Trust and communication
TRUST is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, or character of someone. It is the faith you have in someone that they will always remain loyal to you, and love you.
One moment Tunde wanted to celebrate with his queen because of the beginning of the Jamal family's downfall, the next moment he's breaking up with her.
If only he knew this whole cheating thing was just a huge tangled-up yarn of misunderstanding. If only he understood the importance of the word communication. If only he knew seeing is not always believing. If only...
For three whole nights, Tunde couldn't sleep. He ignored all of Abby's calls and blocked her everywhere. He was resolute in cutting her out of his life.
During the days, he poured all his time into work. After work, he would go home, smoke more cigarettes than usual, and get drunk.
Betrayal hurts. He was in denial, he was upset and absolutely livid, all these emotions rolled up into one ugly mess. His brain was trying to deduce a logical reason why she would cheat on him.
'It couldn't be because of money because her family is not broke, and I would have even given her a shit load of that if she needed more.
Or am I too focused on work and neglected her emotional needs? Even though work is demanding, didn't I always make it up to her?'
They were both busy people, yet amidst their busyness, he had assumed that things were going fine.
He felt like punching something really bad so he moved to his gym and started kickboxing the 150cm boxing bag hanging from the ceiling, panting and sweating.
"Why are you taking your frustration out on the poor bag bro?" Tunde was startled by Lekan's voice.
"Hey" he greeted his brother who had already straddled a weight bench and was casually looking at him. "Where did you spring from? I didn't hear you come in."
"What happened to you man? You look like shit" Lekan said, ignoring Tunde's question, and commenting on the dark circles under his eyes.
"Yeah, I feel like shit," Tunde said and went back to punching and kicking the bag with his knees
"Where's Abby?"
"Don't know, I'm not her keeper"
Lekan chuckled. "No wonder you're being unnecessarily mean to the bag. You should talk it out with her though. There are always two sides to a coin you know."
"Did she tell you anything?" Tunde stopped for a bit, panting heavily while looking towards his brother.
"Nope. Josh thought she would be here, said she's neither picking nor returning calls.
She's not picking her calls? Tunde's eyes went wild. No wonder she's not been active on Instagram for the past three days. Although he blocked her, he still followed her with other accounts she didn't know of. He immediately abandoned the punching bag, carelessly dumped his gloves on the floor, and briskly walked towards Lekan.
"Where's your phone?"
"What?... Why?"
"Why? Because you're gonna call her to know if she's okay." Tunde answered while dialing Abby's number.
"Why me?... She's your girlfriend, why can't you call her?"
She's your sister-in-law, if I was out of the country on an assignment won't you guys look after her well-being for me? It's ringing..." Tunde quickly shoved the phone at Lekan
"You're such an idiot!" Lekan laughed, shaking his head while looking at Tunde in amusement.
"What's funny!? Focus on the darn phone stupid! She..."
"Big bro"
Abby answered the call and Tunde immediately stopped talking, gesturing with his hands to Lekan who was still laughing at him to quickly respond.
"Hello," Abby said again, her voice sounding blocked and stuffy. Lekan who barely manage to contain his laughter finally answered.
"Are you okay? He asked with concern. He knew normal Abby would have chatted away and said about ten words per second.
"No!... I mean yes! It's just cold. Nasal congestion you know." Abby replied
"Liar!" Chika who had been trying to persuade Abby to follow them to the club where Tayo just got his new gig, exclaimed.
"What nasal congestion? Who has a cold in this hot weather?" Chika refuted?
Even after Abby signaled for her to shut up, she increased the volume of her voice instead. Thinking it was Josh calling...
"Brother Josh please talk to her o. She has been crying off and on for the past two days."
Abby had to forcefully push Chika out of her room to stop her mouth from running.
"You will go out with me tonight, even if I have to hog-tie you..." Chika's voice trailed off as Abby successfully pushed her out of her room.
"Big bro, sorry about that. That girl is delusional." Abby explained to Josh
"Alright..." Lekan replied as he agreed with Abby, then looking straight into his brother's eyes, he said...
"Instead of making each other feel miserable, there's this word called communication... I don't know if you've heard about it... It's vital to every relationship that was hoping to succeed... Hope you understand?"
"Yes" he was obviously talking to both of them but it was only Abby that replied to him.
"...and please Abby, go have some fun with your friends. Stop feeling miserable, it's bad for your health. I don't want to call back and hear about you crying again alright?"
"Alright. Thank you, sir."
After the call ended, Lekan stood up from where he was sitting and glared at Tunde "And you... Enough of the punching. Go shower, let's go to The Night Owl, Mide and Josh are waiting downstairs." Lekan said, he was about to leave, then turned back again
"Oh... Josh didn't tell me anything. Knowing the type of person you are, I had to put two and two together..." He sighed heavily "Really man, I'm scared for your relationship... You both aren't even up to six months yet.
Her friend thought she was talking to Josh. Now I don't know about Josh but I won't be happy if some guy was making my sister cry no matter how cool we were with each other."
"Don't lay this on me man. You don't know what happened..."
"And I don't have to know because it's not my business, it's between you both." Lekan came back and sat on the bench.
"Sit down." He gestured for Tunde to sit on the nearest chair to him
"What I do know is that disagreements will keep coming up if both of you don’t learn to understand each other’s expectations, and communicate.
And sometimes the only way to end a disagreement is to compromise. If you are both completely set in different directions and can’t learn to compromise, some situations can never be resolved... It will take some effort, but please learn to give in to her at times."
"Okay!" Tunde sighed heavily, running his hand through his hair.
"I know you are not irrational. You might be pig-headed, but not irrational. I don't know what she's done to you, but whatever it is, If you can forgive her then please forgive. Don't drag this too far.
"Yeah... Thanks, man."
"Okay then..." Lekan stood up from where he was sitting "I just got a new DJ for The Night Owl and he's playing tonight so hurry up, I want to see how well people respond to him"
Lekan left the gym while Tunde went to the laundry room to drop his gym clothes when a faint sweet familiar smell that he can't pinpoint where it came from blew against his nose.
He looked around for the source of the sweet smell and found it. It was her shirt, the one she wore before leaving for school. He took the shirt and sat on the floor with his back against the wall. He then inhaled the milk and flower mix together fragrance.
"I miss you so much, babe." He whispered to himself. "But why!?... Why did you have to hurt me this way!?"
~~••~~
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Please write me a review if you love my story. Thank you
