This evening: warm and abnormally still, smells of coffee. Time is a snail creeping across a rough surface.
Before me is Anita, hands outstretched on the table, watching steam rise from a mug of beverage I set down a while ago. She's like a sodomized prostitute plotting revenge: restless, and distant. I reckon she's calculating her next action since she made me put down my pen and calculator for "a talk". God, I'd almost solved that math problem!
"Who's that on your WhatsApp display profile?" Unease is spelt on her face in bold letters.
"Awwwww! I must so love variety. How I go searching new company"
I drag the last word with a tone to emphasize mock sympathy for a woman whose husband is about being snatched.
"Anita, stop being weary. You and I know this marriage is a contract that will terminate as soon as we've achieved our aims..."
"Look, I...
"Know what I'm talking about." I interrupt, completing her sentence.
"You've got it great at you-know-where and I've got near-perfect culinary skills, a brain for two, and dope dough. We'll be fine while at it."
She gapes at me, moves up the stairs, and hops back almost immediately.
"You can't hide that pregnancy for long, you know?"
She was shocked I knows what she have tucked away with waist trainers for weeks; but it's well hidden.
She doesn't stay to argue more, to tell me we don't have to go through with marriage the way our parents mapped it. She walks away with one hand running through her thick, black hair. I watch myself go away with her. I listen to myself mutter the things I can't tell her, and feel my lips purse. I adjust my glasses and return to the books before me. When my mom left my dad, she pulled the last box into a van, heaved, and said, "Life is easier without love."
Thanks for reading