Sixteen

‘Hello’. I said 

‘Hey brown eyes’. 

The voice undeniably belonged to apex feared demigod. 

‘What do you want?’ 

‘Now is that any way to talk to your senior prefect?’ I could envision the smirk on his face. 

‘They’ve handed down the power’. I stated. 

‘Not that dumb, I see’. 

‘Well congratulations SP. You didn’t have to go through the trouble just to brag’. 

‘Congratulations to you too, they made you sports prefect for the girls. Ms. Flora insisted I passed down the good news, she didn’t want it to come as a shock to you after your sabbatical’. 

That explained how he got my number.

‘So this is an authorized call? With the school’s phone?’ 

‘Of course hon. You think I’ll sneak a call to you just to hear your angelic voice?’ 

Mockery was dripping through the phone into my ear. 

‘No but to spread your egotistic wings, yes’.

‘You think so low of me, I like it. Read trigonometry, Nancy is going to be on her period when you get back, that means extra bitchy and I hope you’ve put a lock on that temper of yours’. 

I heard a click as the call disconnected before I could form a decent comeback.

Even the spirogyras behind the library knew Marcel would be made senior prefect but me getting sports prefect? Even with the suspension. I guess I was in luck.

When I walked into the room after signing in at the principal’s office, Hen hugged me to the floor. We stayed there for two minutes while she hurriedly told me how much she’d missed me in all the dialects she knew. Abike crushed me in her famous bear hug and Vivian high-fived me from her bed.

‘You look well punished girl’. She said with a wide smile. 

‘Yeah? Life was pretty hard in the jungle of my room’. I replied and they all laughed. 

They filled me in on all I had missed out on; Chris was the male sports prefect, Abike was refectorian, Hen and Tolu were social prefects, Vivian had rejected her post of labor prefect so it was given to Becca who initially had no post. It wasn’t until after lunch that I got time alone with Abike.

‘How is your mom?’ she asked as we sat in front of the auditorium. 

‘I don’t know’. I sighed 

‘Mandy, it’s okay’. She said quietly like I’d break if she spoke any louder. 

‘It doesn’t feel okay. She’s lifeless, unhappy and gone. My mother is gone and I can’t do anything about it’.

Abike captured my face in her hands and pulled me to her full chest where I stilled, listening to her steady heartbeat. 

‘Mandy’. She called and I lifted my face to her but she was looking behind me so I turned to see Rasheed standing there. He had a quizzical look on his face. 

‘Are you okay?’ He finally asked me. 

‘She is. We were just playing mother and daughter’. Abike joked

He chuckled but didn’t look entirely convinced. The bell for night study sounded and Abike stood up. She looked from me to Rasheed.

‘I forgot something in the dorm so I’ll meet you two in class’. She said and rushed off. I must have been mistaken but I didn’t see her move in the direction of our dorm.

‘Do you want to go to class?’ I asked Rasheed as he was just staring at me. 

‘Let’s sit for awhile. It’s not like anyone is going to chase us, we are prefects’. He took Abike’s still warm place beside me. 

‘You are study prefect, you should lead by example’. 

‘Let me hear, abeg’. He voiced pleasantly. 

We sat quietly for a while before he spoke up.

‘What’s wrong? I know I promised to not pry but I can’t help it’. 

‘There is nothing wrong, I missed you’. I said in the hopes of diverting his attention. 

‘Did you miss me or my tutorials?’ 

‘You caught me’. 

‘You academic parasite’. He tugged gently on my ear as we both laughed.

‘Now that we are done with your distraction tactic, what’s up with you? Was your mom mad?’ There was no escaping him. 

‘A little bit’. He gave me a smile as if to tell me to spill my guts so I did. 

‘Do you ever think about your life, like the future?’ I asked 

‘Of course I do. I live for the now but I still look forward to the future’. His voice was calm, soft and free.

‘When I look at my future all I see is a blur, uncertainties, failure, disappointment. I know people experience setbacks once in a while but with me it’s like a daily occurrence. I can’t even think about my future because there is nothing to think about, nothing to look forward to. My life has no heading’.

He looked intently at me, his smile diminishing only a little. I knew I was supposed to feel exposed and insecure but this was Rasheed and I would never tell him but his smile gave me a different kind of comfort.

‘You remember Doctor Ben Carson?’ he questioned 

‘Your role model?’ he nodded. 

‘When he was younger, he was the dumbest kid in class. Did you know that?’ I shook my head negative. 

‘Imagine him sitting at the back of the class staring at the mocking faces of his classmates, thinking about his future. Do you think he saw himself as a world best neurosurgeon? Dude was having problems with spellings then but he made a resolve to have a better life and he worked towards achieving that.

