Hey Wattfam! Happy New Month!!
Nouman Hussain
"A'udhu billahi minash-shaitan ar-rajim, (I seek refugee in Allah from Satan),"
"A'udhu billahi minash-shaitan ar-rajim, (I seek refugee in Allah from Satan),"
That was what Nazeera kept whispering to herself as she entered the apartment. She had texted me that she was bored at home so she ended up going to school and now, she was just coming back when it was almost 8pm.
I was sitting at the kitchen Island and cleaning my camera's lens when she entered and she did not do as if she saw me. She just walked into the apartment as if in a trance while muttering that supplication over and over again, to herself as she walked straight to her room, then subsequently to the bathroom and I could tell that she was performing ablution from how the water was running.
She soon came out again, now wearing a long Kimar and I watched as she spread out the prayer mat she had set up in the corridor that leads to the balcony and she started to pray all the while still completely ignoring my existence.
She started praying and I shook my head while wondering if she had acted like that because she didn't pray on time before I went back to cleaning my cameras.
Such a drama queen.
I finished cleaning, picked up my phone, and was attending to some emails when it just dawned on me that Nazeera had still not said a word since she entered.
And it was almost like 40 minutes since she entered.
I looked back in the direction of the prayer mat and lo and behold, my sister was still praying. I wasn't even sure what I concluded on but I was pretty sure that even if she had missed all the 5 prayers, which I knew she didn't even miss, she shouldn't be praying for almost an hour.
So I just decided to keep an eye on her and right in front of my eyes, she prayed another five rakahs and my mouth dropped open.
When she's not praying Tarawih for goodness sake?
She finally settled on the prayer mat and I assumed she was done with whatever type of prayer she was praying until she started making duas while murmuring things to herself.
That was normal.
What wasn't normal was the desperation I could feel in how she was praying.
The urgency, a you-must-answer-me-now-now stance to how she was praying as if she wanted whatever she was praying for to be answered immediately.
I shook my head and I looked away from her because, for all I knew, she could be praying that those her boys should end up miraculously coming to Nigeria.
Or better still, she could be praying that whoever died in the series this morning should wake up.
Because with Nazeera, anything was possible.
"Oh my, I'm so exhausted," I finally heard her voice and footsteps as she started walking towards me.
"Oppa, you won't believe what happened to me in school today!" She whispered in a small, almost scared voice as she took her seat adjacent and I looked up at that only to see her looking like someone that just saw something horrific.
I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to be worried because Nazeera was...
She was extremely unpredictable.
And completely irrational.
"What happened?"
She shook her head sadly, "I need to drink water first."
She stood up, walked to the fridge and she drowned the entire bottled water before she returned to her seat.
"So, as I was saying," She leaned closer to me, "Something terrible happened to me in school today, you should even be grateful that I'm here in one piece. God!" I watched as she shuddered involuntarily as if chills were breaking out in her body.
Well... Should I be worried?
Even though deep down, I was almost sure that she was extremely exaggerating whatever must have happened.
That is if anything happened in the first place.
"What happened, Nazeera?"
"Hmmm," She started to answer before she trailed off and for a nanosecond, she looked extremely scared.
And now, I couldn't help but start to get scared.
"So I... I walked in on a crime scene today." She announced and I just stared at her.
I kept staring at her until I shook my head, looked away from her, and picked up my camera again.
I focused on the camera, took quick snapshots of the kitchen to see if the settings were still right and I was intently examining the pictures when I started to feel Nazeera's deep and burning gaze on me.
I wasn't looking at her but I could just tell she was staring intently at me and knowing Nazeera as much as I do, I knew just what must be on her mind.
I started to put my camera away but I was too late because the next thing I knew, Nazeera was slapping the camera away from my hand and I watched in sheer horror and panic as my precious camera slid off my hands and started to slid off the kitchen island...
My heart jumped into my throat as it slid off the kitchen island and it fell to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces at the impact of colliding against that hard surface.
But that was only a figment of my imagination because Nazeera was quick to grab it just when it almost fell off the island.
I blinked, blinked repeatedly at the close shave.
"Oh my! I can't believe I just did that!"She grinned at me," Her mesmerized and awe-filled voice made me turn to look at her, and yes, she was grinning as if she just did something extraordinary when all she did was nearly break my camera.
