Perspectives

4

St Louis Secondary school
3:00pm

Yobanna

Dunk dunk, speed, adrenaline and whoosh, right into the net.

A loud cheer erupted and I smiled lightly, scoring the last school against our rival school was pure bliss, watching their defeated faces was a pleasure to me,not in a sick way though.

I dubbed my face with my white towel, the friendly basketball match against Green Field was energy draining, the last time I was on a trip to Asia, they had won the team and my phone kept blaring with notifications from different school blogs. Honestly, it was annoying, somehow winning St Louis was a big deal for other schools, we stood out in everything and I mean, every single thing and so they kept gloating, cooking up fake match scores and heating up the whole thing. I found it annoying, everything about St Louis was a big deal. And personally I hated failure, so yes, it feels good to be a winner.

"Yobanna" I heard her voice, too soft, softer than I knew, I turned around and met Cynthia's smiling face, urging me to smile too but I frowned, making sure to tighten my face.

"What do you want?"I asked, there were still few students of other schools loitering around.

"Are you still mad at me? I'm sorry then" she apologized but I knew she wasn't sorry,she shaded her face away from the sun,her glowing skin. Her hair had left the bun of braids and she tried to put it back, I turned away.

"Here" She pushed the bottle water closer to my torso.

I eyed her and the water.

"It's not poisoned and it's safe too,I made sure of it" She tried to convince me and pushed the water closer to me.

Cynthia, Cynthia,what would I do to escape her,the annoying leach.

" I don't like bullies. I'll only accept when you change" I paused and turned around to walk away.

"But it's not like she's an important thing"

She was not remorseful.

I didn't respond to anything,I simply kept walking away from her,I knew she was probably boring holes into my back.

"Senior man!!!!" That fool shouted from the other side of the hall. God,where did I get this kind of person.

Precious Akpan,the fool was my friend since day 1 of school here and he was jovial as hell. Tall, lanky,dark skin like coal,sharp jaws and curly hair,the nigga was probably obsessed with that sort of hair and the best basketball player we had on the team,yes, Precious was damn good,I learnt from the nigga. He always led the school to victory,I didn't know what happened in the last match but Precious was also not present,hence the defeat.

"Guy,cut soap for me na" Precious teased

"The soap don finish but I fit give you the baba number" I replied and took off my sweaty shirt.

"Bad guy" He laughed and I  chuckled.

"Apart from that,at some point,I didn't know if Green Field girls were cheering their team or you"

I bent over my shoes and laughed.

Girls.

I had their attention for as long as I could remember. 80% of my fans were girls, people's girlfriend. It was tiring.

Other boys were curled up at other corners, taking turns to use the shower, making noise and exchanging pats and the whole place was reeking with adrenaline from hyperactive boys, it doesn't smell nice trust me.