We carpooled together almost every day. Just us. The drive to and from the site was our safe space. It was simple. Comfortable. Like the world could just disappear when we were in that car, talking and laughing like we were the only two people alive. Then one afternoon, after a long day in Embakasi, the usual chatter kicked in.
“Leo tumemaliza kazi mapema, tunaenda wapi?” he asked, flashing a grin that was both casual and knowing, one hand on the wheel, the other lazily on the gear shift.
I laughed and shook my head. “Si ulisema uko na errands leo?”
“Ah, hizo si zinaweza ngoja. We can grab a drink, maybe dinner. What do you think?”
There it was again—his ability to make everything feel so… natural. So simple. Like it wasn’t wrong. I agreed, and before I knew it, we were in a quiet spot in Kileleshwa, far from the usual Nairobi madness. Drinks in hand, we sat in a corner booth, talking about nothing and everything. His dry humor, the way he mimicked accents—he always knew how to make me laugh. For a moment, everything felt perfect.
But then, as the night wore on, the atmosphere shifted. He leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping, serious. “I think about you all the time, you know that?”
My stomach did that flip thing, and I pretended to be way more into my drink than the heat in his gaze. “I think about you too,” I murmured, probably more quietly than I intended.
“Sometimes,” he continued, his eyes locked on mine, “I wish things were different.”
I knew exactly what he meant, and I hated that I did. It was one of those moments where the weight of everything hit, and I tried to smile through it. The waiter swooped in with the bill, and that was that—back to the surface, just in time for us to pretend like we weren’t walking on eggshells. We left the restaurant, both a little tipsy, but he was still in control. He always was.
In the car, on the drive back to my place, the tension was back, thick and palpable. He reached for my hand, his thumb brushing my skin, and it felt like everything was charged. “You’re quiet,” he observed, glancing over at me.
I shrugged. “Just thinking.”
“About us?” he asked.
“Yeah. About us.”
He pulled up outside my gate, parked, but neither of us moved. The silence was heavy, like the words we didn’t say were taking up all the space between us. Finally, he leaned over and kissed me again. But this time? It was different. More desperate. We pulled apart, and he rested his forehead against mine. “I don’t want this to end,” he whispered.
Neither did I. But deep down, I knew it had to.
After that night, things just fit back into their groove. The next morning, as we drove to the site, the sun barely peeking over Nairobi’s skyline, we joked around like nothing had changed. It was our little bubble, untouched by the reality of the outside world. He told me about a camping trip he had planned for the weekend.
“Wait, what?” I asked, surprised.
He grinned. “Kwani you think I’m not an outdoorsy guy?”
I laughed. “Honestly, no. I pictured you more of a ‘Netflix and chill’ type.”
“Ah, you don’t know me well enough,” he teased, his eyes lighting up. “Maybe one day we’ll go camping together.”
There it was again—the line between fantasy and reality. Part of me wanted to cross it, wanted to live in that world where we were just two people, no secrets, no barriers. But I knew that wasn’t possible. For now, pretending was all we had.
We grabbed lunch after a meeting, sitting outside a café in Westlands. The breeze was cool, the conversation easy. He told me more about his family, his kids, but he kept his wife on the outskirts of our talks, like she was a shadow neither of us wanted to face. The hours flew by, and soon enough, we were back in the car, stuck in Nairobi traffic, the city buzzing around us. I was content—just being there, in that moment, with him.
By the end of the month, the tension between us was thicker than ever. Dinner that night was at a little place off the beaten path, barely noticeable unless you knew where to look. It was our place, tucked away from prying eyes.
He held my hand across the table, his thumb tracing lazy circles on my skin, sending shivers down my spine. “I don’t know how long we can keep this up,” he whispered, barely audible.
I looked at him, the weight of his words settling in. “What do you mean?”
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I mean this—us. I can’t keep lying forever.”
I didn’t answer right away. Part of me didn’t want to face the reality of what he was saying. But the other part knew he was right. We couldn’t keep pretending forever.
“I don’t want to stop,” I admitted. “But I know we have to.”
He nodded, and I saw something flicker in his eyes—regret? Sadness? Maybe both. “Not yet,” he said softly. “Not yet.”
And with that, we left the restaurant, driving back in silence. Both of us lost in our own thoughts. When he dropped me off, he kissed me one last time, lingering longer than usual. I watched him drive away, my heart heavy with the knowledge that our happy little bubble? Yeah, it was starting to pop.
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