I’ve taken three showers already and I still don’t know what else to do with myself.
The apartment is quiet, the television is on but I couldn’t tell anybody what’s playing, my food is cold, my phone is on the table, and my mind is still in that photocopy room.
Still with her.
I remember the way she looked at me, I remember her smile, I remember how close we stood, I remember her hand finding mine, and I remember how difficult it became to think.
What I do know is that when I finally left the office tonight, I wasn’t the same man that walked into it. This realization terrifies me because this didn’t start tonight. Tonight was just the first time neither of us pretended.
The truth is I’ve been trying not to think about Bimpe for years. Do you know how exhausting that is?
Trying not to think about someone?
Trying not to notice them?
Trying not to compare every woman you meet to them?
Trying not to ask yourself dangerous questions?
The first time my brother brought her home, I was in university. I remember that day clearly. I didn’t fall in love immediately, life isn’t a movie. I just remember liking her.
Everybody liked her. She was warm, funny, easy to talk to, the kind of person who could walk into a room and somehow make everybody comfortable.
My brother fell hard. Who wouldn’t? Then they got married and that should’ve been the end of the story. Simple, finished, and done.
Except life rarely asks what would be convenient. The older I got, the harder it became to ignore what I felt. So I did what any sensible man would do. I stayed away emotionally.
I kept my distance.
Never crossed any lines.
Never lingered too long in conversations.
Never allowed myself to imagine possibilities.
Because there were no possibilities.
She was my brother’s wife.
End of discussion.
The fact that I liked her didn’t matter.
The fact that I admired her didn’t matter.
The fact that every woman I dated somehow reminded me of what she wasn’t didn’t matter.
Some feelings aren’t meant to become anything, you carry them quietly and then you move on, at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
Then the marriage started falling apart. At first nobody knew, not really. Families can be funny, people can be unhappy for years and still look perfectly fine in photographs.
The smiles remain while the cracks stay hidden. Until they don’t. I watched it happen slowly, the distance, the arguments, the silence, the separate lives, and through all of it I kept telling myself the same thing.
This changes nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
But it did.
Because suddenly she wasn’t my brother’s happy wife anymore, she was a woman trying to rebuild her life. A woman learning how to work again after years at home, a woman carrying more weight than most people realized and somehow, against my better judgment, I found myself wanting to help. That’s how she ended up at the company.
The problem is that I know her, probably better than most people think. I’ve watched her for years, the way you watch someone you care about.
This is why I can’t convince myself tonight happened because she was vulnerable, or lonely, or grateful. People are going to say that, I know they will. Maybe even she will.
But I know Bimpe. Bimpe doesn’t do things because she feels indebted. She doesn’t pretend, she doesn’t perform emotions and she certainly doesn’t let people close unless she wants them there.
That’s what keeps replaying in my head. She stayed. She could’ve stepped away but she didn’t. She could’ve stopped everything before it started but she didn’t.
For the first time in years, I allowed myself to consider something dangerous.
What if she sees me too?
Not as her brother-in-law.
Not as somebody helping her.
Not as family.
Me.
Just me.
The thought should make me happy, instead it terrifies me because reality is still waiting.
My brother is still my brother.
My niece is still my niece.
My family is still my family.
Tomorrow all those facts will still exist.
And what then?
What happens if this becomes something?
What happens if it doesn’t?
Would my brother ever forgive me?
Would he even be wrong not to?
What happens at family gatherings? Christmas? Birthdays? Naming ceremonies? Weddings?
What happens when people start talking?
Because people will talk.
Somebody will say she planned it.
Somebody will say I stole her.
Somebody will say we were secretly involved all along.
Nobody will care about the truth.
And my niece.
God.
My niece.
That’s the thought that hurts the most.
She’s still young, still innocent and still trying to understand why her parents aren’t together anymore. What happens if she looks at me one day and thinks I took her mother away from her father?
The truth is I don’t have answers, I only have feelings and that’s the problem.
If this were just attraction, life would be easier.
If this were just desire, life would be easier.
If this were just loneliness, life would be easier.
Those things pass, they fade and disappear. This doesn’t feel like that. This feels deeper. Like something that has been waiting patiently for years, something I buried so long ago that I convinced myself it was gone, and now that it’s finally breathing again, I don’t know what to do with it.
I stand and walk to the window, the city lights stretch endlessly into the darkness. Somewhere out there Bimpe is probably lying awake too.
People think the hard part is finding love, it isn’t. The hard part is figuring out what to do when it arrives at the wrong time, or in the wrong place.
I rest my forehead against the glass, close my eyes, and for the first time all night, I stop trying to find an answer because maybe there isn’t one.
Maybe two things can be true at the same time.
Maybe I can love my brother and still love her.
Maybe I can care about my family and still want her.
What happens next, I have no idea. But then again…
Life itself isn’t easy. It’s complicated.