Chapter thirty eight: confession

                                    

                                          
He took a quick glance at her face that was clearly tired but was still curious. 
‘‘Well, not exactly…’’
Bolaji watched her face to see any changes as he related all what he had talked about with the chairman. But she kept a completely neutral face as he said everything. Not quite what he was expecting but he still couldn’t read anything behind her neutral face. Was she angry…? Was she surprised…? He couldn’t read anything at all.
Bolaji finished and with the same expression, she said. ‘‘So, I heard your response to my father… Now, I want to know what you really think about it.’’
‘‘I pretty much shared what I think about the idea, though. I think it’s silly. I’m sure that’s what you think, too.’’ 
Some time ago, he was sure of how Bisi was going to respond. But now… he wasn’t so sure…
She gave him a strange look. ‘‘So, you are completely against the idea, huh?’’
‘‘Aren’t you?!’’ Bolaji asked.
‘‘No.’’ She answered, to Bolaji’s shock. 
‘‘So, you are really against the idea, huh. ‘’
The neutral expression she had kept morphed into a very sad one as her eyes drooped. ‘‘I know you probably haven’t thought of me in that way… but for you not to be aware of how I feel… and to be so against the idea…’’ She sounded so heartbroken.
Bolaji looked really perplexed. ‘‘How you feel…? What are you talking about?!’’
‘‘It’s my own fault for not being upfront about how I fe… how I’ve always felt about you. But I thought, in time, you would be able to see it too…’’ Bisi said.
‘‘See what…?’’ He asked tentatively. 
The reality of the situation was starting to dawn on him. 
She held his eyes, ‘‘that I love you. I always have.’’
Bolaji’s eyes slowly widened as what she said sunk in. Bisi loved him? He has always thought of their relationship as nothing more than friendship. He has known her for more than six years now and he had no idea she felt this way about him. Some of the things that happened in the past was starting to make sense. She was always angry at him whenever he said he was not interested in a relationship. 
And how she’d say the girls his friends set up with him were not good enough for him. She sometimes use him as a model when she was describing qualities she wanted in a man… he was a big fool for missing all that.
‘‘I…I don’t know what to say, Bisi. This is all coming as news to me…’’ Bolaji voice broke a little as he looked away from her.
Beside him, Bisi sniffed. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes. Her eyes were welling up with tears. 
Bolaji’s heart did a free fall as guilt began to eat him up. Why didn’t he notice until now? He supposed to be her friend. He held his face in both his hands. He wasn’t even sure of what to say to her now. He didn’t particularly feel the same about her. Bolaji loved her as a friend and nothing more.
Bolaji was going to do nothing but break her heart if he said anything. He already loves someone. So the arrangement wasn’t possible.
‘‘It…It’s okay,’’ her voice broke, ‘‘I already know what you are going to say. I also know you love someone else. I…I just wanted to know what you thought about me, that’s all.’’
‘‘I am sorry,’’ she was hurting and that was all he could say.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw her give him a weak smile as her lips pressed firmly together.