Sexy Times with Nnenna Marcia: Greg is so…ARGH!!!!

“Hello Greg’s phone.”

“Hello, this is Abby. Could I…?”

“I’m sorry, Greg is not in at the moment. Can I take a message?”

“Eke? This is Abby. Could I speak to Greg please?”

“I’m sorry but Greg isn’t here at the moment. Can I take a message?”

“Cut the crap, Eke. Could you please put Greg on the phone?”

“I am sorry, but Greg is not available. But if you would like to leave a message I will tell him you called.”

“Put Greg on the phone!”

“Hello?”

“Greg?”

“What do you want, Abby?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” Silence.

“So, talk. I am kind of in the middle of something.”

“You’re panting.”

“Like I said, I am in the middle of something. What do you want Abby?”

“I just wanted to see how you were doing and…well, we haven’t spoken in a while.”

“We’re speaking now. I’m fine. Is that all?”

“No, no. Listen, are you okay?”

“Yes, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Greg don’t be a dick, please.”

Quick intake of breath. “ Wow. I’m being a dick?”

“You kinda are.”

Chuckling. “Okay then. Nice talking with you, Abby. I have to get back to what I was doing.”

“Were you doing a girl?”

“Would it matter to you if I was doing a girl?”

“No… I mean…”

“No…?”

“Listen Greg, stop being weird for a moment, okay? I really needed to talk to you. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Abby.” A smile in his voice.

“Belinda found out,” quickly, like ripping a plaster off.

Silence.

“Hello?”

“I heard you.”

“She found a button and there was this huge fight and God, Greg it was horrible. Oh and Sarah-Jane is back, the company wants to sell off the hotel, my hotel all my hard work and all, but it’s cool, I may have found someone to buy it and maybe we can work something out. I think it’s a good thing this whole thing happened you know…not the hotel I mean the thing between me and Wes…”

“Is it?”

“Yes, because Belinda and I settled out issues and we know where we stand, and I know I am really rambling but it’s so good to speak to you Greg…”

“Stop Abby.”

“You don’t understand how much I have missed you, Greg.”

“Stop Abby!”

“You’re panting again, what are you doing?”

“Just shut up, Abby and listen. You know when you’re selfish like this, I can really see that you and Belinda are related.”

“Selfish? What are you on about?”

“Shut the fuck up, Abby and let me speak.”

“You don’t talk to me like that Greg,” I said.

“I reckon almost thirty years of being your friend and brother and whatever else you fancied at the time has given me the right to speak to you how I want, okay? So when I say shut the fuck up, I mean it. Maybe if I spoke to you this way you would have heard me long ago.”

“What’s with you today? I only called…”

“What’s with me?” A bitter laugh. “Where do I begin? Okay, let’s leave me for a moment and replay what you said. You think what happened between you and Belinda was ‘a good thing’? For whom exactly? I know it couldn’t be for Belinda seeing as it was her fiancé you slept with in the run up to their wedding, Abby my God, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“That was not my fault, Greg. You know this! You know what Belinda is like.”

“I don’t give a shit about Belinda, Otito! I care about you! And what you did was wrong and if you can’t admit it to yourself then you are a worse person than Belinda is and I don’t even want to have this fucking conversation right now, alright?”

“She know I am sorry, Greg…”

“Does she? Have you talked to her? Have you apologised? Properly?”

“She knows I didn’t mean it.” I bit my lip.

“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it Abby? You meant it, with every fibre of your being. You wanted to sleep with him and you did it and that would not have been bad if you had been thinking about him since you last hooked up in London. Admit it. You only found him attractive once you found out he was Belinda’s.”

I sighed. “Okay, fiiiiiine. God, when did you become such a buzz kill, I only called…”

“To have me validate your position as you always do, as I always have since we were kids. Maybe I spoiled you a bit because I am fucking crazy about you but that ends now. You have to grow up. We are not kids anymore and you and Belinda seem to regress when you’re in close proximity. Whatever she did to you, whatever it is you feel like you have to get revenge for, she was a kid, we were kids. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, Greg. It didn’t matter to you. You’re the one who had two loving parents, who everyone wanted to be friends with…”

“Will you let that shit go?”  Greg was shouting. “You keep hanging on to it like it should define who you are, like it should excuse what you did to Belinda. Belinda is Belinda; that’s it. Tailoring your behaviour to affect her makes you the bad one. She was a kid when all that went down. What is your excuse? Why can’t you be the bigger person?” Greg sighed. “You must really hate yourself. And that’s why I left Abby. I could’t stand by and watch you destroy yourself. I just couldn’t do it.”

“So…you left because of me? Really?”

Greg chuckled. “What do you think?”

“And I thought you were my friend. All this while you were judging me.”

“That’s what you got from what I just said? What the hell is the matter with you, woman?”

“Stop shouting, Greg.”

“Stop fucking telling me what to do all the time, I am sick of it.”

“You’ve changed.”

“No, you’ve changed. You used to be so sensitive to other people’s feelings because you had a lifetime of being treated badly now you just stomp all over people.”

“I do not stomp all over people!”

“Yes you do. You fucked off to London without a word to me, then you assumed I would always be there even after we lost touch, JESUS ABBY, this is ME! How could you send a FUCKING EMAIL WHEN MY FATHER DIED?”

“You said you were okay with that!”

“I lied!”

“Well, now I know!”

“Fucking straddling me like I am not a man, like I have no dick, no feelings.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what, Abby? Don’t fucking call me, okay? Don’t call me. This is not a judgement on you but I can’t do this shit anymore.”

“Don’t you fucking call me either.”

“I won’t!”

“Fine!”

“Good!”

“Greg wait…”

“Yes?”

“I am sorry, okay? I don’t know what got into me.”

“Yes you do, Abby. Yes you do.  And this apology should not be for me. I’ve gotta go.”

“I’m just trying to apologise. Why do you have to make everything so hard, Greg?”

Greg sighed. The phone went dead. I stared at the it in my hand.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked myself aloud.

“Was that Greg?” My mother stood at the door to my room with a tray. She fiddled with a glass on it, trying to look nonchalant. “Would you like some juice?”

“No, mum.”

“No?”

“No, thank you. Listen,” I got up from the bed and riffled through my drawers. “I am going to go out now, okay?”

“Where to?” she adjusted the tray in her arms. It looked heavy. I took a glass of juice off it and downed it, hoping to make the tray lighter.

“I need to talk to Belinda.”

“Okay,” said my mother. “Be wise.”