by Nana Prah
“You’re right. I got confused for a second.” Adam chuckled before taking a drink of his beer. “What happened today?”
Jason explained the debacle of the encounter he’d had with Ora.
“I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.” Adam emphasised each word. “I told you not to surprise her like that. It must have freaked her out.” He shook his head with a know-it-all smile plastered his face.
“I thought it would work. Besides, she wouldn’t have talked to me if I called her on the phone. What do I do now?”
Adam leaned back in the booth. “Now you want my advice? From everything you told me, this woman is stubborn with a capital S. You’ve told me the story ad-nauseam, but I still don’t understand the whole situation. She dumps you and now you’re in Ghana chasing after her three years later. Chale, you should’ve moved on long ago.”
Jason sighed. “I tried. You wouldn’t believe how many women I attempted to move on with.” He smiled at Adam’s interested look, but kept going. “But Ora stayed on my mind and in my heart. I knew her for a few days, but the woman has infested herself into my system.”
“Yeah, just like the Ebola virus.”
“I can’t seem to shake her out. I need to find out if my imagination created what happened between us. I want a chance with her.”
“I still don’t understand, but what can a confirmed bachelor say? There aren’t enough mops in the world to clean up the messes love creates. Better to leave that shit alone.”
“That’s mature, Adam. I can’t wait until you get knocked upside the head by love. It happens to everyone at one point or another and it tends to be unexpected. I used to be just like you until I met Ora, and now I’m stuck on her. What am I going to do?”
“I’ve had my vaccine against falling in love.” Adam rubbed his shoulder muscle and laughed. “Relationships aren’t my thing, but I do know a whole lot about women. Why am even helping you? You were so depressed when she left you.” He shook his head. “My overwhelming concern made me take a trip down to see you.”
Jason smiled. “South Africa hosted Miss World that year and you wanted to get a front row seat to the competition.”
“A ruse to come check up on you.”
“If you say so.”
Adam’s upper lip curled. “Never did get a thanks for that. A guy gets dumped and he becomes an ungrateful bastard.”
“Sorry. Thanks for coming down and dragging me to the Miss World competition against my will. Thanks for taking me from party to party and introducing me to women I had no interest in talking to, much less wanted to date. Thank you for—”
“No problem, man. That’s what friends are for.”
Adam’s loud chuckle made Jason laugh with him.
“What do I do now, Dr. Knows Women?”
“There’s no need for the sarcasm. You have to give her time to think. She never thought she’d see you again and here you are at her doorstep saying, ‘Surprise.’”
He had no desire to give the woman of his heart any more time. Hugs, kisses, and long conversations, yes. But not more time. He conceded to Adam’s legitimate advice. “How much?”
“A couple of days. Don’t meet her at work, though. Get her alone in her own space. She’ll feel more comfortable and not so on the spot. Since you do the surprising thing so well, let it work for you this time. Show up at her house and tell her the truth.” Adam shook his head. “I can’t believe you have me consulting like I’m some damn Oprah Winfrey or something. Jeez, man.”
Jason laughed. The food arrived and they turned the conversation to the football game playing on the screen.
***
Ora’s door burst open and in the next instance, her cousin, best friend, and housemate, Esi flew onto her bed like Superman minus the cape.
Ora shook her head. Why did she ever expect her cousin to change? “How come you never do that on your bed?”
“I don’t want to break it.” Esi laughed. “Besides, yours has springs and I feel like it’s going to toss me back into the air when I land on it. How was your day?”
Ora shrugged and shifted her position in her armchair. “Fine. And yours?”
“A little hectic, but fantastic. I delivered twins. The miracle of life always fascinates me. They were beautiful and the mother is doing well. I’m the best midwife in the whole wide world.” She held her arms out wide. “No, the universe.”
Ora rolled her eyes. “It’s your humility that never ceases to amaze me.”
“Well, when you’re good, you’re good. Why hide the truth?” She picked up the book lying on Ora’s bed and cringed. “Why you read these romance novels. They’re a bunch of crap.”
Ora arched an eyebrow. “I can’t get over how the most romantic person in the world—no, the universe—can have such disdain for romance books. They always end up with the couple getting together and living happily ever after.”
“We’ve had this conversation a million times and you can’t convince me. Give me a good crime novel over this sappy garbage any day and I’m a happy girl.”
Ora chewed on the inside of her cheek trying to delay the inevitable. The information burst out like a geyser. “I ran into Jason Lartey today.”
Esi’s eyes widened and she sprang to a sitting position, making the book fly across the bed. “The Jason Lartey. The one from South Africa? That one? The doctor? You mean that one, right? Or is there another one? Jason Lartey, right? I didn’t mishear you, did I?”
“Is a slap needed to get you back to normal?” Ora’s eyes narrowed. Her cousin’s dramatic way had increased by spades.
Esi’s eyes remained wide. “I’m shocked.”
Ora placed her hands over her face. “My chest became so tight I thought I may have been suffering a heart attack when I saw him standing in the ED doing ward rounds.”