"See how fast I was," She told me excitedly while I just kept staring at her as if she had grown two heads, "I learned that hack from Descendant of the sun."
I couldn't even say anything. I just kept staring at her while wondering what would be happening right now if she had been slower for just a second.
And Descendant of the sun? What was that even supposed to mean?
I cleared my throat, "You do realize that you could have broken my camera, right?"
"Yes," She replied nonchalantly as if my camera was something she could just break like that.
"I was telling you that I walked in on a crime scene and my first day at the CSA turned out to be a nightmare and you ignored me by looking at your camera and caressing it," She challenged, her voice sounding somber as if she was saddened by it, "Is your camera supposed to be more important than I am?"
Technically, my camera was the most important thing to me but I couldn't tell her that because she might as well go ahead to break my camera.
"Of course not," I lied to her, "But what could be the crime scene that you're talking about? It's CSA, It's a safe space." I had to sound so serious because she was still holding my camera.
And only Allah knows what she'd do to it if I didn't sound that interested.
"Hmmm," She shuddered again, as if reliving one horrible nightmare, "You won't even believe it."
There's probably nothing to believe in the first place.
"So, let me start from the beginning..."
Oh, God! Starting from the beginning means... I wasn't even exactly sure what it means but I knew we wouldn't be leaving here anytime soon.
Nazeera was like a parrot and she could talk from now till eternity.
"So," She started excitedly, "After you left in the morning, I was bored because there was nothing to do. I couldn't go back to The Penthouse because I was still angry at the writer for killing my baby and I couldn't even start another drama because I was still traumatized and some of my new coursemates..."
She smiled softly as she said the word coursemates as if she couldn't believe she now had people to call coursemates.
I couldn't believe it too because the last thing I knew, Nazeera was running around the whole compound with running nose and beating up older kids that were bullies, and now, she was this grown-up and beautiful undergraduate.
How time flies.
"So, some of my coursemates were talking about getting to know places in CSA and all that and I just decided to tag along since I was already bored at home.-
And my God!" She suddenly screamed out of nowhere and shocked me with the intensity of her voice.
What's happening now?
"You didn't tell me that CSA is that pretty!" She gushed, her voice sounding even more excited now. "Like, I've never seen a school that pretty before. All those artworks, the gardens, the lecture halls, oh my God!" She trailed off, completely enthralled and mesmerized.
"Okay, Okay," She clapped her hands together as if to anchor herself back to sanity, "Not to digress, we toured every single place in the school and we had a blast until this evening when we got to that place called Shangri La..."
"Shangri what?" I just had to interrupt her, to ask her and I expected her to burst into laughter and tell me that she was joking and that she just came up with a ridiculous name but my sister just nodded.
"Shangri La," She confirmed that I did not hear her wrongly, and still, I kept staring at her because I haven't heard of anywhere called Shangri La before and this was my fourth year in school.
But Shangri La?
"Don't tell me you don't know where the place is?" She asked me, dumbfounded while staring at me as if she was looking at someone else.
I shrugged, "No, I don't. I've never even heard of the place before now."
"Wow, I can't believe this. It's far from the whole school area but how can you say you've never even heard of the place before not to talk of even going there. God!"
"Nazeera, stop screaming and tell me what you saw or return my camera," I told her and she eyed me begrudgingly before she continued her unreasonable tale.
"Anyway, the Shangri La is located behind the old department of Contemporary Art and..."
"Wait, you guys went that far?" I just had to ask because the old department of Contemporary Art was very far from the main school area and it was just one of those areas that students don't go to except students that were ready to go extra miles to make out because they did not want the prying eyes of the school's authority on them and whatnot.
Many people termed the reason to be the fact that it was extremely far from the major areas in CSA but some people claimed that the area was unsafe for reasons nobody knew.
So if Nazeera went there on a Friday that students were often scanty in school, she might have actually...
I sat up straighter on the chair.
"Yes, we went there and the view was nice, we took a lot of pictures and videos. In short, we had a good time until..."
She trailed off all of a sudden and she covered her mouth with her palm as if she had said what she wasn't supposed to say or something.
I frowned at her, "What's going on?"
"I'm not sure I'm supposed to tell you this." She croaked out, her voice sounding like panic, "What if I put you in danger too?"
She sounded alarmed as she stared at me and I shook my head, already feeling frustrated because by now, I was so sure that she was making a big deal out of nothing.
