Forbidden

This is what it means to birth a child. It is to be responsible, to look after what you have created, to care, to nurture, to hold, to scold, to pamper. It is to lay your life down willingly, to give so that it might have.

In many ways, this is what my friendship with Ahmed feels like. This parent-child relationship. We've been friends since I was fifteen. A kid fresh from secondary school, naive, largely clueless about life.

In reality, because Ahmed was much older than me, it made more sense to say that he was the parent and I the kid. He was the one who sat by my bed and shoved a glass of water in my hand and ordered, Drink, handing me the yellow bitter pills that I hated so, medicines I had to take to regulate my dysfunctional blood pressure. Take, swallow. Drink more water. Not enough. More. And I would, albeit a bit grudgingly, drink. I liked that he sometimes ordered me around. Rebellious, I did not much appreciate other people doing it, but with Ahmed it was different, with him I was different.

I am going to show Ahmed the beginning part of this short story I am working on, with the hopes that somehow he would be able to tell how important he has come to be to me. Maybe I should change his name, leave it to his imagination to figure it out. Or I could just tell him, tell him that the times he threw his hands around my shoulders and introduced me as his friend turned brother, I wished he meant something else, because brothers do not feel the way I feel about Ahmed.

Once one night, in his room, at the end of a long drawn conversation about Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow, we'd laid back, spent from dissecting the novel. He took a deep breath and said, "You know I have grown to love you. I really like how your mind works."

"Dude!" I exclaimed half laughingly, "Don't say that, it sounds so wrong," a mock expression of horror on my face. But my heart beat had quickened, I worried that he could see how fast my heart was beating through my shirt.

"No, I mean, you know... Love you like in a brotherl--, Arghhh, forget it man, your mind is so filthy," he was laughing and I could tell that he was trying to take the awkwardness out of the situation.

I was not at all certain what Ahmed would say or do when I told him.
He had a girlfriend, Temioluwa, whose parents had newly just moved to our estate. He introduced her to me when they begun officially dating and even though I knew the creatures fluttering in my heart were forbidden, I still felt bad. But I had come to accept their relationship with time, she was a really sweet girl. I envied the way they had the liberty to do things I could only afford to dream about.

So in many ways, I didn't know what to expect. I was not telling this to Ahmed because I wanted to remould his life to fit mine, I knew only that I had to get it off my chest. I hadn't thought far past the revelation. It was this need to have this weight lifted off my chest that spurred me up the stairs at his house, towards his room.

He was half lying on his bed, his laptop open on his laps which he instinctively pulled half shut when I got in. I had forgotten to knock. I put my bag on the bed and flopped down beside him. Then, nervous suddenly, afraid of being too close to him, I got up again.

"Ahmed, there's something I need to tell you," I began. His eyes followed me around the room as I paced.

"What is it? Are you okay?"

"Yes," and taking a deep breath, I continued, "There's something I need to tell you, you probably already know this but I-- I-- I love you. And before you interrupt," I said, holding my palms up imploring him to wait until I finished, "it is not in the normal way, not in the way people love other people. This is different. I think that I am in love with you."

First shock, then disbelief, then a look that I was certain was one of disgust graced Ahmed's face. Suddenly realizing I could not take back my words, I wanted to melt into a puddle, sink into the ground and disappear forever.