The Turbulence✔️ (#1 in the Our Side of The Dice series)

22: The Truth

Gifty
Lagos, Nigeria

"Ema binu sir. Ejo, mo ma san owo yin pe!"

There were only very few times I spoke my native language, Yoruba: when there was an urgent matter at hand and English language was to no avail and if I had to insult someone with my mother in which situation, Yoruba dialect was always the sweetest to converse in.

Now, it was the former.

I'd stood at the bus stop for roughly an hour after music school lessons looking hither and thither for a taxi but to no avail. The one I had managed to find after exercising my already weary legs had one passenger in it that was soon to reach her destination.

I hopped in, thankful for the miracle that had taken a century to come.

I was frustrated and tired. All I wanted that afternoon was to go home and get a good dose of an evening slumber but it was as though, everything was structured that day not to work in my favor.

Music lessons that afternoon already did a good job in adding to my stress. The tutor gave us an earful, reminding us of how the global music competition was drawing nearer by the day. The pressure was high on every student. Blisters filled the hands of the harpists and violinists like me from excessive hours of endless practice.

My best friend, Kosi and I were amongst the few instrumentalists who were going to remain in Nigeria for the global competition while the rest were posted to various countries across the globe. I didn't know if it was good or bad news. It meant that there was still a chance for me to see Gaius but on the other hand, I was getting sick of Zion. He was adding to my stress. He got meaner to me by the day.

Mrs. Karen got nosier too strangely after I asked for her advice about my relationship issues. She never asked me questions but I could see the curiosity in her eyes, waiting to be fed by any clue I left around carelessly due to subconsciousness.

None of the above were great. That I was going to stay back in Nigeria didn't guarantee a closure between Gaius and me. He had the nerve to ghost on me for two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours!

It was unbelievable that he could treat me like I didn't exist. He felt too good a person to leave like that with no explanation as to why. I wasn't even able to find out if it was something unforgivable that I had done or if it was my personality that was too much to handle. I always tried hard to be good to him but I figured that perhaps, you can't 'nice' your way into being loved.

Maybe he never loved me. But that wasn't too likely. I couldn't say he used me because never for once did I feel empty, unheard, or belittled in my relationship with him. I was blaming myself and overthinking it all. Providing answers that he didn't give me.

I wished to know what he switched up on me like that. Even if it turned out to be my fault, I just wished to know why.

I had these thoughts and problems roaming all over my mind intrusively, adding to the physical stress that was already heavy on me when I finally spotted a taxi that I could board, only for me to be twenty minutes into my journey for home, amidst the heavy Lagos traffic when I looked through the window and saw him.

It wasn't someone of a strict resemblance to him that I had seen. It wasn't my illusion of him. Neither was it an ordinary back view that looked similar to his. It was him I had seen under the afternoon sunlight, walking briskly by a street on the other side of the road, that led to an unknown place.

How my eyes had shifted to the window side was so casual, as though my retina had gotten that stimuli that needed to see what had to be seen and immediately, the tiredness I was feeling heavy, wore off my body like sweat and like a madwoman in corporate clothes, I started to hit the roof of the taxi, nearly making the driver lose his bearing on the road.