How did she even end up going to where I've been before in my 3 years in CSA on just her first day at school?
"Nazeera, what did you even see?"
"Okay, okay," She raised her hand in mock surrender as she continued, "So we had a nice time and all until we bumped into a group of guys... Not exactly bumped into them but we sort of stumbled upon them talking in low whispers in one of those old classes and guess what they were talking about-
-Drugs! Pills! All those things!"
She deadpanned and at this point, I just expected her to burst into laughter and say, 'Surprise, I've been telling you a made-up story since morning,' but she didn't, she just kept staring at me.
Talking about drugs and pills inside CSA? That was too far-fetched. It was pretty normal for people to use or even abuse drugs in all tertiary institutions and CSA was most definitely not an exclusion but talking about drugs or dealing drugs in the school premises when someone like Ayo Makinde got expelled just last week for that same crime was just unfathomable.
And now, I was almost sure that she had misinterpreted the whole conversation.
But again, what conversation would students go as far as that old CA department to have?
"But they didn't see us sha, we were quick to turn back and to quietly retrace our steps back to where we came from, and luckily we escaped without them seeing us..."
I guess we could say Alhamdulillah for that.
"And that was until..."
"Until what again, Nazeera? What? What were you guys even looking for that you went that far?"
"Don't scream at me, Oppa," She sounded subdued, like a scared child, "It was just supposed to be an innocent tour around school na. We... I had no idea it'd turn out that way."
An innocent tour where you ended up going to where I've not even been before?
In more than my three years here?
"Anyway," She brightened up immediately and it almost looked like I had hallucinated her looking scared earlier, "This is the climax."
Clip... God! I facepalmed because I honestly couldn't believe I had wasted my time listening to someone like Nazeera.
"We got out of the building, laughed it off when I, like me gangan bumped into someone and something dropped out of the person's pocket and stupid me picked it up and called his attention back to it and the way he snatched it away from me..." She shuddered again as if reliving one big and horrible nightmare.
"What I picked up was a drug in this transparent nylon. It looked like all these drugs they used to exchange illegally in films. And he saw me, he carefully saw my face-
-God, what if they start tracking me down? What if they start threatening me not to say anything... What if... What if..." Her eyes and voice grew more frantic the more she spoke, "What if they force me to drop out of school when I've not even started?"
Could this girl even become more of a drama queen?
"Nazeera, just calm down ehn. You're just exaggerating. All those things happen in movies and novels, not in real life."
She scoffed loudly, "And novels directly mirror real life. God!" She sobbed again, "I came to school to get a degree and to meet the love of my life, I did come here to meet drug dealing undergraduates and to think it's even my first day again, what a bad omen!"
She lamented and I couldn't help but chuckle at her words. Meet the love of her life? Well, those were the side effects of being an irrational fan of Grownish.
"But wait, Nazeera," I sat up straighter when something suddenly dawned on me, "Don't tell me that you prayed for like an hour because you were scared of those people coming after you?"
"Of course, I did!" She retorted, "Do you even know how scared I was? And it was even dark when everything happened. God, I was so scared."
Now, she looked like a scared little puppy and it made me feel the need to reassure her even though I was almost really sure that it was nothing.
"Don't worry, Nazeera, I'm sure it's nothing. You have anything to worry about."
"Insha Allah," She was quick to reply and I had to chuckle again.
My sister was just a bundle of drama and exaggeration.
She handed my camera back to me and it was then that I was fully able to relax. We fell into a sort of silence that started to thicken more and more by the seconds until I felt the need to say something.
"So, how were they like? Your new friends in school?"
"Oh," She was quick to launch into another tee talk and it made me instantly regret even asking her anything.
"They're fine and nice and pretty and all. There are two guys and two girls. The first guy is Chike Nnaji and he's from Coven Prep. He's so fine but he's not my type." She kept rambling on and on, "The second one is Zakir Garba and he's so funny. The two girls are mirror-image twins and they're Hadiza and Hadasa Abubakar. God!" She tapped me urgently as if she wanted to say something really important.
"Oppa, you need to see these girls. I've never seen a twin look-alike that much before. They have zero difference. Their eyes, their noses, their gestures, their everything is the same. It was almost creepy but they're nice people."
"Well, it's a good thing you're making friends already," I told her, then started to get up so I'd retire to the safe corners of my room when her voice halted me.
