Scarred....... vi

    Its been a week since the incident in Blessing's house and she was still in perpetual night. It was as if the sun set and refused to rise. The complete lack of an apology from Melvin didn't help her pride at all. So, she had meant nothing to him? Or maybe she had served her purpose. She never should have branched out into advertising. The company was doing well before. But the need to make Melvin acknowledge her one way or the other was too great. She had to propose ridiculously low budgets to get the jobs they bid on, but the other areas of the company made up for the lack of profit from advertising. She gave a self-depreciating laugh. This went against all she thought she was. She was a modern confident woman who didn't need to play games to attract attention, Yet here she was. It seems when it came to Melvin, she didn't know herself at all. She had deliberately made stupid business decisions because of some misplaced hurt. And to what end? At the end of the day, she got doubly hurt. So, what if Melvin had said all those things all those years ago? It didn't matter. It didn't define her. It didn't matter that he was the one who got away. It didn't matter that the only man she wanted didn't feel the same. It didn't matter that she would never be the "Mrs Melvin Okaka" that she had dreamily sprawled on her dairy with stars in her eyes and with a smile on her lips in the privacy of her room, under the covering of the night. It didn't matter that the man whose eyes she saw on the images of her children her mind conjured up when she allowed herself think about a husband and children hated her. Nor did it matter that she had loved and lost, twice. It didn't matter that he was the only one for her. Well, maybe, if she had been looking, she might have wanted another but all through the years, Melvin had been the standard and somehow, they all fell short. She was not too deluded to admit that he was not the most handsome, the tallest or the most charismatic. However, he was the most her. He only had to be himself. There was something that was just him that all the others lacked. It was something she couldn't place or name, Yet it was that elusive ingredient that was the problem. Maybe if she could place it, she could develop an immunity to Melvin and get on with her life. But she couldn't and the heart wants what the heart wants.
        And this was how Blessing had spent the past week, engaging in thoughts that went nowhere and came back to the same place she began. Blessing sighed. A broken heart sucked. And she couldn't even sit at home gorging on food, claiming to be sick. No, she had to go to the office to try to rectify all she neglected while frolicking with Melvin and gotten her heart broken. She sat up, and made to get something done before the day ends.
                       *     *     *
    Anger didn't begin to describe the emotion that held Melvin bound this past week. He was consumed by it, he felt it every minute of every day. However, he knew that he was the one who clung to the anger and refused to let go of it. It was his defence. And anger was preferable to gut wrenching pain. He would know. He had called Blessing the third day to ask her what she wanted for her 'reward'. He had wanted to get it over and done with. She said she wanted nothing. She hadn't known what she wanted from the beginning and even if she had wanted anything before, she didn't want anything from him now. That had hurt, real bad. The pain was unquantifiable. He had felt it in every fibre, every nerve, every cell of his being. If she didn't hate him before, she certainly did now. And it was crippling in its severity. He had quickly clung to anger. How annoying can women be, Blessing in particular? She didn't want anything, Yet she had been the one to ask for carte blanche. Just as she had been the one to abruptly end their friendship in school, broken his heart, resurfaced 10 years later and further broken the already broken pieces of his heart for good measure. She must be having a thrill at his stupidity. And to think she accused Rita of calling her. He had checked her phone to certify. She hadn't called. Blessing had to say something to  make her actions justifiable. He couldn't believe he had doubted Rita who had been his friend through the years. It was just as well that it had gone down this way. But, Blessing had been such a sweet girl and the past months were dreamlike in their perfection. What had happened to provoke such drastic change? Or was perfect, sweet Blessing just a figment of his imagination? It was a puzzle and if he wasn't so angry, he might have attempted at solving it. But he was. And he wanted nothing to do with a girl who broke his heart time and time again, like it was a sport.