Pat

Bury the past

“Pat?”

“Yes Liz,”

“How comes you’ve never told me about your life before we met? You only talk about your misadventures in school,”

“Because I wanted to bury the past completely and forget about it,”

“The past is a part of us and if we run away from it instead of making peace with it, it’ll catch up and haunt us,”

“Okay love, what would you like to know?”

“Your life before we met,”

“I was your typical tomboy and they thought it was a phase. I had my first girlfriend in high school. Her parents found out and sent her to live with her grandparents in Germany. I met Becky soon after I finished high school. My family suspected I was gay. I used to dress up like my brothers-

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Two, I’m the last of three kids and the only daughter so when one of my brothers saw a video of Becky and I kissing and showed it to my parents, it came as a real shock to them. They threatened to disown me if I didn’t change my lifestyle but we know this isn’t a lifestyle. I couldn’t turn my back on who I was and they made good their promise.

I had set up my business in one of my parents’ buildings but they shut it down. They took everything I had in that shop and claimed it to be back rent payment. I know they wanted to make life unbearable or break me in order to go back and do what they wanted but I was determined to make life on my own.

With the little savings I had left, we moved to the city and... life was hard. The savings I had weren’t enough to keep us going and that made me start hawking as I looked for work. Between the Kanjo chasing us for the better part of the day and the landlord threatening to lock us out if we didn’t pay him, I thought I was going to lose it. I could barely afford to provide three meals a day for the both of us.

One evening, the city askaris raided the city center and a lot of hawkers were arrested. Unfortunately, I was one of the people that got caught.

I called Becky, told her what happened and asked her to call Max and Collins and tell them to come bail me out. She did more than that, after calling them she packed all of her things and left for Mombasa.

When I called she told me she couldn’t take it and we were better off apart. A month later, I heard she was in a relationship with the stud who had hosted her. I sold everything we had in the house and moved in with Max. She and Collins took care of me for a whole year.

You know what they say, tough times don’t last, the heavens opened up soon after and I got my job. My boss was and still is an amazing human being, he saw what I could become, he trained me, took me back to school then trained me some more.

A year later I leased this place and just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, I bumped into an old friend of mine who invited me to a party where I met the love of my life. I knew it the moment I saw her that she was the one for me and she didn’t disappoint,”

“How did you end up with me?” She looked at me as if I had said the most ridiculous thing. Our backs were against the headboard. We were on our third blunt.

“I forgot who I was talking to, let me rephrase that last part, ‘then I met your dumbass’,”

“Heeyy! I’m not dumb,”

“You just need people to be more specific,”

“Exactly, that way there won’t be any miscommunication or assumptions,”