"Ehn ehn, Oppa, do you know who Alfred is?"
I sat down back, "Alfred? What happened to him?"
"Oh, nothing oo, the girls on our group chat have been talking about him nonstop since morning,"
Oh wow. That's exactly what Alfred lives for.
"See something," She turned her phone's screen towards me so I'd see what exactly they've been saying, and seeing them made me chuckle even more. They were busy fawning and gushing and planning their future with someone like Alfred.
100 level students ehn...
"Some of them even went to stalk him today and they sent some of the pictures they took..."
I couldn't even blame them. They were in 100l and they've not even started any lectures. When classes and practicals get overbearing, they'd know better than to waste their time stalking a pretty boy.
"See the pictures," She showed me some pictures and they were all pictures of him behind the counter at cakes and creams. The pictures were all taken at wrong angles so none of them perfectly captured his face. They were just majorly some side views of him taking orders and smiling at customers.
"You won't believe that's everything they talked about today. For more than six hours, they were busy talking and fawning over him. Unbelievable! When he's not BTS." She announced and just when I was about to reply to her, her phone rang with a ringtone that could only be a song by those boys and her whole face lit up when she saw who was calling.
She picked up the phone, signaled to me that she'd be back soon and she started racing to her bedroom but not before I heard her say;
"Yoboseyeo, Omma.(Hello, mom)"
Before she slammed the door of her room shut.
I stared at the now-closed door of her room, my lips stretching into a thin smile until I realized she had pasted a picture on the door and I needed no soothsayer to tell me that it was a picture of those boys.
At this point, only God knows what I was going to do with her obsession.
**********
DAVID
I was lying down on my bed and reading up for an assignment when my phone suddenly notified me of a WhatsApp message from a number I knew all too well.
My heart skipped like 5 beats as I stared at the message from the unknown number but one I could tell whose number it was.
It had been the first thing I crammed when I resumed CSA.
It was Dunni's number and I didn't understand why and how she was messaging me out of the blues.
And the notification I was seeing was that of a picture or should I say pictures and curiosity, a curiosity that made me conclude it probably had to do with our project made me open the message.
Hey, baby.
My heart just stopped as I stared at the message and for a while, I couldn't do anything but stare at that picture with a tingling sensation coursing through my entire body.
I just kept staring at those two words with my head trying to wrap itself around what could be going on.
Why Dunni was messaging me out of the blues and why her tone of the message was like that?
Hey baby! Really?
My eyes moved to the second message and this time, I felt my heart coming into a standstill as I stared at this particular message.
David, you won't believe how much I've missed you. I honestly wished things didn't end between is the way they did.
Wow. The message... I reread it like a hundred times while feeling things I didn't want to feel as I stared at it.
While feeling a surge of hope I didn't want to feel.
A surge of hope I wasn't supposed to feel.
Dunni wasn't... She couldn't possibly mean what she just sent.
Heck! She couldn't possibly send something like this. I reread the message and this time, I could feel laughter bubbling from the pit of my stomach.
The message.
Everything had Princess's handwriting all over it.
This was all Princess's doing.
That 12 year old girl ehn.
I burst into laughter at the little girl's antics and was about to play along with her at Dunni's expense when I realized there were still pictures she had sent that I was yet to download.
I pressed the download icons on both pictures.
And that became my undoing.
My breathing ceased for the briefest moment as I stared at the pictures and my mouth dropped open with my thoughts spiraling into a thousand different directions.
Directions that I had no control over.
I reminded myself to close my mouth as I drolled shamelessly over the pictures that Princess had sent.
I couldn't stop looking if I wanted to.
I couldn't stop my brain from processing every intricate detail of that particular picture that I was staring at. She was sitting down on a sofa with her eyes were closed in the picture and it was showing only her sideview. She was dressed in a baggy pink shirt that was left unbuttoned to show her left shoulder and chest and because she was dressed or rather wrapped in that shirt, her legs were majorly left bare with a grey fabric loosely covering the upper part of her right leg.
I looked up at her face again, felt my heart skip multiple beats as I started at her perfectly sculptured face and her hair, thick black hair plaited in cornrows.
She was pretty, too pretty, undeniably pretty that it almost hurt to look at her.
