Ziyanda, I’m sorry.

Three years ago, around midnight on a Friday, I sat on the corner of my friend Vuyani’s bed, holding a Styrofoam cup with Jameson and Appletizer on ice. The twelve other guys and girls inside Vuyani’s rented room, except for Sipho and Mlu, were seated. A few were on the bed with me; three girls sat on the leather couch by the fridge, and Vuyani sat on his cupboard counter.

Everyone held a drink or placed it on the floor beside their feet. Everyone laughed, clapped and whistled at Sipho and Mlu’s synchronised dance to a Maskandi song in the small space between us. I needed to use the bathroom, so I stood up.

“Mzwakhe and Thandi are missing out!” said Vuyani, behind me as I exited the room. “Why do you guys never dance when everyone is here?”

Mzwakhe was one of Vuyani’s friends. He was the same age as me. Thandi Meyiwa, also Vuyani’s friend, was at least ten years older than us– somewhere in her late thirties– and I had a crush on her. She lived with her two kids upstairs in MEYIWA’S COTTAGES, the double-story building we were in. Rumour had it that her father had gifted her the building since she then handled all the maintenance and rent collecting.

On my way back from the bathroom, I noticed that a door handle and a lightbulb were missing, and I saw Thandi woozily walk down the stairs with a Savanna in hand. Upon seeing me, her caramel round face, framed in a rain of black and blond braids, spawned a smile. I smiled back at her, and a second later, my eyes wandered off to my favourite part of her body. She had thighs so thick and shapely that seeing them stretch her blue jeans threatened to stretch the front of mine.

“Sweetie, we’re matching!” she cheerfully noted.

We both wore white V-necks with our jeans. I had on my black Lacoste boots, and she had on black flip-flops on feet that looked like twin chubby babies—so cute I’d have kneeled and kissed them if I was on a drug slightly stronger than alcohol.

“Yeah,”

That’s all I could say with my eyes then lost on her built-for-cuddling arms, her grabbable belly, the bra lines across her magnificent cleavage, the subtle fold lines around her neck…

“Please stop what you’re doing,” blushing as if my staring was a compliment, she smooched a sip of Savanna to halt her lips from smiling. “You’re a different level of drunk tonight, Njabulo.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re sober?”

“I’m drunk too, but you’re worse. You look super sleepy and horny.”

Normally, even drunk, I’d only steal glances at her. I lived in the G7 section of Hammarsdale Township, and MEYIWA’S COTTAGES was in Unit 2. I came around every other weekend to visit Vuyani, a friend I’d made while doing a Buckman Laboratories learnership years before I dared to pursue writing full-time.

Vuyani had many friends and girlfriends and had many things to say about everything (he talked too much). He once advised me against taking Thandi’s friendliness as flirting.

“She’s just a people’s person, nkab’ yami,” he had said. “Yes, being single drives you crazy, but you’re not the first guy to think she likes you like that. Several have made that mistake and got disappointed. Thandi is a rich girl who only dates rich old men, nkabi, not broke kids like us.”

After hearing that, I stopped feeling special every time Thandi blushed when she caught me staring at her. I had convinced myself that she called every other guy “sweetie” even though I’d never heard her do. She had become a no-go for me when I was sober or “just drunk.” But that Friday night, I was “very drunk.”

Tell us: Who was the narrator attracted to, and, based on what he tells us, what was the age difference between him and his crush?