Esi squinted at her as if she had x-ray vision. “Let me wrap my head around this. You saw the love of your life after three years and you wait until now to tell me? I’m hurt. If it had been me, I would have run right to you and told you.”
She laughed. “Esi, the whole hospital would have known by the time you got to me. I needed time to process.”
“I know how you are Little Miss Keep Everything Quiet. Did he tell you what he’s doing in Ghana?”
“Looks like he’s working. He mentioned when we met in Cape Town that his father is from here, but he’d spent most of his life in South Africa where his mother is from.”
“How do you feel?”
She shrugged. “Like I’ve been hit in the stomach by Mike Tyson.”
Esi nodded in understanding. “Tell me everything that happened. What did he say? What did you say? How did he look?”
She told the story, unable to completely express the combination of overwhelming joy and overpowering sadness that ran through her when she first saw him.
They sat in silence for a short while before Esi touched her on the shoulder. “You know you have to face him sooner or later.”
“I know, but I’m going to try to make it later.”
“Does this mean you’re not going into work tomorrow? You know that if you don’t go to work, I can’t go in, either,” she piped in.
“Your logic, or rather lack of it, astounds me. What would me not going into work have anything to do with you? Of course I’ll go. I just won’t give him the opportunity to say the dreaded words if I see him.”
“What dreaded words? ‘There’s no more chocolate left?’”
The comment made her laugh. “No silly. ‘We need to talk.’”
“Those dreaded words. Maybe you should go on the offensive and say it first. Get it out of the way.”
“I’ll take my chances by being a chicken.”
“Don’t let your fear of commitment drive away another good man,” Esi mumbled.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“What did you mean by my fear of commitment? I don’t have a fear of commitment. I’ve been in committed relat
ionships lots of times.”
Ora cringed inside when she thought about the reason she’d wanted to continue with marrying her ex-fiancé instead of trying to make it work with the man she had loved from the core of her being. She’d wanted to prove to herself that she could be committed.
“Did any of them last?”
“Well, no. But I don’t have a fear of commitment.” Just a paralyzing fear of men leaving me. Like Jason would have done sooner or later.
Esi frowned. “If you say so, cuz.”
Ora couldn’t blame her for not believing her; she didn’t believe it herself. “I say so.”
Chapter Three
Three days, and not a sign of the man who had once caused her heart to fill with so much love that she had thought it would burst. Anxiety burned a hole into her stomach. What was he up to? He had shown up out of the blue and now he’d disappeared.
The day after their encounter, she learned he’d been filling in for Dr. Boakye’s replacement. On Tuesday, her introduction to Dr. Ampofo, the new ED doctor, caused a wave of relief to wash over her. She’d gotten a reprieve. By the time the day ended and she hadn’t seen Jason, she let her nerves take a break.
Seeing him again had opened up a barrage of memories she’d been able to keep locked away.
“This is crazy,” she mumbled, not for the first time, to herself while home alone on Wednesday evening, trying to read a novel. “I can’t let him stress me. He’s just a man.”
But she knew better. He’d been the man who captured her heart in such an overwhelming manner that even after three years, she still hadn’t gotten over him.
The chiming of the doorbell startled her out of her depressed thoughts. After peeping though the side window, she dove to the floor.
“I know you’re in there, Aurora. I saw you look out the window. Please open the door. I need to talk to you.”
“Sugar,” she mumbled instead of the other more potent “S” word that had threatened to slip out of her mouth.
She pushed herself up off the floor, patted her hair in place, and made sure her clothes were in order after doing her tuck and roll manoeuvre.
The panel swung open. “Good evening,” she said without a smile. Her voice held steady although she trembled all over.
“Good evening.”
“Please come in.” Ora took a deep breath as he walked past her and she almost fell onto his back when she caught the familiar spicy citrus scent of his cologne. The desire to burrow her face into his neck threatened to overwhelm her.
She walked into the hall and led him to an armchair. She’d been tickled when she learned a hall was called a living room elsewhere when she’d visited a decorating show in South Africa before meeting Jason.
“Please have a seat. Can I get you some water? We also have minerals—Coke, malt, and juice.”
“Water would be fine, thank you.”
“I’ll be right back.” In the kitchen, she took her time gathering a tray, two glasses and a bottle of water, then did a slow death row walk back into the hall trying to forestall “the talk” for as long as possible.
She opened the bottle and poured it into the glass for him and then for herself.
“Thank you.” He took a sip. She drank her full glass and refilled it, wishing the glass contained rum instead.
She covertly watched him. His brown skin reminded her of raw sugar darkened with extra molasses. She settled her gaze on his firm, thick brown lips and her body heated up at the thought of what she wanted to do to them.
“What are you doing here?” she asked a little harsher than intended. Those errant thoughts would lead her someplace she could never go.
He chuckled. “You always did like to get straight to the point. I needed to talk to you.”
She raised her eyebrows as if saying, “Well, talk then.”
“What happened?”
