FEBRUARY THE 10TH

"I'm not interested".

"But we could be great friends. I care about you. Why can't you give me a chance?"

" I don't know you. Why do you even claim to care about me? What's the point of all this attention?"

He paused to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. He had planned and waited for the day when he would tell her how he felt. He had played the script on his head. A lovely romantic movie, where the guy gets the girl he wants. Where the girl falls in love with the protagonist.

"I want to go now. I'm very busy. Good night", she said, hanging up and driving the nail through his heart.

He held his phone and stated at the floor. The world stopped turning and he at that moment wanted to smash something.

His love for his love didn't matter to this his love. It didn't matter one bit.

All that was left was memories. Painful memories of all he had committed into this one advance. Plans he had made torn to shreds. Deposits he had paid that seemed wasted at the moment. The smartphone in his hand boiled and stung.

He picked up the phone and made one last call.

" Hello", I answered. He explained the situation to me.

"Not a problem. I'd make it. February the 14th, Kilimanjaro, 6:00 p.m. Got it".

FEBRUARY THE 14TH 6:00 p.m.

"I like her. I really do. I really really do", he said.

I stared at him sitting there, with the ice cream and the box of chocolates.  He looked sullen, defeated, the way he looked when he wanted something desperately.

" Calm down", I told him. "I think I can help".

" Please help me. She needs to know I love her", he replied so softly, his voice undergirded with hurt.

So I decided to step in. I decided to type this love story on his behalf. I started being friendly with this girl, searching for the perfect opportunity to be close enough to put in a good word for my pal.

Maybe today was the day. Maybe today, finally, she'd read this piece, understand how much he loves her and pick up the phone and call him back. She should feel his pain, feel the love he feels for her and give him a chance. I know he can spoil her rotten.

He is still in love. He is still heartbroken. He would remain so until his love comes home to him. He is not moving on. It's her or no one.

He is Jesus and he is in love. With you.

FEBRUARY THE 12TH

"What now? What now? ..."

"Wake up boy. She doesn't want you. She's a pretty girl, so many guys are around her. Why should she listen to you?" was the reply.

"But I love her".

"Love? Does she even know who you are? Does she care that you exist? She's living her life. Why not just let her be?"

"But I know that we would make a perfect match. She's got everything I'm looking for in a lady. Why ask me to quit now?"

"So what do you want to do? Call her? After three days? After she kicked you to the curb? Have some self respect bro. Lick your wounds and move on. You have everything, you can get everything and anything you need. Pick a girl and with any effort she's yours. Why all this effort for this one girl?"

"Because I love her!!!"

Silence filled the room after that. He never expected that outburst from himself. But there had been silence in the room all through the conversation. He had been arguing with himself.

Sanity had forgotten him, three days after she rejected him.

FEBRUARY THE 8TH

"Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?"

"Yes. Good evening"

"You know who is speaking right?", he asked, his heart pausing in anticipation that she at least remembered him

" Yes. Of course I know you".

"Cool", he heaved a gentle sigh of relief, happy to escape the burden of  reintroduction.

"How are you? I...em...called earlier but you didn't pick".

" Oh. Sorry".

Her voice over the phone shook his confidence, running an electric pulse through his nerves.

"Helloooooo...are you there?", she asked as he went dumb over the phone.

" Yes. I'm here. I err, wanted to check up on you", he replied, cursing his lame excuse.

"Aww. Thank you".

" Okay then. Good bye"

He stammered over the phone, interrupting with long pauses occasionally. He found her alluring and dropped the phone, cursing himself for how his eloquence dried up when it came to this one girl.

One girl that he could no longer do without.

FEBRUARY THE 14TH

"Would you like anything sir?"
"No".
"Sir, are you alone? Can I sit with you?"
"No. You may not".
"Sir, I am willing to serve you sir".

The last one got to him and he finally raised his gaze to meet a smiling waitress all too eager to grab his attention. She saw an empty seat, a well groomed gentleman that oozed of gentle affluence, a box of chocolates and ice cream for two; what was she to do? It was Valentine's Day, the day to get a random gentleman to spend lavishly on you. Her mind probably weaved an imaginary near future where she would fill her roommates with mouth-opening tales of how a man without a girl on Valentine's showered her with gifts. She was eager to fill up the vacuum.

He, funnily,wanted her to sit and chat with him. So he could tell her how much he was hurting with a deep seething pain a bulldozer couldn't dig out of his heart. He wanted to explain to her how he was in love, or at least how he thought he was in love and how shocking rejection felt. He wanted to give her graphic gesticulations explaining how the denting burn in his chest reminded him of the glowing iron prods the slave masters used to mark their initials on captives. He wanted to ramble about many things.

"Please leave me alone. And bring me my balance. Thank you".

She walked away with a subdued hiss. He laughed dryly at how his temperament had flipped in a week. That was all he could muster nowadays. Straight answers, robotic replies, head shakes and nods. That's what heartbreak does to you. It plucks out your tongue and leaves you speechless.

FEBRUARY THE 6TH

"Oh God, she's beautiful", he said to himself with his thumb and index finger tapping and twisting over his screen, zooming her picture in and out. With attention to detail, he scanned her hair, her resting eyes, the way her shoes wore her feet, her darkened knees beneath the elegant dress. From head to toe, he could say she would make a befitting companion to soothe his soul with sweet words of friendship, romance and everything else in between. He was still in love with her.

He knew her and with a probing mind's eye he had studied her intensely. Day to day, with an obsession second to none, steadily at the peak of intensity, he had longed to spray scented rose petals on the earth that was graced to bear her delicate feet. She weakened his thought process, making comfort with her absence seem like a thirsting wilderness. Love was beautiful torture, more torture than beauty.

As he stared at his dialer, her number spread across the screen, his heart beat in anticipation for the leap he was about to make, the possibility of rejection all so real in his mind. But that was the way of the world wasn't it? A piggy bank of two sided coins, an endless storybook of even opposites. A tale of black and white.  Another of good and evil, maybe of hope and despair. His was just a line in the endless collection of short stories. Another cliché tale of two intertwined contrasts.

A tale of love and rejection.