KIAN'S ACT

Two

“Okay…do you have your ‘in case you miss the love of your life’ sweater?” the voice that belonged to, indeed, the love of my life, Shaka said to me as he wrapped his arm around my waist and I giggled, throwing my head back because I acted like a teenager whenever he was around. 

“Of course I did,” I said with a grin as my eyes met his warm brown ones, “I’m wearing it right now…” I said lowly as I admired his features as if I didn’t do it every day. Shaka had golden skin, a clean shaven face, square jaw and hooded eyes. His eyebrows were thick and bushy and he had a broad nose with full lips that were always in a cheesy grin whenever I was around. He had smile lines around his lips, and that pulled at my heart strings. I usually traced them with my fingers whenever he was close to me. He had a beauty mark just above the top right corner of his lip, and he was a clean shaven, well-mannered young man. 

You know how they say, no matter how strange or different or boring or bright you are, there’s always someone out there meant for you? Well, Shaka was the one meant for me. While a lot of people viewed my personality as too loud, and annoying, and a pain in the neck, Shaka saw me as his perfect little sunflower. Ever since we had our first date and I told him about my love for sweaters, he began wearing sweaters as well; and to make it even better, he made sure that we wore matching sweaters and would go out of his way to get custom his-and-hers sweaters that had all kinds of 3D flowers and prints on them. 

He made me feel like my personality was just enough and that no annoying loud cackle of mine could ever get on his nerves. We’ve been together three years now, and married for about 7 months of those 3 years. Life with Shaka as my husband just made sense, and I didn’t care that we were young. We got married two weeks after we wrote our final exams, and while our families had tried arguing and telling us to wait until we were both financially stable and maybe get out there and date a bit more, neither of us wanted to hear it. We were willing to elope, and seeing how determined we were, both of them decided that it was best that they simply supported our decision and helped make our dreams come true. 

Our wedding had been an absolute dream. We’d gotten married in a sunflower field, and I’d worn a short white dress with 3D sunflowers across the sweetheart neckline of the dress, and he’d worn a white three quarter pants suit with 3D sunflowers along the sleeves of the jacket. We’d had only 15 people present and called it a day. Well, our dream day. 

“I love you,” he said as he pulled me in for a kiss in the middle of the airport as if we were in our own little bubble. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I peered into his eyes, feeling the love practically burst inside me. I couldn’t explain how much I felt for Shaka– I felt like I’d explode. Was that normal? He knew that too, knew that I exploded from the love that I felt for him. Whenever I saw him when he came back from work, I’d bound towards him and throw myself in his arms and squeal and jump around, squeezing him as tight as I could. He complained that I’d kill him out of love. 

“I love you more,” I argued, refusing to let go of him even though I needed to get a move on. 

He shook his head, furrowing his brows in a feigned angry glare, “nope, I’m pretty sure, I love you even more. Like to infinity and beyond, and there’s nothing that’s greater than infinity and beyond,” he argued with me and I shook my head. 

“I love you to ten infinities, and decades, and galaxies and time lines, and beyond all of that!” I sang aloud, opening my arms wide to demonstrate just how much I loved him. He had his hands under my thighs, keeping me upright on his waist as he began to spin us in the middle of the airport. 

“I love you so much, I can’t describe it using time which actually doesn’t exist, so that means you don’t love me at all. But that’s fine, because I love you so much more that I don’t need you love, since my love is enough for the both of us.” I laughed, wrapping my arms around his neck and placing a kiss to his nose. He smiled too, “it’s okay, I can hotspot some of my unexplainable love,” he conceded and we shared a laugh. “Okay, my little sunflower, you really have to go now.” He chuckled in between the kisses I kept peppering all over his face. “Stop, you’re making me blush in front of all these white people. Don’t you know I need to look like a menacing black man?” he practically giggled as he tried to hide away from my kisses and I laughed even harder. 

Shaka didn’t even in the least bit look like a menacing black man, from the chino shorts that he was wearing to the pink sweater that he wore that had my face crocheted in the front of it. With his short afro and the glasses on the bridge of his nose, he just looked like a downright nerd. My downright nerd. 

