Nigerian Girl

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: I'll be fine

I got home without saying a word to anybody. Nenye and CJ kept stealing curious glances at me when we entered the house.

I rushed upstairs to my room and shut the door. I immediately went to the bathroom and took a hot shower then came out and put on my pyjamas and sat down in front of my laptop.

The cursor blinking at me.

I typed one letter, then another and just like that I started typing sentences and before I knew it, I had already typed a 10-line paragraph. I stayed there for some hours just typing as fast as the words were coming to me.

By the time I had exhausted all that I could think of, I looked at the word count.

1050 words.

Good, it was still within the 1000 words mark. I then started editing everything before sending the essay to a flash drive so I could take it to our house desktop and printer to print it.

I can't believe I had just finished the essay that took me almost two weeks to write.

All it had taken was just a moment of conflict between me and Kolade. I guess that was what had broken the camel's back considering I had written about everything that had been going on around me lately.

I hadn't stated specifically that I felt like my parent's marriage was failing or that I always felt left out with my siblings or even that I may or may not have just lost a friend today.

I just wrote about how all these things made me feel. How everything could be perfect in your world and all of a sudden, it could just change.

I wrote about how in the midst of all this, I wanted to happy. I was tired of letting everything make me sad.

When I got downstairs everyone's eyes were on me. It was like they were all wondering why I wasn't interacting with them as usual.

Mom stood by the kitchen in her suit, I assumed that she had just come back from work.

"Mommy, Good evening." I greeted.

"Good evening nwa m (My child)."

I walked to the desktop and put the flash where it was meant to go.

"Ada help your brother to set the table." Mom said from the kitchen.

She was referring to Nenye. Ada wasn't her legal name, it was an Igbo name that meant 'first daughter'. Nenye was the Ada of the family. I was surprised to hear her call Nenye that.

She used to call Nenye Ada a lot when we were kids but she'd stopped when Nenye grew up and became the Nenye we know today. It was like she had outgrown the name.

I clicked print on the desktop and waited for the printer to do its work. I could hear the sound of plates and eating utensils being dropped on the table.

When the printer finished its work, I took my essay and started to go back upstairs.

"Aren't you going to eat with us?" mom asked as she walked to the bottom of the staircase to look at me.

"I'm not hungry," I said and continued on my way.

When I was in my room, I put a copy of the essay in a red transparent file then the file went inside my school bag.

I had made two copies of the essay, I'd decided that I'd take one to school tomorrow and leave the other in my room.

Someone knocked faintly on the door. The person didn't wait for an answer before opening the door.

I stood up from my bed and turned to the door. Only one person in this house did that all the time.

Mom stood at the door, her careful eye taking in everything in my room.