The Things We Do

TWENTY EIGHT

Timi sighed and shook his head but he didn't turn away from the mirror, he watched his sister through it. "First of all, this is a very nice T-shirt, not a rag..."

"Yeah, tell that to the beggars when you give it to them..."

"And secondly, it's my perfume, and I mustn't go out to look good."

"Shut up, I bought that perfume for you for our birthday and don't give me that crap, I know you're going out," Tari said. "Probably on a date?"

Timi sighed.

"With...Amira?" Tari said slowly.

"Okay, you can get out of my room now," Timi turned around to meet the wide grin on his sister's face. She was still in her uniform and Timi was wondering when she was going to change.

He and Amira had agreed to go home first and put on something else after school before meeting up for the ice cream. Tari was starting to make it look like such a big deal.

"Timi and Amira, sitting on a tree..." Tari began singing, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G..."

"Tari, stop. I'm serious," Timi warned. He was going to die of embarrassment.

Tari waved him off dismissively. "Abegi, you're always serious." She went back to grinning again. "Look, you need to put on something else, not that rag."

Timi gave up and went to sit on his bed while Tari got up from it and headed to his wardrobe to fish out something. She said something about there being too many books everywhere in the room that some were even in his wardrobe but he didn't say anything to that. He just looked through his WhatsApp statuses.

He had been mindlessly swiping through pictures and videos when he stumbled upon a picture Annika had posted less than an hour ago. His face fell.

It was a picture of Annika and Dele. They seemed to be in Annika's room, he would recognize that all-white interior anywhere. The selfie was taken on her bed. Annika's hair was not up in a high bun, instead she'd heavy curls were all over the place. They were both just grinning to the camera.

Perfect.

That was the only thing Timi thought as he stared at the picture. They looked perfect.

Dele had posted another version of the picture in black and white and captioned it 'LOML'.

A piece of clothing covered Timi's screen as Tari through him one of his T-shirts. It was also something she had bought him for their birthday.

"Don't ask questions, I know what looks good on you." Tari nodded in assurance. Timi got up and changed into the black T-shirt when Tari left returned with a gold chain she put around his neck.

Timi was forced to put of the black ripped jeans he never wore and Tari gave him a thumbs up as she assessed his look. He was ready to go.

"We're just going to buy ice cream, not attending the Grammy Awards," Timi said as Tari helped him pick out shoes.

"Oh ice cream," Tari chuckled for some reason. "Yeah, it drives Amira nuts."

Timi chuckled. "Yeah, you know your friend well."

Tari was silent for awhile as she looked over his shoes arranged in the wardrobe before picking out the white Adidas canvas. She turned around handed them to Timi. There was a look on her face.

"I don't know about me and Amira," she went on to say. "I feel like she's holding a lot against me and... I just don't know. For now, we are not close anymore. We both need to calm down and...breathe."