She picked up the phone, waited a few seconds then dialled the number. She heard him pick up.
“Hello?”
She stayed quiet, taking in the sound of his voice, the richness of the baritone. It had a nice ring that made her head spin.
“Hello?”
She wished she had turned on the call recorder, so she could listen to his voice over and over. He could be saying trash and she would still want to hear him.
He hung up. She sighed. She had to stop doing this. She couldn’t stay in the shadows forever and keep making calls like a stalker. But who was she to think it would matter to anyone what she thought?
No matter how hard she’d tried, she just never felt good about herself. Anyone who knew anything about her knew how hard she pushed herself regularly just so she could feel like she measured up. She was smart, curious, adventurous and determined. Yet she felt grossly inadequate.
Her phone rang. Alone in the dark quiet room, she hastened to silence the phone. He was calling back. Hold on, he was calling back! How? Had she forgotten to hide her number? Oh dear God, no.
She flipped the phone over and waited. After a while, the phone started ringing again. She answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Segun.”
“Oh hey Segun, what’s up?”
“I couldn’t hear you at all when you called.”
“I called? Oh that must have been a mistake, sorry.”
“Oh,” he said and she thought she heard disappointment in his voice.
“Sorry for disturbing you.” She said.
“Oh you didn’t. I couldn’t sleep anyway.”
“Me too.” She heard herself say.
They made small talk for a minute or two before saying bye. Phew! She handled that pretty well.
She liked Segun, And when he asked her out, she felt so good. Segun was her definition of the perfect guy. He was smart, innovative and driven.He recently posted a multilingual challenge video where he fluently spoke English, French and Mandarin.
She remembered feeling a warm sensation course through her body as she listened to his baritone voice change from one language to the other.
So the question she kept asking herself was why the hell she hadn’t said yes to him.
She got up, out on the light and went to stand in front of the full-length mirror next to her wardrobe. She had gained a bit of weight since the lockdown started and she was glad.
For years she’d wanted a little more flesh on her bones. Everyone kept saying not to worry, when she married she’d gain weight, but she never understood the rationale behind that.
She had a good job, lived alone, under no intense pressure, and she intended to keep it that way when she got married. So what would be different then that would magically make her gain weight?
She swirled in front of the mirror, taking in her glow. She did look good and that prompted the question in her mind again: why didn’t she feel good enough?
Every effort she made seemed to bounce off as luck, like she hadn’t earned it, like she was a fraud, like it couldn’t be real that a perfect guy would actually want to be with her.
Yes, she’d read about the imposter syndrome by it made no sense to her still. It was as if her knowing brain and her feeling brain were having a communication problem.
“Why?” She asked out loud, half expecting her image to talk back to her like she saw in that Insecure TV show a few days back.
When it was obvious that real life was different from TV shows, she went to turn off the light, suddenly feeling very sad.
As she crawled into bed, she wished that maybe just once, reality could be suspended and the gap between the halves of her brain would make up.
That night, she dreamt about a mirror, like the one in Snow White. The only difference was that if she said the magic words, she would feel better. It made her smile in her sleep.
