Incompatible…

AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN

INCOMPATIBLE

A ChrisEffe Thriller

CHAPTER 9

“Don’t pretend with me, Effe!” Chris said, his voice cold with the pain he was keeping inside, holding his anger in check. “Baaba told me you would be having dinner with the son of one of your father’s associates!”

She sighed, and her eyes went hard immediately.

With deliberate slowness, she folded her arms across her chest and regarded him without making any attempt to hide her mounting anger and frustrations.

“There you go again, believing others and doubting me, throwing your jealous tantrums!” she said harshly. “Jesus, Chris! It is you I love, and you should learn to do away with these jealous fits, Mr. Chris Bawa! It’s strangling me, making it hard for me to breathe! That’s all we do these days…argue, argue, argue, argue…over unnecessary things, Chris! For your information, it is just a business dinner, organized by a private enterprise. We’ll all be there…me, my parents, Eyram, Baaba, Josh! I don’t know what Baaba meant by mentioning a son. I have no idea any son is involved! Satisfied?”

Chris sighed miserably and passed a hand through his hair, his handsome face taking on a lost boy look that nearly succeeded in melting the ice around her heart.

“I don’t know how long I can take this, my love,” he said softly, dejectedly. “I love you so much that it hurts. My princess, I just want us to be together and live in peace and happiness. I want to marry you! My business is picking up, and we can manage, without your parents’ riches. What are we waiting for? Why don’t you just marry me, Effe, and spare me the pain of these jealous fits?”

Effe sighed heavily and looked at him with something close to exasperation on her face.

“Chris, I’m twenty-three years old, for Christ’s sake! I just completed the university!” she said. “You’re twenty-five! And you want us to get married now? That’s too soon, I keep telling you! Moreover, I need to make sure that this cold war between you and my parents is resolved amicably before pitching marriage to them!

You heard what my mother said…she isn’t going to allow me to marry you! Chris, there’s a mountain we need to climb and see what is on the other side, you understand? So please, I beg of you, put the idea of marriage aside for now. It shouldn’t be in the equation at this particular moment in time.”

He looked at her desperately, and his face was earnest.

“Your parents will never like me, or accept me, Effe!” he said desperately, painfully. “You know they hate the sight of me! I can wait a thousand years, and they will never accept me as a suitor for you! Yes, the land litigation issue is a factor, but long before that they were against me because my father is a carpenter! So, if you love me, stop factoring in your parents’ permission, Effe. The decision is yours. Maybe, if we get married, they’ll accept me as a human being!”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous and melodramatic, Chris!” she said with sudden anger. “Accept you as a human being? What are your talking about? That’s my parents you’re insulting if you care to know! I’m not ready for marriage yet, Chris, and I don’t want to discuss that again. The best we can do now is try to see out this court case, and then try to unite our two families by any means we can.

I can’t marry you knowing my parents wouldn’t like it, or that they might boycott my marriage! What happiness would I have in my marriage if my parents don’t give their consent to it in the first place, Chris? That can’t happen, and I can’t even think of doing something like that to them.”

He was hurt immediately, and his face shattered.

“Is that right, Effe?” he asked in pain. “You’ll choose your parents over me? Is that what you’re saying? Now, what does that mean, huh? Are you telling me that until they give their consent, and accept me, you’re not going to marry me? Our future together now depends on whether or not your parents accept to be at your wedding?”

“Come off it, Chris!” she shouted, fed up with his childish antics. “It’s not about choosing them over you, please! It’s about planning! Setting out to marry in two years’ time, maybe, and planning together to bring peace between our families! Yes, if we marry now, my parents wouldn’t attend the wedding, and it would hurt me very much! I can’t even do it, Chris, I can’t.

My mother means the world to me, and since my childhood, we’ve planned and played out my wedding in every setting. And my Dad, Chris! He’s my hero! Do you think I can be at peace knowing they’re hurting because I disobeyed them and married against their wishes? No, Chris, that’s something I cannot do! If my parents wouldn’t be at my wedding, then I don’t see the need to get married in the first place because their approval and continuous love far outweighs any consideration for marriage. Stop rushing me, please! Let’s be sensible and think this through and approach it the right way!”

“I’m not rushing you!” Chris shouted right back. “It’s about you, Effe! You’re the one who gives them the picture that you can survive without me, and they don’t see our love as being precious to you. You don’t hang out with me but prefer to hang out with other guys! And you always tell me there’s nothing going on, they’re just friends, but you know it hurts me! You stay out late with them! You’re happy with them, but you barely have time for me!

I’m the one always left stranded, wondering where you are, what you’re doing, and it just about kills the very soul within me, because I love you with passion, Effe! I love you with power, with the very breath in me, with my soul! I wish, above all things, that I can un-love you, but that will never happen because my heart will always beat with the resonance of your name…ef-fe, ef-fe, ef-fe…that’s how my heart beats! So why in the name of heaven can’t you spend your time with me but rather prefer the company of others?”

“Because you’re not fun, Chris!” Effe shouted angrily. “I’m used to having fun! It is how I grew up, and suddenly you want to put me in a cage, lock it and throw the keys away! Well, it doesn’t work out that way, Mr. Chris Bawa! Your idea of hanging out is staying in a corner in your room or going to the beach, or just sitting on a porch chatting! You’ve always known I’m the social type, not an introvert!