The picture Princess sent 😂😂❤❤
I suddenly felt the need to do an intensely physical activity, like run a marathon or start doing push-ups or just any intense physical intensity to rid me of the thoughts of Dunni and that picture.
I started to do just that...
"Are you running mad?" Wale's voice interrupted my thoughts and I looked up from my latest object of obsession and fascination to see Wale looking at me with an amused grin on his face.
"Me? No oo, definitely not." I replied him, definitely sounding like someone that was running mad and he chuckled, his eyes raking my entire frame and his chuckled deepened when he saw my phone and I was sure he could even see what was on my screen because yes, I had increased my phone's brightness to the maximum.
"You're running mad," He told me as a matter of fact, his voice sounding like laughter.
My best-friend burst into laughter, with his shoulders quaking uncontrollably as if everything that was happening was funny.
"Have you started stalking Dunni's page now?" He asked me, his voice still sounding amused, "You know, you can just call her and ask her to meet up so you can look at her all you want," It was meant to be a joke but it made me feel a stab of fleeting anger.
"I mean," He continued, whirling around on his study chair so he'd be able to face me fully, "You guys are still into each other, you probably just need to sit and talk things through."
Talk things through? We had nothing to talk through and Wale, of all people should know that.
"You've not gotten over her at all..."
"Yes," I interrupted him, "I've gotten over her."
He chuckled again, "Of course, you've gotten over her. That explains why you looked like you wanted to punch that Hussain guy when she was all over him this morning."
That was the last thing I even needed to remember. She had been all over him as if he just descended from heaven or something and while she had been fawning over him like that, I couldn't help but feel extreme anger and about of jealousy when a tiny voice in my head kept whispering over and over to me that she probably looked better with him than with me.
"It wasn't what I looked like," I replied him and subconsciously picked up my phone again but all the messages were now gone and in their places were:
This message has been deleted.
She must have caught Princess with her phone and now, both the messages and the pictures were all gone.
My fingers suddenly developed a mind of their own because the next thing I knew, I was opening my Instagram and searching for her name.
And yes, you're completely over her.
It wasn't a habitual act or anything to check out her page even though it used to be like that when she first called the whole relationship thing off. I was always on her page, day and night. It started wearing off slowly but now, that I was on her page again, I wasn't sure I wouldn't become a stalker.
Contrary to the kind of aura Dunni might give off, she wasn't exactly a fan of posting her pictures on IG. Most of the pictures were even that of her dance practices or cameras.
Dunni's IG page 👀❤❤
The last picture she uploaded drew my attention because it was the exact picture she just deleted from my dm and it somewhat made me feel like I've outplayed her.
Because of a picture of a girl you're clearly over?
My subconscious just had to mock me at the same time Wale snorted loudly.
"Of course, you're over her. That explains why you can ignore me in the middle of a conversation to drool over her pictures."
"Wale, I'm not drooling over her..."
"Yen yen yen," He interrupted me and he even punctuated it with a casual wave of his hands, "Whatever makes you sleep at night."
Ode.
"But, David, I just feel like..." He shrugged casually, his eyes trained on me, "You're both just torturing yourself. You're just going around in circles when you both..."
I tuned him out.
I tuned him out completely while feeling a sudden and raging fury build slowly in me. It was so intense that I was practically crushing my phone in my palms with the metal hurting my palm.
It was that image. That one I couldn't get out of my head no matter how hard I tried; that one that I wouldn't stop hurting and haunting me no matter how hard I tried.
Wale didn't notice because he kept talking, he kept telling me reasons why I should get back with Dunni.
"Wale," I cut him short, "I don't want to talk about Dunni with you," I told him plainly and he looked startled at first before he chuckled as if this was something funny.
"Wait, if you don't want to talk about Dunni with me, then who do you want to talk about her with? I'm practically your only friend."
Exactly.
But I didn't say that out loud. I just focused on lacing my running shoes. I needed to get out of here, needed to run to clear my head, to reorganize my thoughts before I say something I shouldn't.
"Don't tell me you're going for a run?" Wale asked me when I started to walk towards the foot without sparing as much as a glance in his direction.
I stopped, then spared him a small nod before I stepped out of the constraints called my room.
***********
An hour later, I opened the door of my room, feeling a little bit clear-headed, only for me to close the door when I saw who was sitting at Wale's study desk.
It couldn't possibly be real.
