the right words to say. This was dangerous ground because of how attached Kevwe was to his mother.

  “Let’s ask your mother,” she said finally, her breath coming short and fast. “After she took our engagement ring away, I had to accept you didn’t want me anymore.”

  The others might deny deceiving her, but not Mrs. Mukoro. It was possible his mother didn’t support what happened, but if they’d planned to hurt her, Efe wanted to know why.

  “My mother knew how much you meant to me!” Kevwe shook his head and his eyes narrowed. His mother couldn’t have been part of it, even if she had been there. He could believe his father had pulled off an elaborate charade, but not his mother. He wished for a way to confirm what Efe said without getting his mother involved. Confronting her smacked of the highest level of ingratitude after all she had done for him.

  “What exactly do you want?” Kevwe remembered Ofure’s warning to be rational, and gentled his voice.

  Efe spread out her hands. “I think your parents deceived me, and I want an explanation and an apology.” She had envisaged this several times, and she didn’t have to think hard for the answer.

  Kevwe stood and paced the room. His mother couldn’t have known. Even if she let it slide while he was hospitalized, she would’ve told him when he got better. He tried to think of the ways forward, knowing this couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  His mother still mourned their father and would be shattered to hear what had done this to them all. But what if she knew or she chose to defend her husband? Kevwe couldn’t imagine pitting the two women he cared for head to head.

  Efe shook her head as she watched him pace, the past about to choke her with thoughts of her experience of first love. She didn’t blink as she faced Kevwe; maybe so much water had passed under the bridge, and there was no need to dredge. Either Kevwe did not care for her as she thought, or he did not want a future with her.

  Even if they were both single, they had to move on and forget the past. She pulled the unraveling shreds of her dignity around her like a cloak and stood up too. It was hard to discount their history, the ups and downs of their previous relationship, but maybe that was what she had to do.

  **

  9

  Abuja. November 27, 2009. 8.30pm

  Kevwe faced Efe across the living room. She now stood at the door, but he didn’t want to leave yet, and not on a hostile note. He felt they had a chance, and if he were careful, he would get past her walls. Since he left Ofure’s office to come here, all he’d been thinking of was their past love and how to win her back.

  “Efe, do you remember UniBen?” He finally said. “Well, this reminds me of those first days you kept trying to warn me off,” Kevwe continued. “You were either too young or I was in a secret cult. And then we were the perfect soul mates, the best couple on campus, and we had it all. You were the first woman I loved. You were to be my lover and the mother of my children.”

  Efe looked into those golden eyes, and it was like the first time in the Hall 2 common room. She was a 19 year old Jambite, and he was her toaster. Ripples of passion washed over her, and she returned to her seat as hope flared, an echo of when she’d seen him in his brother’s office.

  “Kevwe, you don’t know how much I hurt. Seven, long, years.” Efe bit her tongue. Damn, she’d warned herself not to expose that to him, nor say anything to get his pity. In the few hours since seeing him again, she’d broken all the rules she made for this meeting.

  “We’ll get over this,” he said, “Let’s forget the issue with my parents for a moment because they don’t change things. Let’s think about the two of us.”

  “You think I’ll jump int
o your arms, no questions asked?”

  “I’m willing to woo you all over.” His deep whisper promised a lot, as he moving to sit beside her and take her hand. “You’re right, we were both hurt, but we can overcome it. I believe our reconciliation will come if you let it.”

  Efe doubted it would be so easy. She knew it could be a mistake to be swayed, but the walls around her heart were shaking loose. She withdrew her fingers from his grip. Her brain was mush with him so close, and she could do without his touch confusing her further.

  Along with nightmares of their break-up, she’d dreamt that one day he would beg to reconcile. But not like this. He wanted her, and that was good. But how she would face his family without the past being resolved? She didn’t want to sweep it under the carpet.

  In a sudden move, Kevwe knelt before her. He gripped her wrist and stared into her eyes, intertwining their fingers right there on her thighs. There was no pity in his gaze, or in the feel of his hand.

  Efe trembled. She would have jumped up if the feel of their fingers kneading her lap did not distract her so much. Her heart raced, and she could not think straight.

  “Let me show you how much I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his eyes glowing.

  His fingers stroked over her slender knuckles and along the length of her thigh. A rush of pleasure suffused her brain as he leaned towards her. His manly scent flooded her senses, and her head swam. God, she wanted to melt into him. Her heart jumped as she remembered how it used to be between them.

  They had been young, so much in love. They’d shared a lot together, and it had been exceptional. Though she’d stopped just short of giving everything, he’d been the biggest part of her life for three years. When they split she missed him so much, and she had been filled with regrets. Maybe going all the way with him would release her from the prison of loss. Her body certainly wanted it, but should she allow it?