Unrequited Love - FINAL PART by @katiewest || 14-9-22

“Please can I pick you tomorrow after work? I have a surprise for you, I’ll be cooking too!” Jade read the message from Femi for the hundredth time. She had been so unsettled and could feel the knot in her stomach as the time drew closer to Femi’s close time for the day. She put on some jazz music to distract her from her thoughts while she dressed up for her date. She picked out a black sleeveless gown with thin white lace hemmed around the ends. Then matched it with her black heels and white jewelries to fit.

Femi pulled up at her home around past 7pm. He quickly came out to open the car door for Jade. “You’ll make this hard for me” she thought as she thanked him and sat quietly waiting for him to get into the car. Femi told her all about his day and how he was awarded a contract. He was really good at what he does, she knew. But she really wanted him only as a friend.

His house was barely 20 minutes away from hers but he still insisted on picking her up. Once they got into his apartment, Jade saw the organized dining table Femi had set for them. There was so much food to choose from for just two people. He went past her and lit the candles, then held her hand softly leading her to sit.
“Femi, I need to tell you something…” Jade said just before he went across the dining table to sit.
“Please, let’s eat first” Femi smiled back at her.

Dinner was beautiful, it was almost like fine dining. The setup, the serenity, the slow music in the background, the exquisite meal. She would give it to him, Femi was an amazing cook. He told her how he left an hour earlier from work just to set everything up. He cooked sizable portions of Jollof rice, fried rice, beef kebabs, skewered plantains and diced pineapples and grapes for dessert.
She loved how juicy it was, no flavour missing!

“I know you don’t love me…” Femi stated while they were on the couch munching on the dessert. Jade looked at him with a mix of confusion and disbelief. Of course she knew she didn’t love him, but she didn’t know he knew that. Before she could muster a word, Femi continued.
“I got the voice messages… I don’t think you wanted me to see them, but I guess you mistakenly sent it.”
“What voice note?” Jade replied looking perplexed this time.

Then it hit her. Barely a week ago after she had met his parents and chatted up her girls, Pat and she kept talking in the DMs. She was closest to Pat and Steph in the group of 5 friends. After a long series of chats, they started using voice notes to send messages. Once Steph saw the news on their group chat, she sent a Dm to Jade for more details about all her juicy gossips. Jade had forwarded all the voice notes to Steph and went off to prep her meal. She kept waiting for message notifications from Steph but when she saw none, she checked her phone and saw it was sent to Femi.

Her heart skipped a beat and she almost let go off her phone. Jade was glad to see he hadn’t read the messages, she quickly selected all and deleted for everyone, or so she thought.

Femi opened his WhatsApp and played the voice note for Jade calmly. She felt so bad cause they had said a lot of colourful things no one deserved to hear, especially a good man like Femi. She wished the ground would swallow her completely. But it didn’t. She looked at his face searching for any sign but he looked so calm, like he had listened to it so much and it didn’t hurt him anymore.

“I’m really sorry, I really didn’t mean most of what I said there. I didn’t even want you to know this way!” Jade mumbled apologetically.
“Let’s just move on. You’re a good person Jade, I wish you the best in life.” Femi said calmly.

The drive back to Jade’s home was really quiet. That dead awkward kind of silence. It was really over. She stepped out of the opened car and gave him a light hug. That was going to be the last, she knew.

A year had gone past, Jade was now working at a private clinic as a nurse. She felt fulfilled to an extent, she got a good pay and she was happy. While she went on her break, she scrolled through Instagram checking out reels and cute posts. She bumped into an event planner’s page and saw a familiar face. “Femi??” She mouthed. He was dancing in his well groomed suit with a beautiful woman in her wedding gown. They looked so happy and one could tell they loved each other from the 30 seconds video. Jade smiled, double tapped the post then swiped away. “At least, he’s just as happy too.”

Cc,
@eliany
@ashkhan
@ngoenyi