You know when someone has been invading your thoughts and dreams, when they're practically all you think about, you're just bound to start hallucinating their presence.
But this was no hallucination, I realized when I opened the door again.
She was really in my room and the lights were turned off except for Wale's bedside lamp.
The sound of the door opening must have distracted me from whatever she was doing on Wale's laptop because she turned sideways and her eyes widened in what I assumed to be surprise when she saw me.
I didn't understand why she'd be surprised to see me in my room.
"Hey," Her soft voice went straight to my heart making it skip one long beat as I stepped inside and I closed the door after me.
"I needed to edit something on Wale's MacBook..."
The explained why the lights were turned off. I knew she always loved to edit in the dark.
"Hope you don't mind though?"
"I don't..." I started to reply only to trail off because my voice sounded way huskier than I've ever heard it.
If this isn't a recipe for disaster...
"Oh, okay. I'll be done before you know it," She replied to me before she turned back to continue with her editing.
I tried to ignore her, tried not to pay attention to the fact that she was in the room with me which was a miserable attempt because I could feel her everywhere.
I could see her everywhere even when I wasn't looking at her, even when I was tried not to look at her.
I could feel her everywhere. Her scent was everywhere, a flowery scent that was beyond enthralling that even though I didn't want to pay attention to it, I still couldn't help but feel bewitched.
If this isn't a recipe for disaster.
I couldn't even pause for a second in the room. I just made my way to the bathroom while hoping that before I'd be done showering, she'd be done and gone.
I intentionally spent more than 30 minutes in the shower with the hope that the distraction that was embodied by Dunni would be long gone but when I came out of the bathroom in only my briefs.
Dunni was still in the room.
The sound of the door distracted her from what she was editing on the MacBook and her eyes widened when she saw me.
In panic or surprise or a mixture of both...
Her eyes remained on mine for the briefest second, her gaze lighting up my entire body before she slowly started to trace her eyes over my bare chest subconsciously as if she couldn't look away no matter how hard she tried and I remained rooted at the entrance of bathroom while her eyes and the single fact that she was looking at me was lighting up my entire body and making me feel things that I'd rather not feel.
She was looking at me, looking at my entire body like she wanted to memorize my body... As if she wanted to have everything imprinted in her brain.
She was just looking at me and I was actually, slowly forgetting how to use my lungs.
That look was hot!
If this isn't a recipe for disaster.
Jesus Christ.
I mentally gulped when she wouldn't stop looking at me, wouldn't stop trailing her eyes over my body and I had to swallow an obviously imaginary lump that was cutting off my airflow.
If this isn't a recipe for disaster.
Her eyes continued to dip lower and lower until she caught herself just in time and she mumbled something incoherent before she finally tore her eyes away from my body it was only then that my legs finally moved away from where they had been rooted in and I walked to my wardrobe which was behind her to get myself properly dressed.
The whole room remained silent while I fumbled through my wardrobe for suitable shorts and tee to wear with my thoughts going haywire and all over the place but I knew one thing for sure.
I couldn't remain in this enclosed place for a minute more with her.
I shouldn't. That would only mean a major recipe for disaster.
I was putting on a shirt when she cleared her throat behind me, "Wale doesn't... He isn't, is he?"
My lips stretched into a smile at the absurdity of her statement because what she just said had no meaning at all and when I turned to look at her, she looked rigid as if she too had realized the absurdity of her statement.
She just said something that made absolutely no sense.
And I could bet anything that she probably looks flustered just like she looked earlier today during the meeting. On a normal day, I'd be teasing her about it but I guess, nothing was exactly normal with us again.
"I mean," She cleared her throat again because her voice was suddenly different, it sounded hushed, subdued as if she was breathless, "Some of Wale's apps are locked and I've been calling him but he isn't picking up. Do you have an idea what his password is?"
"My birthday," I replied in less than a heartbeat and she cooed loudly.
"See best friendship goals oo," She hyped excitedly as if she had forgotten who she was having a conversation with, "God when will somebody use my birthday as their important password."
I chuckled at her antics, then started to tell her that her birthdays used to be my passwords too only to stop because they still are.
I had initially changed them after the whole break up and all but I just kept forgetting the new passwords and after retrieving passwords for the umpteenth time, I decided to change them back to what they initially were.
I wanted to leave the room, I was supposed to leave the home but as if compelled by forces beyond my control, I found myself walking towards my bed and settling down on it.
