“Abdul, can you come over? My husband’s out tonight,” was the first text message I received from Mrs. Buchanan (not her real name).
Mrs. Buchanan is a divorcee who’s about 15 years older than me. She is a hard worker, dedicated to her job — which could possibly explain the separation from her husband — and overall an astonishing woman. She is the CEO of a fast-moving IT company.
I just had graduated from university when I first met her. It was my “The Graduate” moment. She was my own Mrs. Robinson.
What you’re about to read is texts, emails, letters — any form of correspondence — between Mrs. Buchanan and me from the past couple of years until only a few weeks ago. We had a promising beginning but things just didn’t pan out.
There were times when we found ourselves on guilty beds. There were moments when we couldn’t see each other’s eyes. Sometimes our lips needed no introduction, sometimes we talked about who did greater sins. What followed then was awkward friendship. And later on in our life, we became total strangers.
These texts — or letters or whatever — were an essential part of our short-lived relationship as they were our main mode of correspondence. She wanted to keep it a secret and I had no problem with that. Through these letters she confessed her deepest secrets, her darkest memories, her wounds.
I was ready to bury our memories with my gloomy past but a friend told me over chorizo and beer that I have to re-tell the tale. Our story, according to him, is too good to pass up.
I was never going to use the phrase “Texts From Mrs. Buchanan” as it’s completely unoriginal — e.g. “Texts From Last Nights” and “Texts From Hillary Clinton” come to mind — and this isn’t the most righteous thing to do but my friend was right: The story is in the letters, the texts, the emails or whatever.
