Our Uber ride arrived a few minutes later, it was a lady on the wheel. She saw me and immediately called me African Queen. My head nearly burst in feathers from the flattery she showered on us. You know if an African woman says you are beautiful, it means you are spectacularly stunning that day. Imagine if Hussein saw me. His jaw probably hit the floor.
We headed to his house first to pick him up before we zoomed to Victoria Island where the show was happening in the next three hours. With the traffic included, we should be there with one hour left to settle and take pictures. Hussein lived in an estate similar to ours, the main gate opened to the road sandwiched with similar looking duplexes. He lived in one with his brother and his two nephews. The kind woman parked as I had instructed. I didn't wait for the car to roar to the end before I clicked the door open. Nikki decided to stay behind, watching me go with a teasing knowing look. I knew she was talking about me to the driver as they burst into laughter as I disappeared into the building. The foyer, the living room was turned upside down courtesy of the two devil incarnates in the body of his ten years old twin nephews. His brother, their father was hardly around so it was just Hussein running around trying to get them to order. Sometimes he just straight up gave up. Today was one of those days. But one thing could be certain, his room upstairs was always spotless just like mine. I couldn't get past untidiness. I wanted to barge in because what was I knocking for? He knew I was coming. My bet was that he was hitting on his controller completely engrossed in the call of duty world. And I was right. He was but he wasn't alone. On the other chair in front of his double monitor– that chair was always empty, never occupied in the hundred and something times that I had been in this room except it was today. By a girl. I tried not to lose my smile, even as I heard my heart picking up the allegro. "Hi, Hussein.""Colette, you're here," he said, relocating his headphone to his neck. He followed my eyes to meet the girl who was staring at me as if waiting for something from me. "Nonye, you know Colette, right? Colette, this is Nonye, she will be writing WAEC with us so from Monday she will be attending class with us.""Hi, Nonye." I mended my smile a little more as my face got stiff from the forced pose. "I hope he is losing, it can get into his pompous head if he wins, you know."She nodded. Nonye was as dark as I was but she kept a TWA and wore no earrings. She had a smile on her face, a genuine one or maybe that was what she wanted me to think. "So nice to meet you. I have heard so much about you." Oh! They talk. I took one deep breath to drown the tiny whispering voice in my head jumping to conclusions. It doesn't mean anything, Colette. Relax. "Really? I haven't heard anything about you. Do you stay around?" I asked her but my eyes searched for the answers in that of Hussein. He had a half smile on his lips as he half-heartedly operated the controllers, alternated between looking at me and the computer."Yeah. Next door.""Yeah. Next door." I repeated, mostly to myself. Next door girlfriend. No. It can't be. Hussein doesn't have a girlfriend. I know he doesn't, he is my friend for what years, I know that for certain.The thing was that Hussein pursued one thing and that alone. His straight A's grade paper. He was in school ten hours Monday to Friday and Saturday he was back again for the Jet club meeting where we solved mathematics for three hours straight. Then he would go home to eat and play some games. And on Sunday, he washed his clothes and you guessed it, played even more games. That was why he had the game setup of a professional streamer on twitch. I knew all this because I was there every second, maybe not every second but still. He pulled me everywhere during school hours and after school, we talked on the phone for hours, most of the time he was just explaining my homework to me but sometimes he just kept me company as I did the dishes. Aside from all that, he told me everything that happened to him, even the traumatic ones. So yes, I would know if he had a girlfriend. There is no way about it. It is impossible. "Nonye is my girlfriend."I froze over. The air around me turned solid and poked my unmoving statue. "Kind of funny how it happened." He laughed.She laughed. Loud. The cricket sounds of her laugh mocked my soul. "Wh-what?" I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. "It's ridiculous, I swear." Nonye chose to say as she fell on top of Hussein with her vibrating shoulders. "But cute though.""I asked her out in a game. That doesn't make any sense, I don't know how I did it. I-I just did and threw caution to the