Amanda, the fact that you can picture what you think your future will look like in your mind doesn’t mean that you can reach in there and fix things. To get a better future, you have to work hard and learn to recognize and utilize help when presented with it’.

I sat quietly and stared at him for a few moments, letting his words sink in, then a smile broke out on my face. 

‘What did I do to deserve you?’ I asked. 

‘I don’t know but you can do something in future like get me a chocolate drink’. I laughed. 

‘Fool’.

‘Valentine is just a few days from now you two. Lock it up and let’s get to class’. Hen said, suddenly before us. 

‘Shut up’. I said and she made a childish face at me before pulling me up and doing same to Rasheed. She hooked her hands with ours and dragged us along with her. 

‘Being social prefect is hard’. She began whining.

‘You always wanted to be social prefect’. I said with an eye roll. 

‘I know but planning the valentine cotillion is hard. Can you believe I don’t have a date yet? I’m just making these arrangements for everyone else. What if Chris doesn’t ask me?’

‘He had better because no one else is going to ask you, they all know you are waiting for him’. 

‘You don’t have a date either’. I shrugged 

‘Neither do the rest of the girls, besides, I don’t want to go’. 

Hen shook her head. 

‘Vivian is going with Tolu and Abike is going with her obnoxious seatmate. You need to find a date’. She said like we were talking about a ticket to heaven.

‘What about you?’I threw back at her. 

‘I’m the organizer, I can go solo and still have tons of fun’. 

‘I don’t want to go either’. Rasheed chipped in. 

‘Great. We can play scrabble while they party’. 

‘Ooorrr. You can both come as a pair’. 

‘I’m not so….’ 

‘Come on. It’s the first ever val.cot and I’m launching it, you have to be there for me, that’s what friends do’. 

I looked to Rasheed and he just shrugged.

‘Okay’. 

‘Fantastic. I will begin working on your costume’. 

‘Costume? Its valentine not halloween’. 

‘Oh shush. You’re gonna love it’. 

I doubted that with everything in me.

As I lay on my bed that night, Rasheed’s words kept replaying in my head, filling me with bouts of positivity and it was with this new zeal to do better that I marched to Mr. dominic’s office the next day during my free period.

‘Amanda’. He said in surprise. ‘I don’t remember calling for you’. 

‘Well here I am. You said I could come whenever I felt like talking’. His eyes widened a fraction. 

‘Take a seat please’. 

I pinned my butt to the familiar uncomfortable seat.

‘So?’ He questioned. 

‘I don’t know where to start’. I confessed. 

‘Just say whatever comes to your mind. I want your feelings not your thoughts’. I couldn’t make complete sense of that but decided to just go with the flow. Taking a deep breath, I began. 

‘I feel out of place’. 

‘Is this a new feeling?’ 

‘No. It has always been there, for as long as I can remember’. 

‘Why do you feel out of place?’

‘Growing up I always felt different from my peers. While most of them lived with their parents, I lived with my grandparents and my father who I initially thought was my brother until my granny told me he was my dad and my mom had bailed. With my mother gone and a dad that hardly acknowledged my existence, you can say I didn’t have a great family orientation and after I watched my father kill Iya, whatever hope I had in family died with her. 

Then my mother showed up and took me away and for a short while I was blinded by the comfort this new development gave me and I let my guard down like I am doing now but she just had to dump me in this hell and once again that feeling of alienation crept in. If in the midst of poor kids like myself I felt out of place you can imagine how I feel here with these rich intimidating kids, all happy and problem free. I want to talk to my mother about all of these but even she has gotten tired with me after I ruined her relationship’.

‘What happened?’ 

‘He tried to rape me’. I said with a shrug. He quickly pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned away from me so little I’m sure he hadn’t noticed. 

‘Why can’t you talk to your mother?’ 

‘She’s always either out or too wasted to hold a conversation’. 

‘Why are you telling me all of these now?’ 

‘You said you wanted to help. Someone recently made me understand that accepting help isn’t a sign of weakness’.

Mr. dominic smiled at me. 

‘Weakness is definitely not one of your attributes. I always knew you were going through something, I noticed it in the wall you had around you that didn’t let anything get through to you, not even your class lessons. Amanda, you are not what you go through in life but what you make of it. All these kids you see in this school do not lack problems, we all have problems, big and small, that we don’t wear it on our sleeves doesn’t mean it’s not there. For now all I can tell you is; forgive, have an open mind and live for you’.

I leaned back on the chair. Forgive, have an open mind and live. The chair felt a lot less uncomfortable.