Broken Heart CHAPTER 2

Before my eventual expiration, I plan to bid my dear ones farewell, and apologize to those I knew I had wronged. Though, I had no plans of telling any of them I was dying. With my demise drawn shorter to six months, I knew I had to hush things up and make the visits while I still can and before my cancer becomes very evident. I had to visit Susan, my ex, while I still can. Susan fitted into both categories of people I owed a visit. She was someone I held dear and someone I had wronged. My hands were clammy. I was nervous as Stanley drove me to the address that was claimed to be Susan’s. A knack seized my stomach as the feeling of guilt and regrets preyed on my heart and mind, proving impossible to shake off. I felt how the prodigal son must have felt when going back to his father. It was only natural that I felt this way after what I had done to her seven years ago. Stanley pulled the G-Wagon over with a fancy swerve before a large but simple-designed steel gate, in a popular estate in the heart of Lekki.

I peered out of the window at the house. It was two storeys tall, with a balcony overlooking the street and fronted by a combination of glass and silver steel rays. Though compact, it was built with a great sense of style and boasted of such luxury that must have bled a pocket, just like the other houses that made a neat row on both sides of the road. Susan is doing great! I got off the car as Stanley cooled the engine and relaxed for a patient wait. I knocked on the gate and before long, a man who was as fat as he was short appeared before the gate, filling every inch of it. He had a permanent scowl carved onto his fat face. He inquired about my visit, and I told him I wanted to see Susan. Susan must be going by another name here as he didn’t recognize the name. He asked for mine. “Damian Lawson” I told him. He rowed his head contemplatively to both sides, searching his mental library for the name. There was something about the action that makes one doubt if there really is a brain in his fat head. He finally decided he hadn’t heard the name before. He shut the gate on me and came back a minute later to walk me into the house.

I entered the living room and what I saw betrayed the extravagance and luxury that the exterior flaunted. Two aged sofas with torn leathers maintained a miserable existence in the room. The curtains were drab and faded from continuous washing, and an old aquarium sat where a TV should be.

I was taken aback by the whole setup, the Susan I knew wasn’t one to live a life of pretense. Had I been wrong about her? Was this the real Susan? I watched her walk down the stairs to me, and like the wave of a magical wand, my previous thoughts left me. The sight of her sparked a reaction in me, as it always had and I was reminded once more that whatever I felt for her seven years ago still breathed within me. That she was the only woman I loved, and would ever love even if I were to be given a hundred years more to live. She certainly hadn’t aged a day and was just as I remembered her. If not for the clothes; a shiny evening dress that showed more of her legs, I would have thought it was another of my memories of her, playing itself before my eyes. Her skin was of warm honey and was as clear as silk, just as I remembered.

She widened her beautiful toffee-brown eyes at the surprise of seeing me. They were hidden beneath waves of recently fixed lashes.

“Damian” she practically screamed my name, extending her hand for a handshake “How have you been”.

It warmed my dying heart to hear her crispy and lovely voice say my name once again. I nearly purred against her shoulder and asked her to repeat my name with that lovely voice again. A tingling sensation seized my core as I held her soft hands in the dryness of my own. “II-I-IIIII- ha- have been well” I stammered and quickly released her hand before she could suspect that mine were shaking.

I noticed her bust was a little less heavy than before, but her waistline was still barely slim. Above and beneath her waist was a figure God must have spent a decade molding into perfection. The sight of her could spark up immoral thoughts even in the sacred heart of a Priest, and I was no Priest.

I quickly checked my thoughts and reminded myself that I was a dying man, and should have not the luxury of such thoughts. There was no future for us, even if we succeeded in making up. She studied my face for a while, my slightly pale skin and sunken eyes, and dry lips, and her expression turned quizzical. “Are you sure you are okay Damian” “I am, this is just the consequence of my recent sleeping troubles” She wasn’t convinced yet, as her stare lingered. I held her stare so as not to make things awkward. And then I did more. I looked her straight in the eye, into those toffee-brown eyes. I found they hadn’t lost the ardour to bewitch any man like before.

But unlike before, there was a distant spark to them, like they hadn’t smiled much, lately.

It was typical of her to worry, she knows my words were far from the truth. I mentally rebuked myself for coming up with such a lame lie. I should have known it wouldn’t work on her as it had on everyone else, she was different. She was the one person in the world who could see through me. I was ashamed that I couldn’t do the same seven years ago, and be able to tell that she wasn’t lying when she had vehemently denied Richard’s claim, vehemently deny the claim of that liar and betrayer.

