CHAPTER FIVE

I Love You if You Are You

After leaving from Juma's house, Stephany took the road straight to her friend's place. She thought back on the behavior just now of Juma and looked curious.

'Was he talking to the girlfriend and doesn't want me to know?' she thought.

'Huh! That can't be it. How arrogant he is, why should he hide talking to his girlfriend?' She shook her head and brushed off the thought.

If she remembers correctly, he should have been able to have completed his studies 4 or 5 years ago and why he came back without his family was also weird.

This made her look back to what had happened the last day she ever set her eyes on him.

The exam month had just ended and according to Juma's subjects he was one of the students who sat for their last exam on the last and final exam day in the country. Since all national exams were done only in the morning, she expected a call from him this afternoon.

She was washing the dishes on that hour when her phone rang. Guessing who it might be, she rushed to the wooden stool where her phone was without even rinsing her hands. The phone was a small slide button phone.

He had given her the phone to facilitate their remote conversation. She hurriedly wiped off the foam from her hands by wiping them on the short she was wearing and picked up the phone.

When she answered the call she couldn't help but let out a sigh of disappointment. From the voice it was surely not Juma.

"Hey Stephany" the other side had greeted.

"Hey!" She had answered disheartened.

"What's up with the moody greetings?" the other side asked.

"Nothing Ben. Anyway, what did you want to tell me that you couldn't tell Juma to tell me about?" she asked.

"Has he called you?" Ben asked word by word.

"Why ask?" she asked curiously.

"mmh! I just wanted to be the first to call you that's all, mmh!" Ben said hurriedly.

Even though she felt like something was hidden under the question and the hurried anxious answer, she never mind and took the answer. Who in the entire fourth form students never knew of Ben's desires towards her?

So, that answer was just logical and could explain the call.

"Okay, you have won so can I head back to my dishes, I had left them thinking it was important?" She said sarcastically and stressing the word important.

"Ooh. Before you go, I wanted to inform you about the party tonight. Hope you make it"

""You are inviting me to your leavers party?"

"Everyone is inviting you!" voices reverberated from the other end.

Stephany stretched her arm in reflex to avoid her ears damaged by the voices and she was startled. These seniors of hers were funny. Especially the ones who were in the same class as Juma and also his dorm mates.

"Sorry Steff these flies will never walk away from the flowers always acting as bees around me," Ben hurriedly explained.

"No problem, at least. they want to be clean not going after feces, don't you think?" She asked in return.

The boys on the other end laughed. As much as Ben always wanted to please Stephany with his actions, she always fawned ignorance with funny complements. Here, the boys knew that she was trying to interpret Ben's words of letting a fly behave like a bee towards a flower to the flies loving clean and fresh air and not the normal feces.

"You people stop and consider your behaviors!" Stephany pretended to reprimand and added in defeated voice, "Okay, I will come and Ben,"

"Yes Steff"

"Always call me Stephany. Remember that" she ended the call and laughed hard.

She was getting it rough trying to keep the incoming laugh while talking to him and the fact that she knew what was going to happen after her last sentence made it more hard to keep in.

On the road she almost laughed loud at the thought and also to her foolishness at that time. She surely never knew why he called her first before her boyfriend could have that day. She walked down the road hurriedly and turned to the left and through a clothe store, there was a door to the stairs.

Just when she was about to pass by the glass windows, she saw a dress on the display. She halted on her steps and after a little hesitation she decided to enter and check on it.

It was a knee length dress with a deep neck. Blue in color and it had flowers on the lower part. From a far, you could think it's a blouse and a skirt. There were beads on the waist. Stephany went to the dress and started feeling the beads in her palm as she was lost in thought again.

After being invited to the party, she went on with the dish washing and everytime would peek on the stool to see if there was light from the phone's screen. At some point she even checked the message center and the sound settings to make sure if there was any notification she would hear it.

After finishing the cleaning, she arranged all the dishes on a shabby rack facing down to dry and poured the dirty water on the latrine floors. She washed the basins and put them on the second layer of the utensils rack.

When all was done, she took her phone and sat at the stool for a while before heading inside the house and to her room. She went to the cloth wooden wardrobe. It only had shelves like a cupboard. On top of every shelve, was clothes folded and arranged in an orderly manner.

Even though, you could still notice that most of them were pants. Jeans, shorts, tracksuit, sweatpants, side pocket, Colombo, name them and you will find 1 or 2 in her wardrobe. Even the pants she had now had pockets. Her school uniform had pockets.

She was the cool girl who was a boy on the outside. If not for her hair and the slightly swelling chest, she would easily be mistaken for a boy. Many of the girls in her class couldn't help but wonder if men who approached her did not respond to the scientific say, like poles repel. To them, Stephany was no different than a boy and her long hair made them jealous.

She ran her fingers on the ages of the clothes and stopped at a blue clothe. Slid her hand in between and pulled it. She unfolded it and placed it on the edge of the bed. It was a dress. The only difference to the one she was feeling it's beads now was the neckline and the sleeves.

That dress had elbow length sleeve and a round neckline but the back had a little v deep shape. It was unique. A dress she had bought when he accompanied her shopping on the last day they met before the beginning of the exams. That day he had shook his head to all the sexy and fashionable dresses she had tried on that time untill when she walked out of the changing room with this dress.

He looked at her with a smile and giving a thumbs up, he nodded in agreement. She had bought this dress with her own savings and he bought her shoes. After coming out of the mall, she had asked him why that was the dress he said yes to. Frankly, she had complained to h about it because she thought her savings would give her three dresses and have two for Christmas and New Year celebrations only to come out with one.

He laughed and said, "This is the dress that screams you. It's unique just like you"

"Okay, I don't want to hear your cheesey liar words," she had said stopping his arm that wanted to hug her publicly.

He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him and said looking intently at her eyes,

"Steff, I don't lie. You are you and that uniqueness is the charm. For me you don't need to change. Mind no one coz I love you if you are you"

"Okay?" He had added with a raised brow.

It was sure he had realized from the dresses she was trying on that she wanted to try and be a lady for him but he also couldn't judge her because he also heard of rumors in school about her being taken as a boy.

Stephany separated her hands from the clothe and smiled at the saleslady and said, "I love it but the neckline is a bit deep," she stressed the word deep shyly.

"When will you bring in the next bale?" she asked.

"Next week Friday. If you need better dresses you have to make it when the store opens or else you will find the left overs after women have ravaged over them," the lady answered and advised with a smile.

"Okay will see,"she said and left the store.

She headed to the stairs and climbed up to the floor of Candy's apartment. As she headed upstairs, his words echoed in her head.

"I love you if you are you"