Neighbour Diaries: Collision Course

I am in a very tricky position; Becky and Jojo are on a collision course. Yesterday, Becky came over to my place and although she didn’t want to say it, I knew she had something very serious on her mind. For starters, she wouldn’t have come to my place. After watching a movie which we half watched, she fell quiet. And I had to ask her what was up. After a while she told me that Jojo had told her to stay away from me. She went on “the problem is that I don’t think I can.I have grown so used to having you in my life, that I can’t imagine not seeing you, not talking to you. Yet you stay so near, so within reach.” It was my turn to be confused; what did she mean by she couldn’t stay away from me? As far as I was concerned, we were just friends, and she wasn’t aware of the attraction I felt for her. That was private, I couldn’t tell her. I mean, I am dating her cousin! She cleared the air before I could even ask. “Shem, I like you. Not because you are so good looking, not because you are rich or anything like that. In fact, you are not the kind of guy a girl would get attracted to at first site” (why not? I am not a bad looking fella!). “But I have come to learn who you are, and inside that player-boy, unserious exterior, there is a very nice guy. That is the guy I am attracted to”. Honestly, I was getting confused by her talk of “inner me”. She claimed she was in love with “someone in me”, but not me... whatever that even meant! I went quiet for a while, trying as always to see how I could manipulate the situation to get everything without losing anything. Becky was a fabulous girl, but Jojo is my girlfriend! And I live in Jojo’s flat. And Jojo is a very tricky person to deal with under normal circumstances. Under unusual circumstances, like me dating her cousin, no one could know for sure what Jojo would do. But, for sure, it would not be something nice. As I did my mathematics in my head, I knew it that it would be impossible. Becky wasn’t the kind of person who would date me knowing I was still seeing Jojo at the same time. No, she wouldn’t go behind Jojo. And I wasn’t about to ditch Jojo, I didn’t have enough money to get my own place yet. Besides, I had grown quite used to the luxury of her apartment. So, to make it simple, I asked Becky what she expected me to do, knowing very well the slippery floor on which everything stood. And she played it right back at me; she told me to decide, “since I am the man”. I laughed out loud, and told her to leave everything the way it was. But I knew that couldn’t be; girls, once they have got an idea in their heads, they just can’t let it go. And Becky seemed to have got the idea of me in her head. This was going to cause issues; there was no way of avoiding it. She stood up, walked to the door, turned round and said, “Shem, I am going to come back here tomorrow at this time. And you will tell me what you have decided to do. And I will go with whatever your decision is.” That sounded good to me. But then, she added, “there is an answer I am wishing very much I won’t hear”, and she walked out, closing the door behind her. There were two interpretations of that statement; one, she didn’t want me to tell her that I was staying with Jojo. Or two, she wanted me to tell her to leave me and Jojo alone. Ten minutes later, Jojo walked in, and asked me if I was ok, because I “looked confused”. Trust her to read my mind, because I was as confused as hell. shemmugisha@gmail.com