Semua Bab Rich Love : Bab 101 - Bab 108

Carolyn’s POVIt started on a Tuesday, a grey and hot day. The kind of weather that makes your skin itch before noon. I was seated in the empty art room in my aunt's mansion, well, it's her husband's, hunched over an unfinished sketch I wasn’t even trying to finish, when George walked in. I had reached out to him because he was out of the country when everything was happening. He had to follow his mum to the US for the medical procedures she needed to get. I had no choice but to call him for help since I could not find anyone in school who was willing to help me find evidence to clear my name. He told me he would help and come to me once he came to Nigeria, and that he did. He looked... out of place. Nervous. Like someone who'd just come back from doing something they knew they shouldn’t have.I didn’t look up.“You shouldn’t be here,” I said flatly, shading the corner of the page. "We can talk about it on the phone. I don't want you to have any problems with J.J."“I know,” he replie

Carolyn’s POVThere’s something strange about returning to a war zone after the bombs have stopped falling. The air still stinks of smoke, the ground still scorched, but people walk around pretending nothing ever burned.That was school.I walked the corridors and felt eyes. Not the sharp, mocking glares I’d grown used to—but something worse. Curiosity. Hesitation. The kind of silence people wore when they didn’t know which side of history they were supposed to be on.I was no longer the villain. I was something more unsettling:An unknown.Someone they couldn’t categorize.Someone they’d misjudged.But I didn’t care.Not anymore.I didn’t dress to impress. Didn’t raise my hand in class. Didn’t laugh when someone cracked a joke nearby. I moved like glass. Clean. Untouchable. Cold.My grades had survived, barely. The teachers knew what had happened, though most didn’t dare speak on it. Except for Mrs. Obasi, my literature teacher. She stopped me after class one afternoon, handing back

arolyn’s POVI’ve stopped looking over my shoulder.Maybe that’s dangerous. Maybe it means I’ve gotten too used to the silence. Too comfortable in this new skin I’ve stitched together, thread by thread. But if fear taught me anything, it’s that sometimes the most dangerous thing is staying small to survive.And I’m done being small.The new term felt less like school and more like the aftermath of a storm. Everything still stood—the buildings, the uniforms, the rules—but none of it looked the same anymore. The faces that once mocked me now avoided my gaze. Those who whispered behind my back now hushed when I passed.Funny how quickly fear replaces mockery.But I didn’t bask in it.Power that feeds on fear dies with it.I had other plans.That morning, I walked into the library with purpose. Not to study. Not to browse.To gather.Names. Dates. Accounts. I wasn’t just building a case anymore. I was building a record.And I wasn’t doing it alone.Jide now met me every Tuesday in the bac

Carolyn’s POVThe first thing I learned about survival was this: sometimes you don’t have to hide your wounds. You just have to learn to wear them like armor.I stepped out of my aunt’s car that morning with my head high and my hands deep in my blazer pockets. I was thankful that Emma and Julius always go to school in thier own cars, i have not learnt bto drive yet thats why i have still not driven the car aunty Pat gave me on my birthday, but for now i enjoyed getting dropped by her, using the driver or just following the commerical cabs or bus. The early air still held the chill of dawn, and the school grounds were damp from the night’s rain. My shoes clicked against the pavement, steady and unhurried, each sound a deliberate declaration: I’m here. I’m not running.The uniform felt different on me now. Not because it had changed, but because I had, espically after i refused to fold when i saw J.J's letter. My skirt was perfectly pressed, my tie knotted with surgical precision, the c