Aeipathy ➳ Normani ✓

twenty-two

"Are you nervous?" she asked him just after they'd arrived at the club and were seated in the 'green room' that had been designated performers and he was set to play in twenty minutes.

Joseph nodded, "a little, I've never done any of this before you know?"

Normani had always admired how easy it was for him to communicate his emotions and how open he was as a person.

"Yeah, but I know you're gonna kill it out there."

"That's the plan but yeah I just don't want to fuck up. Like, this is my grind you know? Even if I were to stand up to Uncle and Keith... and tell them I don't want to be an engineer in Lagos one day, working with shit I don't care about, because it's all about the music for me, this is what drives me and if I'm not the best at what I do..." Joseph shrugged and Normani could see the insecurity scrawled over his face.

She so badly wanted to assure him that his uncle and the man he considered a blood brother would support him - not out of enthusiasm but unconditional love, but she knew too it would sound fake coming from her.

Her dance was a site of discontentment with Keith: it had taken him a long time to get used to her chosen major, to see dance as a serious medium and to take her talent into consideration.

His parents weren't the least bit impressed, and at the end of the day she was still just some stranger girl dating their son. She couldn't imagine how much more harder it was going to be for Joseph to pursue music with all of these other expectations set upon him.

"Your first stance can't be your fear of fucking up. Like you said, music is your grind. You go into a different place when you're in your element, did you know that? It comes natural to you, yeah? So don't even think about it too much - just imagine you were back in the place that you were when Abisola caught your eye and you just had to know her. You wanted her to drop her location so you could go see her and you drove thirty kilometres with Zechariah's car in the middle of the night without anyone knowing. And then you saw her and she made you catch feels and she did the most to you, she broke your heart and inspired all this art! Think of all of that when you sing Location, Young Dumb and Broke and Shot Down. Yes?"

Joseph smiled, "I can't believe you still remember the story about Abisola."

"How could I forget your muse? She inspired the whole project didn't she?"

Joseph nodded, "yeah, I just didn't think you'd remember." He rubbed his neck and took a deep breath and was visibly calmer than when they'd settled into the room.

"I lowkey hate her though, because she broke your heart but I love her because the world wouldn't have these songs if she hadn't done you so dirty."

"I'm so glad my misery was of such great service to you," Joseph replied and playfully rolled his eyes.

"But real talk though," Normani replied, a reflective look glossing over her face, "I got my first perfect score in ballet and contemporary when Ara and I broke up. We make our best art when we're broken."

X O

Ayoola hated summer nights for the bugs that found their way into her room into the late hours of the night and the heat that smothered her to the old, stiff bed. The outhouses didn't have any fans or aircons and the only refuge they provided were the old mosquito nets.

She often envied the Ikandes and their cool, spacious bedrooms. Her room was only big enough to fit the old, tattered single bed. Her clothes were in a suitcase under the bed and the roof was slanted in a way that she couldn't stand to her full height without her head bumping into the ceiling.