Honestly, I would be lying if I said I had even the faintest of ideas how it so came to be, that merely two week later, I'd find myself in Tsiamo's car, on our merry way to visit my father. I don't think a fortune teller, if I believed in one, would have even been able to convince me about such at this point in time. No; I would have found it oddly amusing, convincing myself that I would have intentionally waited at least a year before considering the possibilities of my father meeting Tsiamo and vise versa.
Yet, here I am, knee bouncing as anxiety dwells, tosses and turns the more we head to the destination; home. Or rather, what I can't call home. Tsiamo has the speakers pumping songs of his desire, though not one of them bring a sense of relief or calm in this situation. Much like the music, he has been enthusiastic and up beat about meeting my father. I thought I held it off for as long as one could, back when we first started dating, that they would meet when the time was right. The very same would apply for his family and I.
Though, within a matter of two weeks, I have been bamboozled into this, left and right; there seemed to be a bottomless pit in this topic, that out of frustration, sometime last week, I did what I knew would get him off of my back even for an inhale of a moment. I picked up my phone, asked my father when he would be available, set the date and demanded Tsiamo drop the conversation until it was time.
It's time, I guess.
"You've been quiet." My eyes glance down at his hand, rubbing against my thigh. Maybe it's a motion to bring me some sort of comfort, I can't say, but it doesn't. "What's on your mind?"
I shrug, eyes darting out the windows at familiar houses. We're getting closer. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"Stuff." I choose to say, shrugging once more before folding my arms over my chest. "Work stuff, life stuff."
"But you know you can talk to me about that, right?" Tsiamo retorts in his mother tongue. "That's what I am here for. To listen to you, carry your burden as you carry mine. You don't need to suffer in silence."
"Oh?" He hums, and now I turn my gaze to him. "I think every time I try and address something, Tsiamo, you become defensive and refuse to listen to me. Most often than not, I'll give you that, but it's still enough for me to decide against it."
Now, he huffs; the seeds of annoyance have been rooted within him, and just by my words alone, they have been watered and quickly sprouting. He removes his hand from my lap and thows it on his own. "Okay, Gertrude. I don't want to talk about it—"
"So why even ask? Why say I can speak to you when this is what I get?"
"Listen, you're being difficult." Of course, my eyes widen and I tilt my head, only partially taken back by his choice of words. "If this is about that white boy of yours..."
"It's not about— you know what? Let's address it—" I am interrupted by the voice announcing in such and such kilometers, Tsiamo is ought to make a left turn. "I want to speak on that, because just two weeks ago, you brought it up and didn't even want to conclude the conversation, so let's speak about that. Obviously you have an issue about it, or about him or whatever."
"Gertrude, if there is one thing I know, it's that men will always go after women, taken or not. That boy came out of nowhere. You never once mentioned him, I never saw you around him even once. Suddenly he shows up at your birthday, suddenly he's attending the same function, and you never told me he would be there, and I am sure you would have never told me if I didn't come. I am certain of it."
"So what if he came out of nowhere? I don't see any probem."
"The problem is you just started being friends with him, and he showed up out of nowhere. He showed up like a ghost, and suddenly you two are friends. Suddenly he chooses what you should wear at that work function? Something like that dress? It was basically second skin, left nothing to the imagination. A whore dress."