If this isn't a recipe for disaster...
I sat on my bed which happened to be adjacent to her and now, she was sitting sideways to me and because the room was dimly lit, her face was solely lit up with the light from the laptop's screen.
And now, I could see her side view distinctly, I could see the luscious curl of her lashes on one eye, the perfect slope of her almost pointed nose, the subtle curve of her fuller lower lip that she was now biting into, and the graceful line of her neck...
I looked away instantly, feeling my lungs suddenly devoid of air.
Jesus. This is definitely a recipe for disaster.
I should leave, I knew that, deep down, i really did but I simply couldn't bring myself to leave. I just remained there, rooted to my bed while trying so hard not to stare at her but still failing miserably.
If she noticed I was constantly checking her out, she gave no inclination, she just focused on editing the pictures.
While, I, on the other end, just kept doing what I was doing.
"Thank God," Her tiny voice shattered the absolute silence in the room, "I'm finally done."
Thank God, I muttered to myself too, feeling somewhat relieved that she was going to leave and I was finally going to go to breathe properly and still feeling a little pang in my chest that she was leaving.
God... I really had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself.
That was until she turned towards me, momentarily cutting off my train of thoughts because I could now see the whole of her face without any inhibitions.
Heck, her face was the only thing that was lighted up in this dark up. It was the only thing I could see thanks to the light from the laptop's screen and I should look away.
I should look away because seeing her in this light was only going to do one thing:
Completely mess up with my sense of reasoning.
And now, looking at her fair skin glowing in the dark with her facial features distinctly highlighted, I couldn't agree more that Dunni was a beauty to behold.
She's a beauty to behold.
She had an alluring face, one that'd effortlessly pull you in...
"I'm sorry about earlier," She started, the sound of her voice echoing throughout the entire room, "The girls came over and I honestly thought Princess was playing games on my phones," She smiled a little as if she was amused by Princess' antics and I tried to ignore the fact that my heart started beating faster just because she smiled.
If hopelessness was a person, it'd definitely be me.
"So I thought she was playing games on my phone," She continued, her voice sounding like a smile, "I had no idea she was busy sending my pictures to you,"
"It's really not a big deal," I told her, even though it was a big deal because now, I'd never been able to stop stalking her page.
"Okay," She mumbled before she looked away from me to look and toy with her well-manicured fingers that were painted in a very light shade of nude.
"Shouldn't we talk," She started again, all of a sudden, and she looked up to meet my eyes, "I mean we have so many things to clear up and we have a whole year in front of us, we can't keep feeling awkward whenever we run into each other."
She was right but then, some things were better off not said.
We could only go on and pretend everything was fine without talking about some stuffs.
"We don't have anything to talk about, Dee... Dunni," I caught myself just in time before I start to do stupid things like calling her by my pet name for her.
"God, David, we have so much to talk and you know so I understand why..." She trailed off, obviously frustrated at what I didn't understand.
Was she really ready for that conversation?
"David," Her voice was softer this time around, it was coy, almost pleading, "Why do I keep feeling like you're angry at me? Like, I feel like you're really angry at me because of what I don't understand."
"I'm not angry at you, Dunni but I think you should really lea..."
I couldn't complete that statement because I felt a sudden and shooting pain that almost paralyzed a side of my brain and even though, I tried to keep it down, I couldn't help the wince that escaped my lips.
And Dunni just had to notice.
"Are you okay?" She asked, her voice sounding genuinely concerned and worried and before I knew it, she was standing from where she sat and sitting right beside me on the bed.
This is definitely a recipe for disaster.
"I'm okay," I tried to sound as dismissive as possible but my voice only sounded deeper and even huskier than I've ever heard.
But I couldn't help it.
She was sitting so close to me, her scent crippling my senses and her bare thighs brushing against mine.
This shouldn't...
I allowed myself to really look at what she was wearing. Dunni had always been spontaneous with her dressing because she could pull off any clothes and right now, she was wearing shorts that left most of her legs exposed and a pink crop off the shoulder top that had completely fallen off her left shoulder leaving an ample amount of flesh bare.
I sucked in deep breaths as I looked away from her shoulders to her face which turned out to be a major and total wrong move.
She was sitting close, too close to me that I could hear her breathing, could hear her irregular and shaky breathing as if our proximity was affecting her as it was affecting me.
