‘Guilt’ (Short Story)

Summary

Dear Mukaosolu,

I write to admit that I am guilty of a heinous crime and hope that you would find it in your heart to forgive me. I didn't ask for this, yet I found myself living with this deep guilt of losing what I have with you, which I cannot shake off. You care for me like your life depends on it but I let you go. I cannot shout about it but I know that everything within me yearns for you.

My heart is shattered, but I shall always tell our story. When matters of the heart are involved, people would believe what they want. They blame you here or there for sharing your problems with them oblivious of the facts, or the thought that that they too, could be in a bigger mess, faced with the same scenarios. They all come to judgment. But they do not always know the story. Okwuchi, my childhood friend, is one of such people and so ‘nwanne m’, listen to her own story. It all began when we both attended a Multidisciplinary Conference at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA ten years ago. Mmh … I recall that it was her first time of leaving the shores of Nigeria. She was so nervous that almost everyone in attendance, noticed. I was like her guardian angel, always at hand to rescue her.

Hey! Did you just laugh? ‘Bia, enyi’, this ain't funny - like the Americans would say. Now you know, in those two weeks of our sojourn, I was able to pick up that expression – “this ain't funny”. It has since stuck in my head. These days I blurt it out with the heaviness of my Igbo accent. Lol! But I was telling about Okwy. After a few days in Nevada, she finally was able to relax. That was when she caught the attention of a very tall handsome young man, who had also come for the same Conference from Nigeria. We had all been aboard the same Delta flight from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, en route to the Maynard Hartsfield Jackson's International Airport, Atlanta.