“You’re right. I forgot you have street cred,” I teased as I finally decided to stop peppering his face in my kisses and pulling away. He cheesed at what I said, as if he wasn’t a boy who grew up in a white suburban town and most of his friends were white and their definition of a good time was playing Dungeons and Dragons on a Saturday night. “Alright…I already miss you, and I haven’t even left yet.” I said as I sighed, hating that I had to leave him behind. 

Shaka and I went everywhere together. We were inseparable, and it was like we were conjoined by the hip because where he was, I was. I was going to bring him with to the wedding but he had his first big project at work and he needed to finish up some accounts, or some actuary language of his– I don’t understand half of the things that come out of his mouth. So he had to stay behind and do that. “I’ll be on the phone with you 99% of the time, you know that already,” he soothed gently and pressed a kiss to my forehead as he sat me down on my feet and I sighed, looking down at the large black sweater that I was wearing that had Shaka’s face crocheted in the front. “Don’t worry, you’re just going for the weekend,” he held the side of my face, bringing my face up to meet his eyes. “I’ll be right here when you get back.” 

I nodded my head sadly, “yeah, it’s just Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night I’m flying back,” I said, trying to convince myself to not feel too sad. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I’ll video call you, and take lots of pics, I promise. Please, don’t forget to take care of my little garden of sunflowers,” I reminded him as his lips were pressed to mine. 

He chuckled, pulling away, “I won’t. I’ll take care of our children.” 

I gave him a pointed stare, “you damn right. You know how picky Vanessa is, she wants the sun on all on her.” I grabbed my suitcase, and looked at him one last time as one of the security men came to call me, a man dressed in a suit. 

Since I was living in Jo’burg and Samantha was getting married in Cape Town, she’d told me that I was going to ride in a private plane. The wedding was going to be a three day event in some private villa in the countryside of Cape Town, an exclusive weekend meant for just close friends and family. She told me that it was going to be sunny, but it could get a bit windy. I’d packed a single suitcase since she told me that my maid of honour dress was all on her, and that I wouldn’t have to worry about much because if I needed to do some shopping, she’d be more than willing to pay for it all. 

“Let me go,” I said to him, watching as the man in the sleek black suit took my suitcase from me and began walking away. I looked at Shaka, waving my hand at him and he lifted both of his hands, waving back at me. I grinned, waving both of my own as I began walking backwards, following after the man. He blew a kiss at me, and I blew two back before I turned my back to him and walked away, leaving him standing in the middle of the airport with all those people around him. 

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, I couldn’t explain it. But it was like I didn’t want to leave him behind. I fought with myself, arguing that it was me growing overly attached, and not some foreboding that if I continued on, something terrible was going to happen. 

“Miss?” I heard and I snapped out of it and looked to the man in black who looked at me with his arm gestured towards the red carpet that had been laid out for me and the large private plane. 

“Ooh,” I sang, “this is nice!” I praised as I continued, accepting the glass of apple juice that an air hostess handed me. “How did you know I like apple juice? I only drink apple juice,” I went on to explain to the lady, unable to stop oversharing. “I don’t drink alcohol, you know. My mother was an alcoholic, and I saw what it did to her. So I swore I wouldn’t drink it. A lot of people in my family are alcoholics. Oh my God, this leather...ooh,” I moaned against the leather seats of the private plane. “Now this is what I’m talking about. All we have to do is add a couple of sunflower prints, maybe a sunflower on that little table over there. You know, have you ever rode Mango? The airline, mango? Oh lord, it feels like you’re in a taxi in the air.” I laughed, taking a sip of the apple juice and falling silent for a bit. I closed my eyes enjoying the refreshing sip and when I opened them, the air hostess was gone. I frowned, looking around for her and when she was nowhere to be seen I sighed and looked outside the window, watching as we took flight and we left the building where I’d left the love of my life. 

“…just three days.” I recited sadly under my breath, feeling my stomach twist and turn.