At first, they would not believe that I am not simply the most heartless soul on earth. Why should they, when they would not believe that I had not intended to date both of them at the same time, fully knowing that they were not only housemates, they were related; they were cousins.
Somethings are just difficult to explain, and even more difficult to rationalise. No amount of explanation would convince Edith that my intentions were good when I asked her to give us a second chance.
We had been dating for a year when we got some issues, and being the adults we were, we agreed to part ways. But more than eight months later, we run into each other. It was a mutual feeling that we had missed each other, and while we had had our issues, we had been happy together.
So I had called her, asked her to go out on a date with me and talk about it. I wanted her back; I was ready to give it my everything to make it work. She agreed.
I was very optimistic about the whole thing. But first, I had some house cleaning to do. See, for the past two months, I had been getting into a relationship with another girl, Anne. Anne was a great girl, but nothing compared to Edith. Besides, I did not as yet feel for her the way I felt for Edith.
So, with Edith back in the picture, I needed to sort out my affairs with Anne. Which was not going to be easy, these things never are. I imagined how I would even broach the topic;’ Hey Anne, me and my ex girl have patched things up, so this is it for me and you. Ciao, it was nice getting to know you’. It would be inhumanely unfair to Anne, but also not telling her was even worse. For three weeks, I put off telling Anne. But as I dilly dallied, my time to come clean ran out.
They found me out. I had had no way of knowing that they knew each other; I had not known Anne long enough to know her family, i had not even gone visiting at her house. As for Edith, she had never mentioned Anne, she had no reason to. I suppose it all started when I called Edith one night and we talked for a while.
During the call, Anne kept calling me. I thought I would call her after talking to Edith. I suppose when I called Edith, she had been with Anne.
Left to herself, Anne thought it might not be a bad time to check in. Problem was that I wasn’t exactly available, being on phone with her housemate.
Immediately after talking to Edith, I called Anne. We didn’t talk long, I was feeling guilty about the conversation that we had to have, that was already overdue by three weeks. About 10 minutes after talking to Anne, Edith called. My sixth sense told me there was something not right about this call, warned me not to answer.
But curiosity made me answer. It was Anne on the other side. Anne was talking on Edith’s phone! It was a very short conversation. I asked if I could go over and explain. ‘Sure’, Anne said, ‘you know where we stay, no?’ I did not know, neither did I know they stayed together. She gave me directions.
Twenty minutes later, I was busy explaining to these two women that my intentions were good, it was an unfortunate mix-up, we were all victims of bad timing, and nature’s twisted sense of humour.
They could not believe me at first. But after a while, I think they understood my position. But we all knew there was no way this could be salvaged. We all had to let everything go.
So, at 3am in the morning, feeling like I was walking out of an interrogation room, I said goodnight to these two ex-girlfriends of mine, one of them a double ex-girlfriend, and went home to have a sleepless night.
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