Learning Obinna: Graduation Day

Everyone has a kryptonite. It doesn’t matter whether they know it or not, acknowledge it or not. But every single person has a kryptonite and you are just like everyone else, so yes, you also have a kryptonite. Your kryptonite story is coincidentally the same as the story of your graduation from learning Obinna.

You think back to the night when it all came apart and you wonder whether you could or would have done anything differently. You find no answers. Perhaps the universe had conspired to ruin you. There is no other logical explanation. Or maybe there is. Maybe you just need to, in your ever famous words, own your own bullshit.

It began with the party on New Year’s Eve. Everyone knows you love to have a good time and over the holidays, you were in the company of people who didn’t know any better than to constantly indulge your jaiye jaiye tendencies. So when your cousin spoke about the party, you wasted no time in whipping out your precious leopard print body con dress you had taken on the trip, specifically for a night out like the one you would be having. What you didn’t factor in or bargain for however was the one person you would be running into at the party. Let’s call him X.

You have been good friends with X for quite a number of years. Nothing out of the usual. Regular guy from your uni days. After your graduation, life had you both charting varying courses and running different circles. But there were the occasional online chats with each other, easy banter and hearty laughter. That was X. Now back to the party.

Because you had spent the previous night consuming a ridiculous amount of alcohol, you had made a solemn promise to yourself that the party was not going to be another drinking fest. So you nursed a glass of chapman with John Legend’s “Tonight” setting the tone for a great night in the background.

“You have got to be kidding me!” you suddenly hear someone exclaim softly behind you. You turn around to find out who the stranger is and you nearly drop your glass. The last time you’d seen X, you were impressed by how he had morphed into a fairly good looking man. And that had been 5 years ago. But now, he looks nothing like what you remember. If anything, he is five times as hot.

With full lips that part in a smile, and arms that open even wider, he invites you in for a hug and you try to subdue your squeals of excitement as you lock arms with him.

“What are you doing here??? How are you here??” you ask breathlessly.

He laughs. And his deep throated laughter triggers internal heat all over.

“I could be asking you the same thing.”

“I’m here for the holidays. You? Coz when we spoke at the beginning of the year, you said you were in Australia.”

He flashes you a grin and shrugs.

“You know how I get. I left in March then went to Greece and subsequently Romania. But I’m here for the holidays as well.”

“Nice.”

You take a gulp of your chapman to soothe your suddenly parched throat and it works. For a few seconds.

“What’s up with you now? This your dress ehn. I will never be able to get this image of perfection out of my head. Dang!”

You laugh nervously and attempt to steer the conversation away to safer grounds. His presence has a way of making you ever so self-aware. But more than that, there is a desire to be held in those arms and to drown in those beautiful brown eyes. So it is important to you that you find a topic to distract you from his looks and take your mind away from the unhealthy places it is wandering to.

You try, but the conversation inadvertently winds back to how great you look and how much time you spend at the gym and what you dieting plans are. It’s a dangerous topic and as you navigate your way around carefully, he suddenly blurts out

“The last time I saw you, I desperately wanted to kiss you and now I feel the exact same way again.”

You stop mid-sentence, an awkward smile on your face as you try to think of a comeback that would be witty and smooth.

“Well, we have got the most awful timing in the world because-” you start to say but the remainder of your words are caught in your throat as he cuts in with

“We can make it perfect right now.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before he claims your lips, crushing them softly with his. A thousand fireworks go off in your brain which seems to freeze and you shut your eyes, reveling in the sheer pleasure of his tongue expertly seeking the corners of your mouth. He nibbles softly on your lower lip and you tremble as his hand traces a line down the back of your head to your neck and back. He stops suddenly and you blink your eyes open in time to see the raw desire in his.

“Come on,”

He takes your hand and like one under a spell, you follow him out of the dark corner you’d both been standing in and up a flight of stairs into a bedroom whose interior décor you are unable to take in because X is kissing you again with a sense of urgency that is simultaneously exciting and dangerous. In that room, X brings you sinful pleasures that have you trembling to your toes, leaving no room for any form of logic or rationale.

Hours later, as you both prepare to return to the party, he smiles at you and says “If I wasn’t such a nomad, we could have something special you know.”

It’s at the tip of your lips to say that he has likely just wrecked something special that you have but you smile back and nod.

“It’s okay to want different things. I guess we’re just not in the same place.”

He grins and kisses you lightly on the lips then links his arm with yours as you walk out.

Here’s what you quickly surmise about X. He is good for but he is just not for you. He is that rich uncle that shows up from an exotic country with mind-blowing goody bags but will certainly not stay to watch and help you grow like your father would. He is an intense, yet fleeting experience. An experience you know will likely repeat itself a few more times, so long as the stars align.

It’s not guilt that keeps you from taking Obinna’s calls all through the next day and the day after that. It’s introspection. It’s you taking time out to contemplate why you would shatter in one night something you have spent almost a year building. You always felt you weren’t worthy of Obinna’s love. And this, this is your proof that you are totally undeserving of him.

You come to the conclusion that learning Obinna was great but you missed the more important prerequisite course, which was learning yourself. So after a week of silence in which Obinna nearly loses his mind, you call him and tell him it’s the end of the road. He doesn’t understand. And neither do you. Which is why you need to get on the new program of learning yourself.

It is now 3 weeks after graduation and you still have no idea what your future looks like, yet you hope it is nothing as miserable as your present.

***

Happy New Year guys!! Damage Control returns in exactly a week. Who’s excited? Because I am