WURAOLA

ONE

"Stop coming back home late at night! You smell like marijuana and cigarettes. This is not the kind of environment you should create for your sister!" I heard mom yell at Tolu from behind my doors and sighed.

"Why? Cause she's too pure?" Tolu mocked and almost immediately, a very familiar sound rang in my ears.

I could almost feel it but I didn't even know how my mother's slap felt like. I only knew that it always put an end to Tolu's tantrums, at least for that day.

"Shut your stupid mouth or I will shut it for you, omo ake[bastard]" Mom threatened him and I only heard the Tolu's footsteps as he walked away from the fight and then the door to the house was open and then slammed close causing me to almost laugh.

That was how their fights ended, with Tolu walking out on mom, and slamming the door shut behind him. While mom comes to me, to cry and blame herself.

"Hey, beautiful" Mom opened my door and I smiled at her before placing the book I was just about to continue reading on the bed.

"Mommy" I looked up at her and found unshed tears in her eyes. Honestly, it broke my heart and I wrapped my arms around her, patting her head lightly and placing light kisses on her head.

"It's gonna be fine, mommy. He's just going through a phase" I told her the same thing I told her after every fight

"I spoilt him...I didn't pay him any attention. It's my fault" she cried and I held her tighter. I knew how she felt about Tolu's upbringing and maybe she felt that she didn't care for him enough that was why she restricted me from going outside. She provided me with everything and I wasn't a curious person by nature.

I barely had a relationship with my older brother. It hurt -only sometimes because I didn't have a father figure. My mother said my father had gotten her pregnant with Tolu and fortunately, he didn't realize that she was pregnant or he would have forced her to get rid of it, seeing as he was already married to another woman.

Mom said he walked out of their lives and she gave everything to Tolu after she had given birth to him because she didn't want him to feel the absence of a father. Five years later, the man in question came back, promising to marry her and she gave herself to him. He figured out when she was pregnant with me and he wanted out of the relationship when she refused to get an abortion.

The basis is that he was not even half of a man, he ran off as soon as my mother was in labor.

'Pity' I thought to myself.

She pulled back and wiped her face before kissing my forehead with a smile on her face.

"I really don't know what I would do without you. You are my happiness, my joy, Wura mi[My Gold]" I hugged her and she pushed the stray thick curls out of my face.

"You've been carrying your hair around like this. What style do you plan on making next?" she asked and I sighed before sitting in the grey plastic chair in my room. I hated making my hair because sitting down for hours made my ass sore.