“What happened to what?” she asked, knowing full well what he meant.
His dimple appeared when he grinned at her evasion technique and her stomach quivered.
“What happened to you? Why did you close me out on our last morning together and not tell me how to get in touch with you? What happened to make you stop all contact with me once you got back to Ghana and told me you’d arrived? Instead of using your own cell phone, you used a service. I found this out the hard way when I tried to call you back.”
Experience had taught her that if she didn’t tell him the truth, she’d regret it, and she’d had more than enough of those in the past three years. She scooted forward to the edge of her seat and clasped her hands together. “Let me ask you a question first.”
“Okay.”
“Why aren’t you angry with me? You hunt me down at my home after I refuse to talk to you for years, and if we hadn’t met by accident at the hospital, we would have never seen each other again. I’d be angry with me if I were you.”
His expression remained neutral. If she’d been in his shoes, she would’ve been pissed enough to key his car; not have a polite conversation with him.
“Well, you aren’t me,” he said in a quiet voice. “Do you think us meeting at the hospital was a coincidence?”
She’d been trying to school her reactions, but she couldn’t hide her confusion. Unable to respond, she waited for him to continue.
“Ora, you’ve been on my mind every single day since I last saw you. Six months ago, I decided to look for you. Once I learned where you worked and that you hadn’t married, I quit my job and relocated to Ghana.”
She gasped, placing both of her hands on her chest. “You moved all the way here for me?” There had to be more to the story. Nobody would pick up and leave their home for a lost love. At least she didn’t think they would.
“Well, for you and my parents. They returned to Ghana two years ago and were harassing me to relocate here so we can be together. On Monday I picked up the courage to see you. Dr. Ampofo had a family emergency so I volunteered to do his rounds for the day.”
She slumped back into the couch, incredulous. “You engineered the meeting? You looked so shocked to see me.”
“I was. Seeing you confirmed that our connection hadn’t been imagined. Your grace and beauty took my breath away.”
She ignored the pleasurable heat snaking up her neck in order to focus on her annoyance at his manipulating his way into her life. “You could have called. I presume since you know where I work and live, you have my phone number.” Each word she spoke came out hard and clipped.
“Would you have met me if I’d called?”
With his question, her irritation dissipated. She hesitated for a second before answering with her voice little more than a whisper. “No.”
His expression broke her heart. One touch to his handsome face would help them both through the pain she’d caused. She longed to have his skin touch hers once more, but she didn’t move.
“I have my own personal stalker,” she said to lighten the mood.
The lines around his mouth deepened with a scowl. “I’m not a stalker.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Your actions tell me something different, Dr. Lartey.”
“It may seem that way, but that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what’s going on?”
He crossed both arms over his broad chest. “Miss Aurora Serwaa Aikins, you’ve asked an abundance of questions and now it’s time to get down to mine.”
“All right. I’m surprised you remember my full name.”
“There’s a lot I remember about you, but you’re stalling.”
Her mind wandered back to their time together in South Africa while she thought of what she’d tell him. She smiled before she could stop herself.
“Ora? Are you all right?” He touched her shoulder.
She shook her head trying to clear it, surprised to see him sitting on the couch with her. “Pardon me?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, why?”
“You seemed a galaxy awa
y.”
“Oh. Lost in a memory. Sorry.”
“What were you remembering?”
“When we first met,” she replied after a slight hesitation.
Jason smiled. “I thought you were one of the most wonderful women I had ever met. I still do.”
This time, the compliment made her stomach flip. “Thanks.”
“I was so nervous that day at the hospital. The strength of my attraction to you seemed unreal. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, but somehow, I had to see you again. I didn’t care that you were engaged, I had to get to know you.”
Silence loomed like the aftermath of a sonic boom.
He cleared his throat. “But my favourite memory is the last night when we talked until just before the sun came up. We couldn’t have spent the time any better than we did. I wanted to live in those moments forever.”
The raw emotion in his voice rendered her speechless. The night had replayed itself so much in her mind that she’d been sure the DJ of life did it as a punishment. The moment she’d woken up and seen his peaceful sleeping countenance, she realized she’d fallen in love for the first time in her life with the most amazing man in the world.
“You haven’t answered my question. What happened? We were having such a good time.”
Ora shrugged. “My vacation had ended.”
“But you didn’t stay in contact once you were in Ghana. You dropped me.”
“The most important thing was me getting on with my life. You knew I had a man waiting for me.” She feared the intensity in his eyes and looked away. Her gaze met one of her favourite paintings, done by a Ghanaian artist, displaying the bliss of a child splashing in the ocean. The painting didn’t bring about the sense of joy it tended to evoke in her. Instead, she wished the sea in the image could swallow up her pain.
“Is this the same man you never married?”
His question hit a nerve.
She stood and walked to the other side of the hall. The world outside the window ceased to exist. She found herself stuck in memories of sadness and regret. “I had to try to make things work with him. He was my fiancé and I had done him a grave injustice by being with you.”
