(Episode 26) LOVE AFFAIRS ¦ A novel of the OmidanWURA_files By Segun Alonge Jr.

I returned to the location that Sunday afternoon after taking the weekend off to refill my empty storeroom with foodstuff.

There was Lanre right in our Lodge. He had come visiting shortly after I left on Friday.

By now, my suspicion of few strings attachment between Jumoke and Stanley was becoming true. I noticed that whenever both of us are together, Jumoke does not feel free talking to me. At times she would turn off completely and when I queried, her response would be, it's none about you.

At a juncture, I came out clean asking if I had offended her in anyway and she claimed she would have told me before I asked if anything went wrong between us.

I couldn't keep my cool as I felt our friendship was being affected. She would often shrink back into silence at conversations that formerly made her laugh out loud.

‘It's a mere mood swing,’ she insisted.

The swings had persisted for weeks and it's now becoming a month. Lanre's presence changed the atmosphere. I was glad that at least the swings are now stable and we could relate well again. Little did I know that Lanre's visit was a carefully carved out plan.

He had come to challenge Stanley and talk some real sense into his head as Jumoke said she couldn't handle it anymore.
She had paid a friendly visit to Stanley while they both travelled home for a particular weekend. And to her amazement, Stanley introduced her to his mum, right there in her presence, as his fiancé.

She was gracefully received by the entire family. She decided to play along so as not to embarrass him - at least - she came with both feet herself not that she was forced over, she reasoned.

But the relationship between them would soon never remain the same after the visit. All she now had for him was outright disdain. Prior to that time, Stanley had introduced her the same way to his spiritual father but she just took it lightly and laughed it off.

But as things are now, it's obvious that there are no jokers. She now receives frequent calls from Stanley's mum and siblings - all addressing her as 'iyawo mi'. It was when it all became unbearable that she had to solicit Lanre's intervention to clear the mess once and for all. I was kept in the dark all along.

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The pressures for a relationship were just pressing hard on her from different angles. It was more like David just got a new Revelation that she would be the next governor of the state.

He just appeared from nowhere pleading for a comeback. Gifts were pouring in from all angles to win her heart. Stanley was not left out too - although he played his cards so well that I was not aware. At a point, she told him point blank that it was too late and that she was already engaged - the gentleman would not give up still.

Her phone was bombarded with texts and occasional calls, so much that she would have to put off her phone at times for a whole day. She later opted for a change of line. When I queried about the move, she simply said she wanted to cut out some 'frienemies' from her life. I had never heard the word before.

I looked up for it in the dictionary only to later realize that it was a word she had coined to classify a group of enemies in friends clothing or better still,  friends in enemy's clothing.

It was like a battle of love. There was the innocent me, not knowing what I had done wrong, Stanley not willing to share anything - he never even talked about her anymore except on some few occasions when he would ask me how she was fairing - questions he never posed to me before.

A part of me assumed he now knew that we were meant for each other but another part smelt something fishy.....

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