COME BACK OR ELSE - by Big Dee

Araye egbami o! Won ti shey mi ni nkan. They have done me something.Come and see o. Everybody come and see what this man has done to me. You people should come and bear witness because if I carry this alone I will not survive it. Call your neighbours. Call their neighbours. Pause whatever you are doing and listen because what I am about to tell you is not a small matter. His name is Durotimi o... This dark skinned, pink lipped, charming smiling, coconut headed son of somebody's prayers. He does not know I exist and yet he has ruined my life completely. You people should see him o. Standing under mango that mango tree, smiling and scattering people's destiny. Smiling at another woman and scattering my chest in the process. You people should see what he has turned me into. A woman with a pastor on standby. A woman who has sat three tables away counting his teeth while he performed for somebody else. A woman who bought her own ring. He is busy chasing another woman up and down and I am here. Bearing witness to my own heartbreak.All because of him. All because of Durotimi.Come, let me tell you everything from the beginning.******Durotimi.I saw him first under the mango tree on a Tuesday that had no business being that bright. He was standing the way men stand when they do not know they are being watched. Easy. Unbothered. His dark skin catching the light like it had an agreement with the sun.And then he smiled.He smiled in my direction and I, ohhh.. you should have seen me... like the fool that love was already making me, I smiled back. Teeth and everything. My whole chest opened like a window in harmattan. It took me three seconds. Three whole seconds of standing there, warm and chosen, before I looked properly. Before I saw her. Standing just behind me, laughing at something she hadn't even said yet, already receiving what I had just borrowed without knowing.You people, the smile was not for me.It was never for me.*********You people should see how he chased her. He was not subtle about it. He chased her the way Lagos boys chase okada in the rain. Loud. Determined. Completely unbothered by the people watching. And I was watching. I was always watching. I saw the way he laughed a little too long at her jokes. The ones that were not even funny. I sat three tables away and counted his teeth while he performed for her and I thought, this man does not know what he is doing to me. This man does not know I exist. He does not know I exist. And yet I know everything. I know his pink lips move slower when he is thinking. I know he bites the left side of his cheek when someone says something that annoys him but he is too polite to say so. I know he takes his tea without sugar because he told Marcus that glucose is the enemy and Marcus told Bisi and Bisi did not know I was standing close enough to hear.This is what loving him without his permission has made me. A woman who collects his secondhand words like they are heirlooms.She does not deserve the homework I have done on him.She does not even know his middle name. Durotimi. And so I waited.I waited the way your name instructed me to. Patiently. Quietly. With the dignity of a woman who has not yet decided to lose her mind.January waited with me. February came and went and took my pride as a souvenir. By March I had memorised the exact angle of your jaw when you were happy and I was no closer to being the reason for it. You, Durotimi. You were busy. Busy sending her voice notes at midnight. Busy learning her favourite colour so you could show up with something wrapped in it. Busy being everything I had already decided you were capable of being, just not for me. The anger did not arrive the way I expected. I thought it would come loud, the way rain announces itself in Lagos before it destroys your plans. Instead it crept in slow. Like a tenant who knocks politely, drops their bags, and only later do you realise they have no intention of leaving. I am not angry that you love her, Durotimi. I am angry that you looked in my direction and did not see me standing there. I am angry that your name means wait for me and you never once turned around to see who was waiting. I am angry that I know the left side of your cheek and you do not know my favourite anything. But I am still here. I am still here, Durotimi. And my patience, like all good things in Nigeria, has an expiry date. Listen, Durotimi.I am a patient woman. My mother raised me with the kind of patience that sits on a wooden stool and does not complain even when the stool has no back. I have given you time. I have given you seasons. I have watched you pour yourself into someone who does not even know that you bite the left side of your cheek. But I have done the maths, Durotimi.And the maths is not in your favour.You have thirty days. Thirty days to look up from whatever it is you are doing and see me standing here where I have always been standing. Thirty days to realise that the woman you are chasing does not know your middle name and I have known it since the Tuesday you were standing under that mango tree smiling at somebody else.If you do not come, Durotimi, I will come for you. Do not test me.I have already selected the fabric. Aso-oke. Deep burgundy because I look like answered prayer in burgundy and you will need to understand immediately what you almost missed. I have a ring I bought myself because I refused to let love pass me and leave me empty handed. I have a pastor on standby. Durotimi, this pastor has cancelled two naming ceremonies for me. He is committed. He believes in this union even though he has not met you yet.The registrar is a family friend.She owes me. You, Durotimi. You were named for waiting and you made me do all the waiting alone. So I have decided. If you will not come to me on your own two feet, I will arrive at yours. With witnesses. With documentation. With a bouquet I arranged myself because the florist also believes in us. You, Durotimi. You have pink lips that have never said my name and I have decided that this is a problem I will personally solve. You, Durotimi. You smiled at me under that mango tree on a Tuesday that had no business being that bright.I know you meant it for her.But I have kept it.And Durotimi, I keep what is mine. So come willingly, Durotimi. The pastor does not like to be kept waiting.

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