It's being 8? 9? years now and there is not a day that goes by that your name doesn't echo in the recesses of my mind. I remember the first day I saw you, you kept staring at me. It was one of those random "why is he staring at me moments" where you surreptitiously check out the party and when you are done, you look the other way.
I was 16, sweet sixteen if I clearly remember. I just finished secondary school, my WAEC and NECO results were out and while I did well in all other subjects, I did very poorly in Mathematics.
My parents were freaking out, I had been sent to an expensive school and an F9 in maths was not what they expected. Those days were the darkest days of my sixteen year old life. I needed a deviation, I needed something that would be a cure for my depression.
You became that and more, I started to look forward to seeing the "yellow boy" who always stared at me in church. And one day why surreptitiously sharing glances with you it occurred to me that this yellow boy was quite handsome. Your looks would eventually become my standard for judging handsomeness.
No one knew why I was always so excited about going to church for Wednesday service. While my brothers thought any church activity was a drag, I would get up and prepare for church one hour early because I knew I would see you.
And there you would be seated in the most unassuming way possible, I always wished that the ushers would make us sit side by side but that never happened I guess even then fate was trying to pass a message across.
You fancied this particular yellow Chelsea polo shirt and a pair of black pants with the silver chains attached to them.
One day I came to church expecting to see you but you weren't there. My heart broke a little that day I had gotten quite adept at sending you telepathic messages with my eyes since we never spoke word to each other, back then I didn't even know your name to me you were the "yellow boy".
I made new friends, friends like Joshua who would later become my boyfriend after three long years of asking me to be that.
Seeing you during the holidays became the highlights of my year. We never spoke to each other but then we didn't need words.
Joshua didn't know you, he didn't need to know you, you were the elephant in our relationship if he saw how my face would light up when I spoke about you, he never said anything.
I remember the first time we spoke and how I rambled on and on and you even called me a parrot. It was because I couldn't believe it. After days, months and years of imagining what it would feel like talking with you, it was finally happening. I always thought you were bigger than life and so that day I rambled on and on and on.
I remember how you introduced me to your friend and he said you were always talking about me. That made me giddy, happy.
I remember telling you I was dating Joshua and I even showed you his pictures and I remember how your face fell.
You travelled to village for Christmas with your family as you have always done and when you came back you had yourself a new girlfriend.
I remember valentines day in 2011 I told Joshua to leave, he left that morning because you said you were coming. And what did you do, you made out with her in front of me I guess it was your way of proving a point, that evening was the longest evening in all of my nineteen years I don't know how I got through it without any hair pulling or bottle breaking. That night I decided that I hated you, I decided that I loathed you.
So I decided to make my self feel better by choosing to ignore or not recognize your presence even if was the most difficult thing I would ever have to do.
Even if it looked on the outside like I had excommunicated myself from you. My heart had a mind of its own. Every other time I did think of you, I became obsessed with you, you became a toxic habit, bad for me in every way but I just couldn't help it.
Sometimes I did pray and ask God to make me stop thinking about you but it seemed like the more I prayed the higher the intensity of my emotions got until it became something I had to accept and peacefully live with. Time and distance helped to make it better.
Sometimes I wonder if I would feel the way I feel/ felt about you with anyone else. I remember October 2nd 2009, the Saturday I almost died, when I had that accident, the last thing I remember was thinking about what dress I was going to wear to church the following day because I was going to see you.
While that vehicle somersaulted 4 times all I could think of was that I wasn't going to see you in church tomorrow.
That was how much you meant to me, what I felt for you was strong, heady and intense. You were like an opium that never wore off.
So many times I've asked fate why it had to be you.
It's 2016 and I still dream of you in colours that don't exist, I still wonder how you are doing, I wonder how you are holding up now that your mum is sick, I know how much she means to you, sometimes I wish I was there to tell you that it will be okay, I wish I could reassure you that God will not leave you or forsake you. I wish, I wish, I wish.
I wonder if you think of me in those unguarded moments when your thoughts are free to wonder. I wonder if you still say my name and chuckle, I wonder if you still think my shenanigans are endearing.
But you know what I wonder the most, I wonder if when i'm older with someone else and with little me's who I would feel for more intensely than I ever did for you. I wonder if even then I would still dream of you in colours that don't exist.
The fact that I think I might, scares me.
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