We see.
We see each other each day. We walk past each other every day. In classes, in the hallways, on Whatsapp statuses, on the field when he's chasing a ball and I'm running. I almost waved at him once, like normal. Only this time, nothing's normal.
What does "normal" even mean, without Chideziri? I certainly am not the She you want to be asking that question.
Running: the only thing that keeps me sane nowadays, the only time I actually begin to feel complete. When I am sprinting, I am well aware of the fact that the next probable collision will only be between me and the ground. That is safer than anything I can ask for. Running, till my lungs are heaving, ready to give out and my knees feels like jellyfish.
Now, Chantalle is the only person that still talks to me. She was there the last time I nearly collapsed on the field. I keeled over, gasped and struggled for breath until I got some and when I looked heavenward, she was the
November legit tries to wash us away, to clean the slate.Like, I mean, you would think after October's being a teeny bit sunny that November will be dry. That it would be the actual beginning of the Dry season.But nope.It drizzles and drizzles and drizzles...and drizzles. And when it isn't drizzling, the heavens are trying fall down in a tsunami. I won't say it's not possible, with all of how damaged this year has been.The nightmares have started again, too. And as if to make matters much worse they come whenever they fucking please. At home. In school. Walking to the store near the house. I was just strolling and—boom—it all goes dark, I hear the chatter of pidgin on the stereo, the wipe-wipe sound of the wipers sloshing water away from the glass, smell a mist of candy spray in the car, seconds before the hit. It's almost like I black out. They are a vortex, sucking me into that fractured world of replayed drive-by
Everything happens in slow-motion.These days even the clock ticks at snail-pace, as if the seconds are sauntering by, trying to be noticed. There are the minutes within the minutes within the real minutes where I miss Amanda. Then there are the minutes when I realize what I am imagining: us, at the river, inside its mirror green stream splashing, giggling, loving. And I am shoving my way out of reality into another portal where I'm hating on her. I hate that reality upon the fact that it is the reality that I wish it was the realest. She could have just bloody told me. But no. Boils down to the fact that nobody tells me a thing around her, nobody trust me with the smallest things. I sit on the house's low fence, Duncan mighty's Fake love stuffed into my ears. I have had it on repeat all week. The music is the only thing that keeps me from snapping, from asking—no, from demanding answers. I try and try not to snap. Fate has never really had my best interests in mi
When Tobi wakes up, it is barely dawn outside but I've been up hours before, listening to the song of crickets and all those other early morning insects we really can't identify, chirp away.He yawns, stretches in his big hoodie he worn at midnight because at some point in the course of the night the cold became too cold. Blood dampening cold which seems to drip out of the soaked walls and seep into one's spirits. Me, I was feeling very defiant—I have been lately, no inkling why—so I dozed off in my singlets and trunks; which is why I am so feverish.Tobi smiles to himself, eyes closed. I cannot fathom what is so amusing until he rolls on to his bed toward mine, then blows a hot mouthful of morning breath my way."Gooooooooood!" I curse. "Phommmmmmmm!"He laughs and flops back on his bed.Typical Tobi, making a prank out of everything. Once he put tack nails on the Sunday school teacher's chair. It's a mira
I dial Amanda's line, lying on the fur rug in the centre of the sitting room. She doesn't pick up, but seconds after the first call, a text makes my phone chime.Amanda: HeyAmanda:YouI type: I wanted to say I am sorr—I delete the entire text, re-text: Can we talk—Delete, again.Eventually, I settle for: Wassup.She doesn't reply for such a long time I begin to imagine she's ignoring me, texting others. It turns my tummy, even though I will never admit to jealously.Then, it appears, a pop up on my screen: The sky, chideziri, the sky.What I have to say is too heavy for a text message, so I opt for the closest remedy; voice note. I speak hurriedly, before my courage fluctuates.I say: I was wondering if we could...meet up? And hash out a few things we have to...At the river?The typing notification shows on her profile and I get the abst
It's later into the evening that when we went previously to see the water.The sun is slowly on its way to bed, blacking out of the sky. Soon there will be no trace of its existence, only a scar of pink where there once was a beam. The clouds already look lonely without the Sun.Chideziri meets me at Oro-igwe junction, near where the mallam sells biscuits, cigars, bracelets, anklets, anything legally tradeable, anything not, too. There's two men sitting in front of the shop playing cards, an Olamide song effusing from the corner. They stop to stare at Chideziri and I, at our awkward meeting, because when we meet up we obviously don't know to do, how to react whether to hug, shake hands, smile at each other, do all of the preceding. We settle for a handshake, but any drunk walking by can see that we aren't acquaintances, or casual friends. He keeps my hand in his palm, holds on softly for an extra, extra awkward milisecond. He opens his mouth to say somethin
Some nights, it rains so heavily that I have to wonder if going to school the morning after will be possible. But then again, with my type of family, absconding from school isn't possible, even if it were brimstone and rock salt raining down, and not water.Mumsi has been home more this time around; she's there when I leave for school in the morning, and a hour or two after I've returned from school. Not that she's home from the saloon. Nah. I'm thinking from Amanda's Dad's house; which technically is Amanda's house, too. Which technically is way past awkward, well on its way to disgusting. But we take life as it comes now, eh, don't we?.For a bit now, I've ached to ask why she wouldn't tell me what was going on, but the courage eluded me. Like asking an underpaid seamstress to add extra layers of fashion to your clothing's design. Once, while she was in the kitchen, slicing onions into the blender to make stew, I was sitting at the dining table, looking i
Chantelle returns to school on an ordinary Wednesday morning, after morning Assembly. A so not Chantelle move. Walks straight into the classroom, dumps her backpack on one of the desks and starts taking out her notebooks, trying to stay unnoticed. Ahmed doesn't let her hide. He screams, "Smallie" from the far end of the room, and then it's as though the whole class was waiting for the signal to swarm her. Chideziri is somewhere, doing senior prefect duties, so he misses it all. The plastic smiles. The how are yous and where have you beens, like they have no idea where the fuck she has been. The sly mentioning without mentioning.Chantelle is a firefly trapped in a glass jar that won't give no matter how badly she wants it to. She stays stiff through it all, not much fluttering left in her, just looking away, as though she's wishing she were some place else. I take her hand in mine when Abe manages to extract her from all those side hugs."Amanda." She croak
Chantelle. Chantelle's here...Chantelle's here and nobody thought to tell me.A small mist blows around my mind, thickening into light-headedness, and my tongue becomes too heavy for itself. Sweat dots my bare palm.She called and called, and called and...called. And I wasn't there when she needed me the most. A small voice in my head tells me it isn't entirely my fault, but the boulder in my chest that seems to keep doubling in size with each step I take towards the class says something else. Says that if I had just picked up that bloody call, then maybe things would have gone down differently.The class is rowdier than a fucking coven when I enter it. Papers flying. Beat boxing. Gossip spilling. A whole lot of green and white blazers. But I am looking for only one person. I spot her at the back, sitting up on a desk, talking to Pascal, her fingers leafing through a spiral-bound notebook,