Neighbour Diaries: Things get complicated

Jojo is not the jealous kind. In fact, I suspect she gets a certain enjoyment when another girl gets interested in her man, because then, she can practice what comes naturally to her: manipulation and scheming. But this time, that other girl is her cousin Becky. And although she hasn’t yet got anything to confirm that Becky and I are seeing each other, she suspects all the same. After that incident at Becky’s place, Jojo camped at my place for the next two days. It wasn’t the first time she was staying at my place. But this time, it was different; I felt like she was watching me all the time, perhaps because I thought I had something to hide. Maybe she was watching me, maybe she wasn’t, but she didn’t even mention Becky. And, I didn’t go to Becky’s during that time, thought I missed out daily rendezvous terribly. In addition to Jojo’s threat if I “hurt” Becky, I didn’t want to cause any trouble, so I stayed away from her. But then, on the second day, Becky came over to my place instead. It was the first time she had come to my place, and when I opened the door, I was as surprised. She probably had come to see if I was ok. I was glad to see her, but things were now even more complicated. She came in, and when she saw Jojo, she didn’t know what was going on. She hadn’t made the connection between me and Jojo, and this certainly confused her. Then Jojo greeted her and asked her to feel comfortable. Clearly, to any observer, Jojo was staying at my place. And that is what Becky couldn’t understand. In the first place, she hadn’t even known that I knew her cousin Jojo. But Becky is a great girl, she just took it in her stride and before long the two were talking. I retreated to the kitchen to think. Then Jojo said she had to go somewhere, and she left. There were a few moments of awkward silence, and Becky asked; are you dating Jojo? My first instinct was to deny it, but I didn’t know what Jojo had told her, so I nodded yes. And she said, “oh!” in a sad way. That’s when I told her everything. How I had got to meet Jojo, how she had blackmailed me, and how she had got me to stay in her apartment. I told her I was dating Jojo, but I didn’t say anything about being in love with her. And all this time, Becky was quiet, listening. In the end, she said, “Shem, I really like you a lot, but this is too much for me. Jojo is not exactly the kind of person I would want to have me on her black list. I asked her what she meant, because as far as I was concerned, there was no conflict between her and Jojo. And she said; “Shem, all this time we have known each other; I have felt myself get attracted to you each passing day. All this attention you give me, how is a girl supposed to resist that? How could I not get drawn in into your warm happy world? I know you probably didn’t mean it to go like this, but I am very attached to you. “I knew I was onto a good thing, but with Jojo in the picture, everything becomes very complicated. She is my first cousin, and well, you know what kind of person she is. I think the best thing is to .....” then I stopped her. I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say, because knowing her; she would have said something like, stop seeing each other. But this girl lived right next door, and I really liked her. I told her to go calm down a little bit, then we would talk about it later. She walked out of my flat. Five minutes later, Jojo walked in. She had been at Becky’s, waiting for her to come back. Jojo asked me, what did you do to make Becky cry? I hadn’t even known Becky was crying, and the way Jojo was looking at me; there was no way I could convince her that I hadn’t done anything! Ends