Obi Gị No N’aka M, But My Heart… N'eme Wayward

  

By Rose Chukwudi 

"Ehn? You’re engaged and you're blushing like akamu near hot water?" Adaora’s best friend, Ifunanya, hissed, slapping her arm.

“I no dey blush!” Adaora snapped, fanning her face like NEPA light just returned. “I’m just… ventilating. It’s hot.”

Hot indeed. The hotness in question had just walked past: tall, brown like freshly roasted boli, beard shaped like it had its own prayer life, and voice like agidigbo mixed with Tom Ford. His name? Ekene. A carpenter who built custom furniture and, apparently, tension in engaged women’s hearts. Adaora first saw him at her sister’s bridal shower. He was dragging in a carved palm wine stand, barefoot, with sawdust on his eyelashes like angelic glitter.

“You dey okay?” he had asked when she kept staring.

“Me? Okay? I'm more than okay. I’m premium okrika,” she blurted, then bit her tongue.

He laughed. That type of laugh that makes your womb write love letters. Now she was stuck. She had Chuka. Reliable Chuka. Banker. Neat. No beards. Pronounced ‘protocol’ like 'protocow’. He sent flowers to her office and paid for her Netflix. But when he kissed her, she felt like she was receiving communion—holy, but no excitement.

"Chuka is stable," she told herself, watching Ekene flex muscles as he lifted wood like Samson with sense.

"But stable no dey mean exciting, my sister," Ifunanya said, licking groundnut like it was gossip.

                                   ********

The next week, rain trapped her and Ekene in his workshop.

“You go call your fiancé make e come carry you?” he teased.

She hesitated. "E no dey pick. He dey board meeting.”

Ekene leaned closer, sawdust dancing in the air. “You know say some hearts dey engaged, but their souls don port already?”

She blinked. “Talk true. You be carpenter or philosopher?”

“I be carpenter wey dey fix furniture... and maybe confused women."

She laughed too hard, then too softly. Then the silence swallowed them like garri in hot water. They didn’t kiss. But when he handed her an umbrella, his fingers brushed hers. Electricity. The kind NEPA can’t even dream of supplying. That night, she stood in front of her mirror. 

Ring on finger. 

Butterflies in stomach.

Confusion in spirit.

"Obi m dị na aka Chuka... but my spirit dey tie wrapper go Ekene workshop."

Na love be this? Or just carpenter-induced madness? Only the next knock on her heart—or her door—would tell.