wind yesterday night. I couldn't hide my feelings again." He spoke to me but his eyes were on her. He was smiling so brightly– he doesn't even smile like that to me. Oh Lord! My heart was starting to crack, its contents leaking out slowly but surely I was being emptied. "Cool. It-it's actually–" I looked away, my vision was turning blurry. I blinked away the hurt, refusing to cry. "Wow!""Yeah. So I, um, I can't go to the concert. Nonye doesn't have a ticket. I'm sorry.""That's bullshit, Huss. I don't care about some pretty boy singing, you know that is not my kind of fun." Huss. Wow! This can't be happening. It is not true. It can't be. He loves me, right?"I can't leave you. This is our first valentine." He chuckled with his lips pressed together. When he finally managed to meet my eyes, he turned sober. Maybe he saw life leaving me. I was standing but not really. A wisp of air could bring me to the floor. There was nothing in me anymore, save for a shattered heart. That place in my chest was heavy as lead, it was sinking and pulling me along. "I'm sorry, Colette. I can refund you but I know you will not like that. I wanted to call you this morning but I kinda forgot, not gonna lie. That's shabby of me. Please, you understand love so you will understand me, huh?""Love." I muttered. "Love. Okay. Yeah.""You're mad at me, I know. I will make it up to you." "Why? Of course not." "Where is Nikki?""In the cab. I should go. Bye…Nonye." I waved and with the last energy I had in me, I went back the same way I had come with only one thing in my mind. Don't cry.I was bawling when Nikki opened the car door for me."Jeez! What happened?" She panicked. She held me by the shoulders and tried to look me in the eyes. I pressed my hands to my face and the tears didn't stop running. I remembered the mascara I had watched in a YouTube tutorial to achieve strand by strand definition. It was rolling down to waste. "Why? Nikki, why? How– I don't know, Nikki. I don't know what I did wrong. How is this happening to me? I love him, I– I do. I really love him. I don't understand. I– I– don't…how can he not– love me? How can he? I-I– love him." "He said…that?""He has a girlfriend. In there.""What? Are you sure? Hussein? Girlfriend?" Nikki shook her head in disbelief. "Nonye. She is–" Broken sobs were the last thing out of my mouth. "He is stupid." Nikki said like it was all the explanation I needed. She tore my hands from my face before she pulled me into a hug and brought me to sit close to her.“It’s okay.”“It’s not!” I snapped. "It's not okay. I
Romeo. Real life Romeo. In front of me. I swallowed like a rock the size of my head was forcing through my throat. He was made of lava or maybe lava was made of him, I don't know– no one knows. My eyes scanned him head to toe like a machine detecting metal. He wore a skin tight burning red turtleneck shirt that hugged his slender frame and tucked that into one shiny scarlet leather pants and paired with Balenciaga platform boots. And the worst of all…his locs were dyed blood red.It was Valentine's Day, I knew that but this guy already looked drop dead gorgeous when he rocked his plain black locs and used a lip balm on his pink lips. How can they do this to us? To me? To my poor heart? That red pumping thing stopped pumping for a solid minute, I must say. His light brown skin complemented his whole scarlet package too well; they could be woven together and we would never know.I swallowed again, that damn rock wasn't moving anywhere. "Hi," he said. His smile, as usual, made his g
The sonorous Arabic melody pierced into my sweet, sweet dream and pulled me by my foot out of it. Two days later, I was still dreaming about him, about that day when my heart burst with no hesitation for him. I never got angry at the alarm imposed on me by the estate's mosque because it was around the same time I should be awake if I was to meet my school bus. Well, except today, I groaned out loud, my chest tightened with annoyance. Romeo was just about to kiss me. This was the third time in a row of unsuccessful kiss attempts. We got so close, the stars grew brighter and swirled in the night sky, his eyes found my lips first then he leaned with his and bam! Something or someone dragged me away from my fantasy. At this point, I wanted to believe there was someone playing games with me somewhere. I hope that person choke on his spit or something. If it was not going to happen in real life, at least let me have it in my dreams for goodness's sake. I wasn't usually like this, I don'
