“Calm down! There’s no need to panic,” the man said, trying to get us to calm down. “It’s me Ken, I’m alive and well!” By now the whole restaurant was already looking at us. “Sorry for
the false alarm,” Ken shouted out to all the guests. “My old friends are just a little overexcited to see me,” he announced, pulling us out to the corner at the entrance to the restaurant.
I figured Charly and I weren’t seeing things since everyone else could see him.
I think it’s best I explain what’s going on so you understand: Ken was Charly’s first love before she met Moyo; he was the reason she had decided to take a break from men.
They had met when she was in her final year at university. He was the perfect companion, he always treated her like a queen and never had eyes for any other woman. They were the
most envied couple on campus. Charly was having the time of her life until one day Ken suddenly stopped coming to visit and became unreachable by phone or any other means of communication. No one knew his whereabouts—he simply just disappeared. Charly had gone to the police to declare him missing but he was never found.
She was so devastated that she eventually became a shadow of herself and at that time it was safe to say that she was a walking dead body, it was that bad!
Ken’s disappearance had sapped the life out of her, she basically went through all the stages of grief and finally accepted that Ken was gone and gone for good; as far as we were concerned he was probably dead.
Charly and I had screamed in fear when we saw Ken because we thought we had seen a ghost—you can’t really blame us ,that’s what happens when you watch too many Nollywood movies.
After we recovered from the shock, Ken explained how he had been kidnapped from Ghana and smuggled back to Nigeria by his father’s political opponents, as a way of forcing him to
withdraw from the governorship election race in his state. They had sent a threat letter to his father informing him that Ken was in their custody and they would not hesitate to kill him if he
did not step down.
Ken’s father was not one to easily give up on his political ambitions. He
immediately hired undercover detectives to help find his son and with the help of the police, Ken was rescued after a few days but rather than allow him to return to Ghana even for just a few days, his father made arrangements for him to go abroad and stay with one of his
siblings till it was safe to return. He had lost his phone during the kidnapping and didn’t have any contact details for Charly or any of her friends. Charly wasn’t very social-media friendly at the time. She didn’t have as much as a Facebook account and there was no other way he
could reach her. After a while he lost hope and decided to focus on his new life without her.
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He had always had her on his mind, however, and promised himself that he would one day come back for her. His father had gone ahead to win the elections and ordered that all his
children stay put outside the country till his tenure was over, which had only ended a year earlier.
Ken had returned and was able to start a small business with some financial aid from his father. He then met Bayo during a meeting with one of their mutual business partners.
He and Bayo eventually did a few business deals together and became good friends, although their friendship was strictly business most of the time. Yemi never knew about their friendship until a few weeks before the wedding when Bayo had revealed the identities of his
groomsmen.
She was as shocked as we were and she told Bayo Charly’s story and
suggested he invite Ken over to his house to meet with her.
Ken was only too happy that he had finally found someone who knew Charly’s whereabouts.
He had wanted to meet her immediately but Bayo and Yemi thought it better to surprise Charly at the wedding. I guess they never imagined that the surprise would be such a rude one.
The dinner eventually went well and the bridesmaids and groomsmen got to meet and get familiar with each other. Ken and Charly spent most of the time catching up and she actually
cried when he told her his story.
I, on the other hand, spent my time forcing myself to laugh at the lame jokes some groomsmen were cracking and thinking about what the future held
for me—I was going to be raising a child all by myself soon and I was scared…
By 5 am the next morning, we were up preparing for the wedding; the hairdresser and makeup artist had arrived and we were taking it in turns to get our faces made up and our
hair done.
Just for the record, the makeup on Yemi’s face cost 200,000 naira—that was how much the makeup artist charged for the white wedding makeup alone! Notice I didn’t say the makeup was for Yemi and 200 other guests, I said makeup for one person for less than 24 hours of
display. Hmm! I had to beg Charly to help me close my mouth when I heard the price because I couldn’t find the strength to close it on my own. I can’t even count how many flies I must’ve swallowed while trying to close it, hearing the price made me weak.
I kept asking if it was magic powder the makeup artist was using or if the makeup was everlasting but they all just laughed at me. After getting my hair and makeup done, I went downstairs to check that the decorations had been put on the cars. On my way back to the lobby, I spotted Bayo in a corner whispering
something into the ears of a young lady while staring down at the two pillows on her chest as she blushed. I wondered what he was telling her.
I watched him smile and wink at her as he made his way towards the elevator. I couldn’t understand how he could still be flirting even on his wedding day, didn’t he ever get tired?
I’d had enough. I wasn’t going to sit back and watch my good friend spend the rest of her life with a cheat like him.
I stormed back into the hotel and went straight to Yemi’s room. “I need to talk to you,” I sai looking straight at Yemi after I barged in.
“Babe can’t it wait? The wedding is in less than an hour and we need to finish up with my hair,” Yemi replied.
“This can’t wait, I need to talk to you now!” I insisted, refusing to wait an extra second. She begged the hairdresser to give her a few minutes then got up and followed me out of the room.
“You had better have a good reason for this,” she said, scowling at me once we stepped out.
“I’ve been carrying this on my mind for a while now but I’ve been too scared to tell you,” I began. “My conscience would never be at rest if I let you walk down the aisle without telling you what I have to say.”
“What is it?” Yemi asked, looking both worried and curious at the same time.
“Bayo is cheating on you,” I suddenly blurted out. ” I found out he was cheating when I heard him sleeping with another woman the same day he proposed to you… I saw them come out of your hotel room together that night,” I quickly added, feeling relieved that I had finally
gotten the incident off my chest.
I studied Yemi’s face to see what her reaction to what I said was but she just remained expressionless. She suddenly began to lose her balance—everything was happening so fast, she was falling to the ground like an iroko tree that had just been cut down.
It was almost as if I was watching a movie, slowly but surely she landed on the ground with a loud thud. I was just in time to catch her head before it hit the ground. I tried getting her up but she just lay there, lifeless in my hands. For a split second I forgot that I was a doctor, I began to panic, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, what had I just done?
I had prepared my mind for all possible things that could happen when I broke the news but never in my wildest dreams had I imagined this…
– Written by Dr O
Find out what happens next……
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