He shot his Shot

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He walked up to me one day after Mass and said to me, "I like you and want to be your friend" I was a bit surprised because I had never even seen him before, had no idea who he was and so was shocked at his forwardness. After that day, I began to notice him every time I was at Mass. He was very unassuming and did not have the best looks but there was something about him. We started to exchange pleasantries and I could tell that he was very happy that we had become friends.

He would always walk up to me while I sat in the car and waited for Beatrice to get to the car and I could tell by the way he kept on smiling even after he had walked far away from me that Ike was happy with the new friendship. Amazingly, the kind of effect girls have on boys leave the boys acting sheepishly and the funny thing is that we girls know it. We graduated from greeting each other after Mass to him visiting me at home and mother did not mind because she knew that he was as much a church boy like I was a church girl and she knew his parents; they were a very respectable couple and Ike was a really good kid.

Ike became a really good friend and we spent time talking about life and that was when I knew what gave him the confidence that his looks could not have given him; he was very intelligent and could easily discuss every topic authoritatively. He would often drive me to a quiet area and let me drive his car around just to perfect my driving. I remember that he would put two stones at opposite ends and ask me to drive in between them. After our driving lessons, he would take me home and thank me for coming out with him and I always said "thank you" back to him.

I must have been like fifteen years old and our friendship continued till he went off to the University just a few years before I gained admission into the University. We kept in touch and he told me of how a foremost oil company had accepted his application for an internship. When he got back from his internship he bought me a beautiful box and it shocked me what was in the box. It was a pair of the most beautiful lingerie I had ever seen but I was in such a shock to say anything. A lot of things went through my mind like, "the gift was very personal, would I send a signal if I accepted it, how could he as naive as he appeared to be in that area, buy me such a gift, was he sending a message or what?" As all those things went through my mind, Ike burst out laughing and he asked why I looked so stunned.

We had gotten very close and I knew that he liked me but I played dumb because I knew it just wouldn't happen, first I was too young to date and when I was ready to, he wasn't my kind of guy. He was tall, dark, and handsome, he did not have the bad boy image, I was already a church girl and didn't want a church boy; my prayers would be enough for my family and so I never imagined that our friendship would ever make it out of the friendship zone, he startled me out of my thoughts by his question and I began to stammer.

I told him that I didn't think that he would buy me that sort of gift and asked if he didn't expect to see me in them and he said that he would love to; we both laughed as I told him that it would never happen and he asked me why. After all these years of friendship, why do you think I wouldn't see you in lingerie, just because it won happen. That was the day he shot his shot and his shot backfired and that was the end of our friendship. 

The oil company employed him after he graduated and he left Enugu, which was in the late nineties. I neither heard from nor see him until my wedding day when he walked up to me and said congratulations, he didn't change that much, I was happy to see him but happier to be where I was, that was in 2001. The next time I saw Ike was at mother's wake in 2016, he tapped me on my shoulders and when I looked back, someone who looked like him stood behind me, wow! that was him, he added some flesh in the right places and right by his side was this beautiful chocolate skinned girl, a couple of inches taller than me and him, I had to look up at her and she had the most beautiful smile and a set of sparkling white teeth.

Ike introduced her as his fiancee, he said their wedding was coming up later that year and I asked him to remember to send me an invitation. In my mind, I thought, he wouldn't have got the damsel if he had seen me in the lingerie, he got himself a very beautiful girl who looked very decent and well mannered, while he introduced her, she held on to his arm playfully and I could tell that she was happy to be with him. I never got an invitation to their wedding and didn't hear from him again but he is one good boy that I will always wish well.