Three years agoIt didn't matter if I died, my dad wasn't coming home. The sky was pink with dawn, misted with chilly dews still falling onto my window pane. My vision was blurry for two reasons, the foggy window and my foggy eyes. The fever had pooled hot tears in my eyes till it overflowed, creating a path along my burning cheeks to my heavy jaw onto the oversized sweater I had curled my tiny frame into. Steady wisps of breeze escaped into the room from the one inch space I made at the edge of the window frame. The harmattan wind caused me to shiver with goosebumps erupting under my clothes but I didn't close it all through. Inside of me must have had the blacksmith furnace burning without reserve, I wanted nothing but an ice bath even if it would kill me in this condition.I picked my phone from where I had dropped it one second ago to check the time. Time moves slowly when you become aware of it. It was five fifteen in the morning. I had been awake for four hours now but it sur
The bus moved after we entered. We were five minutes late but somehow the bus driver had managed to wait for us. I wished he didn't. I wanted to go back home and empty my eye sockets. I wanted to scream till I woke up from this unfair dream. But Nikki, she never let me be when I got sad. After that day she adopted the belief that I was itching to go back to the knife every time my little heart got cloudy. And she couldn't be more wrong. I had developed the unbending will to live, that was why my therapist didn't need to see me again. It was almost a rebellion against everything that was bent on making me wallow in agony. My father ceased to be a bother to me, the empty house made me feel like a Disney princess because only princesses are locked up in a castle. Like a battle knight, I had been toughened to mount this journey of life with unrelenting drive and a pocket full of passion.I will live. I will get all that I desire, all that I deserve. I will love someone. I will find some
The surroundings of my dad's hospital were the only beautiful part of the hospital, inside was as grey as a graveyard and as white as heaven. They really had to make hospitals in the colours of death. If it was up to me, I would throw in some pinks and lilacs to give the anguished hearts that patrol these hallways something pleasant to look at. Everyone could used a break in the monotony of dreary grey and wilting white that made one feel like they were in the stomach of death the monster. I know I did feel that way the last time I was here. The hospital's compound made sure to have everything not found on the inside, as a compensation I suppose. Flowers, my favourite thing, were in every direction that the neck turned. Some forgotten Christmas lights still tangled in the shrubs shone dimly in the twilight. It was life, twinkling in the dark like a promise, like a tangible hope that somehow this life riddled with affliction and endless agony would end in joy, maybe in this world, may
I was going back. I wanted to see him and nothing ever stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. Ninety nine percent of all my problems were because of that. I faked a call from my dad in front of Nikki to escape her judgement because she would never understand why I had to do this. Going back to him was mandatory to me. It was as necessary as taking the next breath. No one could understand this. I didn't understand my restless mind either but I did know peace might be when he looked back at me with his eyes made of gold dust. He was alive and he would be well but now I needed a glimpse at him. And I knew where he was, what should stop me from seeing him for the briefest second? Who wouldn't be tempted to? It was just a glimpse, I wouldn't disturb him. There can't be anything wrong with that. "I'm just going to see him and be off my way." I told myself as I turned head first to the direction of the elevator by the left. I practically floated to it, my steps touched the ground like
Nikki sighed. She picked up her phone and watched our Uber ride approach from the app and sighed again.We were by the roadside, almost a mile away from the hospital. Vehicles zoomed past us into the highway ahead of us. Our Uber was late, the day was dark and Nikki's phone blew up non-stop. Her parents were calling her. She had passed her curfew and I knew that would be an issue for her at home. She was never out from eight and it was eight thirty."What am I going to do, Nikki?" I trembled head to toe. I bit down my shaking fingers, chewing out my fingernails as I transformed into a bag of nerves. "Nikki." I cried out but to no avail. She wouldn't even look at me, just her phone and the road. "Nikki, you are not even saying anything!" I cried even louder. "Say what?" She snapped. "Say what, Colette? I'm asking you. You caused this for yourself and…just leave me be. For now." She faced the road and screamed at the incoming traffic. "Jeez! Where is this man? Oh God! What is even h