...AND I CRINGED

It's safe to say that I have had a number of embarrassing moments. Times when I wished the Earth would open up so I'd sink in. Well, these things happen, sometimes of our own mistakes, other times, of unfortunate occurrence.

Source

This one experience that I would share happened as a result of my own foolishness. And although I have long moved past it and merely see it as just one of those things, it still leaves me cringing as much as it makes me laugh at the moment then.

This happened in my second year in the university. As I do wherever I find myself, I play football and I belonged to the school team. I was so good I was never neglected. But now, there was this tall, caramel skinned girl whom I had taken a liken to. She was a friend to a friend and I wanted to be friends with her too. But then, you know how it goes. For some of us, cat gets our tongue when we find ourselves around a crush. It didn't help that I was shy too. And so, I'd make do with the "hi" and "hellos" we exchanged whenever we got in close proximity, courtesy of this mutual friend.
I knew she liked me too cause I caught her staring at me a couple times. I just knew though.

As time went by and we got to see each other more often due to social events, we got talking. Just cordially. It was from our little conversations that although she said she'd heard that I played good football that I got to leverage on that. I'm beautiful, obviously. My writing is superb but I couldn't do much with that and so the next point of call was football. I praised myself so well, it was like an obsession. She said she'd love to watch me play soon.

Fast forward to about two weeks later, we met around campus and she mentioned that she'd be coming around the field to watch football. There was to be a competition between her department and mine. She said that although she wasn't a fan of the sport, it was an opportunity for her to not only come cheer her course mates, but also witness my skills. She even mentioned she'd be coming with her friends who I presume, by the way she spoke, she already had told about me.

Foolishly, rather than let her know that I couldn't play due to my health, I told her to expect to see football at its finest. I even promised her a goal. LMAO.

By evening, against my body's warning, I dragged myself to the field. My other teammates who knew I wasn't feeling too well were surprised that I hadn't just come to see the game but to play too. I couldn't tell them why. I only told them I felt better and they were glad to have me join in.

Game started and I managed to push myself around. My kicks were feeble, my movements were erratic, my eyes swirled, my head banged. I am good at the game, but that day, I was nothing to write about. I couldn't hold and keep a ball. Couldn't even pass the ball correctly. Where it got worse was that I kept falling at every slight nudge, like a vegetable. Getting near the goalpost was only a dream. Me, an agba baller.

I turned and looked at the audience at some point, the very place my crush had been and I could see something like disgust written over her face. Her friends were talking and giggling. My knees almost gave way. I immediately knew that my plans to get this girl was slandered.

Well, I managed to finish in the first half and was replaced. I was lucky my team members just saw my performance as resulting from my ill health so no one complained much. While I walked to take a seat, I looked again in her direction but she was nowhere there. Her friends were. I thought nothing of it and just went to sit at the extreme of the spectators corner.

I had only sat for about a minute and then I saw her. Standing with this guy from my department who had been benched. They held hands and were all mushy. Once our eyes clicked, I immediately averted mine. She walked up to me, put a hand to my shoulder, smiled weakly at me and said, "welldone. You tried Shaaa." And my insides tightened.

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SOKA🖤