It’s been a while since I posted a bit from my short story, The Newly Weds. You can read more about Chinny and Fela here, here and here.

“The first time I saw Jamila, I knew she was trouble. All long limbs and these alive hips that just spread with potency from a tiny waist! All of her seemed at once sensual yet so vulnerable. Just big eyes, this northern nose and full lips with this weird tilt…”

“Hell I’m surprised YOU didn’t fall for her, not even Chinny, the way you’re describing her!” Seye told me laughing in that obnoxious way she does. Loud and gurgling like a brook in the disruption of a hurricane.

“I’m glad my despair amuses you.”

“Oh don’t be so melodramatic” Seye responded to the rounded back Fela turned to her.

“We take cheating so lightly in Nigeria. For us it’s such a small thing. What is the price of a broken heart in the market, when everyone is walking about in pieces abi?!” Her outburst surprised her as much as it did Seye. Her body seemed to swell, a shaking hyperbole as her head and hands waved about to pontificate.

“Fela, Chinny lov…”

“It’s not about love so don’t you dare tell me he loves me! What about my pride, my self, my essence?! Leave my heart, when a man picks another woman over you, your mind reverberates with the many rejections, refusals, retorts received, hidden and sealed away, day after day, year after year. The many times your mind has whispered, “You are not enough.” And by ‘enough’, I mean everything. You are not beautiful enough, smart enough, sexy enough, strong, caring, good, new, WOMAN enough, tough enough, soft, soft enough. I am only who I am, Seye. Why, why was that not enough? You are only who you are. So he has to seek something away from you, someone in addition to you, to complete, to satisfy. To achieve. Something you are not enough to give.” She hadn’t realized she’d started crying until she saw my face mirrored in Seye’s glasses.

I couldn’t even see Seye’s tears through mine.

“Fela, I am sorry.” I said for what felt like the billionth time.

“Chinny, it’s not enough.” She whispered back sadly.

Perhaps enough is an illusion.