I should move away but I couldn't. I just remained there, completely hypnotized.
"David," She spoke again, her voice completely calm and soothing which was a total contrast to her chiding and angry voice, the one she always use whenever she wanted to chastise me for not prioritizing my health enough.
"Are you okay?" She couldn't have sounded more worried and yes, I was certain that she was really worried about me and that was probably because she has never really gotten over me.
Just like I've never, not even for once, stopped liking her but that was that searing image at the back of my mind.
One that I couldn't get out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
Feeling bout by a sudden bout of anger that overshadowed all other emotions that I've felt since I met her in the room, I started to pull away from her at the same time she reached out to touch my forehead.
Holy... Jesus Christ.
It was just her hands on my forehead but it felt like a fire had been ignited in my entire body, causing tiny shocks to erupt in my entire body.
It was all too much, too overwhelming, too crippling... We've been together, we've done so many things together but this... This level of attraction was too much.
Too dangerous.
I don't think I could handle something like this...
She didn't seem to notice because she moved even closer, pressed her palm further against my forehead and she pressed her other palm against her forehead as if to compare our temperatures.
"Your temperature is a little bit high," She told me but I wasn't focused on what she was saying. I couldn't, not when her face was within an air's breadth from mine.
And lead us not into temptations.
"Have you used your drugs this evening?" She asked me, her voice still concerned and that was when she removed her hand from my head only to casually place it on my thigh, on the clothed part of my thigh but she could have as well placed it on my bare skin because of the intensity of the heat and warmth that I was feeling.
A girl I was in love with and madly attracted to, zero distance and extremely close proximity, totally alone in an enclosed space, a semi-dark enclosed space...
It was just a total and a complete and absolute recipe for disaster.
I didn't know how it happened but the next thing I knew, my left hand had moved, on its volition to cup her right cheek and I felt her skin shiver underneath my touch and her eyes darted briefly to look at that contact before she looked at me again.
Her eyes met mine for the briefest second before it dropped lower to stare at my mouth and I watched, watched as she slowly took her lower lip in between her teeth while still staring at my mouth.
Consequences are damned...
That was the last thing I whispered to myself before tilting her head up and brushing my lips against...
"Dunni, hope you weren't bored..." The door flung open at the same time Wale entered, breaking the spell and breaking the distance between us because Dunni instantly jumped back and I released a very shaky and unstable breath.
And just like that, the spell was broken.
"Oops," My best friend muttered, "I'm sorry, I'll just come back later."
He started to turn back but my voice halted his movement, "No, Dunni was just about to leave,"
My voice sounded gruff, angry, husky, and definitely deeper than I intended and my heart wouldn't stop beating erratically, out of control as Dunni scrambled to her feet.
Only God knows what'd be happening right now if Wale hadn't entered.
I tried to look at her as she packed her stuff that was on Wale's desk into her backpack before making her way out of the room and I noticed that Wale muttered some words I couldn't hear to her before she finally stepped out of the room with Wale closing the door after her.
I released another shaky and loud breath and I laid down on the bed with my right hand covering my eyes because Wale had turned the lights In.
"Don't you think that was cold?" Wale started, his voice a little chiding, "I mean, you didn't have to shrug her off like that when you guys would have been heavily making out if I hadn't shown up."
I didn't even bother to reply to him because I knew he was right. Making that statement was rude and cold on many levels and I loved her way more than hurting her like that.
But at least, I was sure it was that hurtful.
Compared to what she did.
Hmmmm hmmm. These kids ehn 💔
David, Dunni and Wale?? Conspiracy theories? This is the last time I'll be ask sha because we should know what's really up in the next five chapters or so. Hmm, it might not be pretty at all oo.
And Dunni and David?? Hmm hmm. Lemme just keep run away 🏃🏃
And please, hold Nazeera for me. She seems to running mad oo 😂😂😂💔💔💔 Mama prayed that many raqahs because she was afraid of whatever drug dealers she saw coming after her 😂😂😭😭
And, I just felt the need to say this but the most irrelevant things, the one we think of as jokes or whatnots always end up becoming the most important details that we overlooked. If you grab, Good! If you don't, that's even Better!
And I love Princess!!! The captain of our ship 😂😂😂❤❤❤
See y'all next week Wednesday and don't forget to vote and comment ❤❤✨✨