I forced her a broad smile. It was meant for her to drop the subject, and she took the cue just immediately. She settled on a sofa as I took the other. “So why do I have you here Damian, hope nothing is the problem”

Even as I had rehearsed the speech a thousand times in my head, It took great effort still, to bring them out of my mouth. “I am sorry Susan” I said “for what I did to you then, I know I had been stupid to believe Richard over you. I should have believed you then, I should have protected you and not cast you away. I tried to find you later to apologize to you after I learned the truth, but I couldn’t find you. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me” “Oh! Damian” she cried with embarrassment. “You shouldn’t have done this, I have forgiven you a long time ago. Seven years was enough to forget everything that happened. I hold no grudge against you”

“Thank You Susan” I said, “So how are…….” I paused, staring with extreme shock at a little boy who walked down the stairs into the room. He should be no less than six years old and was dressed in a red shirt that had the photo of a smiling dinosaur, and baggy shorts. He had big bright eyes; toffee-brown ones, and rosy cheeks, and his skin was of warm honey. He was a little on the plumb side and had chubby arms and legs. Without the skin colour, this was me when I was just his age. When I was six years old. “Didn’t I tell you to remain upstairs Charles” She screamed at the boy, terror in her voice. “Get yourself upstairs now” and just as fast as he had come down, the boy disappeared up the stairs. She shifted her gaze to me, and our eyes locked for some uncomfortable seconds, as I tried to make sense of what was happening. Who is he? He must be my son? “Is he my son, Susan?” I asked, watching her intently. That was the only explanation for this that I could come up with. Don’t be ridiculous Damian, he isn’t yours, we have parted ways years ago, remember” she said, her tone flat. “He looked just the age he would look if you were pregnant when we broke up, and besides he looks just like me, Susan. I just saw me, when I was six years old”

“He looks nothing like you, you were merely hallucinating” she said softly, and still I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was attacking me. She is deliberately misleading me. “I am no fool, Susan, Don’t take me for one” She suddenly rose to her feet with her hands carried challengingly beside her and her face distorted in a frown. Her nostrils were up as if they needed to suck in more air. There was anger in her every movement.

“You are no fool” she laughed, and there was a mocking twist to it, one that unnerved me. “Says the man who broke up with the woman he claimed he loved because of a flimsy claim that she was cheating on him with his no-good friend by the same no-good friend. If you don’t know what you are, let me spell it out for you. YOU ARE A FOOL” she challenged with a large stress on her last statement.

“Why bring this up Susan, I thought you said you have forgiven me”

“I have. I have forgiven you, I just couldn’t forget. And believe me, if you had been betrayed as I was, you would never forget such betrayal”

I was also a victim of Richard’s lies. How should I have known my childhood friend was lying to me when he had said Susan seduced him and manipulated him to bed her, and also produced her panties as evidence? How should I have known he had stolen the panties, and schemed the whole thing, just to have Susan for himself? And how would I have learned the truth, if he hadn’t been guilt-tripped months later and confessed? I was a victim too. I was fooled. “I was betrayed by my friend Richard remember” I said, trying to remind her that I was a victim too. “I was betrayed by someone I loved and who said he loved me” Susan challenged. “I know I am in the wrong Susan, but that is not enough reason to keep me away from my son for all these years” I yelled at her, and regretted doing so immediately, as I saw her face tighten to a scowl. Dammit! Dammit!

She sighed hard and with purpose.

“Get up Damian, Just get up” she hauled me up roughly. “Get out of my house and don’t ever come back here again or I will have you arrested” she tried to throw me out, but I held my ground. I might be a little weak from cancer, but it would still take more than a woman to shove me around. I knew I was in the wrong, and could only win this by reasoning with her, but like always, she was a woman who made reasoning impossible. Seeing that she was powerless against me, she screamed for her gateman, who rushed in as if he had been waiting all his life for that call. I had a feeling he hated me, or maybe I saw the hatred in his face.

“See him out whatever way you can” she ordered him.

She shoved me into his hands and shut the door on me. Susan might be powerless against me, but her gateman wasn’t. He slumped me on his shoulder like I weigh nothing, and carried me outside, while Susan watched from her window.

I banged the gate continuously and furiously to be let in after he shut the gate on me. It didn’t take long for the estate security to decide I was disturbing the peace of their precious residents, and force me into my car and out of the estate.

I won’t give up on my son, never.

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