You know most of my friends are guys! I like going to clubs to dance, and you don’t! I like going to places, going on rides, finding new fun joints, but you consider all that a waste of time! You just want the two of us to be alone, and that’s your idea of fun, but that doesn’t work for me, Chris! You have my heart, yes, and I love you beyond reason, but I’m not going to sacrifice my breath for you!”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Chris threw back at her. “You want to go to clubs and dance? Fine, then go with me! You want to go to the zoo, to festivals, to music shows, to drama theatres, just go with me! I don’t care! I’m always telling you I’m ready to go out with you, to have fun with you, to do everything you want to do with you! I can do it, and I will do it as long as we’re together. Go out with me, Effe! I’m ready to be your date to any point of the earth you want to go to! I’ll even accompany you to hell if you want. But you don’t want that, do you? You just want your friends, and not me!”

“They’re my friends, Chris!” Effe said angrily. “I can’t give them up for you! I knew some of them before I agreed to give my heart to you! You don’t have to go everywhere with me, because you’re not my pet dog, Chris! You just have to trust me enough to know I love only you, and wherever I might be, with whoever it might be, you’ll always be in my heart, and I’ll never fool around! I’ll keep my virginity until the day I get married, Chris! So stop fretting and driving me nuts with your damn jealousies. It doesn’t help in any way. The only thing it does is bring these arguments between us!”

He took a deep breath and held her arms.

“I’m not asking you to give up your friends, Effe!” he said, striving to remain calm as he looked at her. “All I’m saying is if you have to be with them, invite me too, sometimes! Let me be a part of you, meet your friends and have good times together!”

“No, Chris, I can’t!”

“And why not?”
“Because you’re not fun to be with, Chris!” she said levelly. “My friends would be bored with you in a minute, and you would also be bored. This is who I am, Chris, and you must learn to accept me like this. I have friends apart from you, and I’ll always hang out with them without you. Accept that, please, and stop suffocating me so much with your pettiness and silly jealous tantrums! It’s frustrating, and frankly, I’m getting tired of it all!”

“I see,” Chris said, bitterly hurt. “I’m boring. That is why I use your picture as my WhatsApp DP all the time, but you have never once used my photo, not even on my birthdays, but you conveniently display other male friends’ photos as your DP on their birthdays! That’s why you’re my cover and display photos on Facebook, but I’ve never seen you posting even one picture of the two of us on Facebook.

The only positive thing is that your Facebook marital status says you’re in a relationship with me! Some things hurt, Effe, and you better be careful about the way you treat me sometimes. You treat me bad, and hurt my heart so much! And for what reason? What’s my crime? The only thing I’m guilty of is that I love you, Effe, with every single drop of the soul in me! You have the power to hurt me, Effe, because I love you, and only you, in this whole world.”

“Look, Chris, that’s who I am, okay?” she said angrily. “You either accept me as I am, or you find someone to your taste, someone you’re compatible with! Right now, as I see it, we’re drifting farther and farther apart, Chris. It seems to me now that we’re incompatible.”

Chris gasped, his face tortured, and his eyes turned red with sudden passion as the first sting of tears assaulted his whole system.

And just then Effe’s iPhone rang.

It was lying on the bed, and the face on it showed a handsome young man in a suit. She had saved it as ‘Jude L’.

Effe looked at it and then looked at Chris.

“Please, excuse me now, Chris,” Effe said tersely, still angry. “I need to pick this call.”

“Go ahead and pick your call,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll wait.”

“No, Chris, this is a private call, so wait for me in the living-room,” she said.

His eyes blazed with pain.

“What are you going to talk about with that guy, Effe, that you don’t want me to hear?” he asked painfully. “And who is he that you want to sack me to listen to? And why have you added ‘L’ to his name? What does that ‘L’ stand for?”

The call ended, and she looked at him with her eyes blazing furiously.

“Don’t push me, Chris!” she said angrily. “I told you this is a private call, and yes, I don’t want you to listen to it! Wait in the hall, please.”

The call came through again.

“No, I’ll wait right here!” Chris said stubbornly. “Go on and answer it, if there’s nothing between the two of you!”

She looked at him with blatant fury.

“You’ll never change, Chris!” she said angrily. “Sometimes you just drive me against the wall so hard! One day, when I bounce off that wall, you might not like the resultant reaction! Suit yourself!”

She picked the phone and slid to answer, all the while walking towards her bathroom. She entered the bathroom and locked the door. Effe then walked away from the door, dropped down the seat of the Water Closet and sat down on it.

Chris pounded angrily on the door, his voice muted by the heavy door as he called her over and again.

She paid no heed to him and spent about thirty minutes in there speaking on the phone. Eventually, the pounding stopped, and Effe rolled her eyes angrily at the door.

When she finally came out, Chris was gone.

She walked to the hall, but he wasn’t there.

She went outside, and the gateman told her Chris had left.

Effe sighed heavily and shook her head angrily.

She dialled his number, and he picked the call at the first ring.

“Where are you, Chris?” she asked angrily.

“Outside,” he replied, and his voice was low and hurt. “Just outside, under the trees.”

“You left? You didn’t know why I wanted you to come over and yet you simply picked a fight with me and left, Chris Bawa?” Effe spoke angrily and harshly. “One day I’ll just get fed up with your damn jealous tantrums, Chris. Okay, fine, you can go! Bye-bye!”

She cut the call and looked angrily at the security man.

“Lock that gate, Mr. Bassah!” Effe said with deep anger. “Don’t let Chris back in!”

She turned away in an angry huff and walked into the house, ignoring Chris’ call as it came through on her phone.

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