While Nathan was away at the food line, Daniel and I engaged in small talk. Mostly about the four subjects we'd be having tests on for the next two days of our tests. Although we were talking, I wasn't completely listening.
My head was still dwelling in the clouds of Nathan's smile and our reconcilation-ish. Not to be mistaken, I was only happy we could be good friends again.
Daniel snapped his fingers in my face. I drew my head back and blinked. "Did you hear me?"
I blinked again. "Mm?"
He shook his head and drank the last of his Pepsi, consuming the last part of his lunch. Mine was halfway finished. I had half eaten chicken, half eaten rice, half full orange juice.
"What were you saying na?" I asked when he didn't respond. Suddenly hands covered my eyes, blocking my vision. I knew the owner of the soft, partly hairy hands when I felt them. Was this what Daniel was trying to tell me? "Amara, uncover my eyes biko."
She laughed softly, doing what I asked as she uncovered my eyes to sit by my left and beside Daniel. Hanging her purple schoolbag on the edge of the backrest, she asked an obvious question, "Winch. How did you know it was me?"
"Five years," was all I said. "I can recognize everybody's hands."
"Wahala." She laughed again, then leaned towards Dan, cute eyes and all. "Did you drag her to this place?"
"Omo, it's just God." Daniel wiped his hands with tissue, not taking his eyes off me. I couldn't blame him since he had to put some effort into making me enter this place. "And to top it all, they didn't make food at home today."
"Ehen. So that's why."
"Ok, ok. Enough about that topic," I said, trying to cut out a piece of my chicken. I never cared for eating my meat last; as long as meat was part of my food, I ate it whenever I wanted. I glanced up at Amara after getting a bite of the chicken. "Further maths—"
"Don't mention it," Amara cut me off.
Daniel whipped his head towards her, shock clearly written on his face. "Ah ah, babe. What happened?"
She shook her head, fishing out some money from her navy blue purse. An apologetic look on her face, she zipped her purse closed and touched Daniel's shoulder while managing to switch glances from me to Daniel. "It wasn't good. So please let's pretend that we didn't write that subject today."
"Why don't you drop it?" I dropped my spoon, rubbing my palms together. The subject wasn't a compulsory one. Amara didn't even need it to be admitted into the uni to study her course of interest. Amara and Daniel shared a common are you serious look, making me nod in quick realization. "Oh."
Amara stood. "Be right back."
Daniel waited till our best friend was a safe distance away from us before saying, hands to his temple, "Sometimes I feel like punching her dad's belly everytime I see him and watch his mouth open in confusion."
"Belly?" I nearly choked on my juice. After getting myself, I asked, "Why not his face?"
The man was very much irritating. Calling him irritating was an understatement. He was one of the reasons most of our together nights on Friday's were spent at my house. Her dad always made sure to breath down our necks, constantly checking whatever we were doing. Even if we were doing something as simple as a discussing our favourite movies.
Honestly, I couldn't imagine my dad being that overbearing. God knows how bitter I'd have become.
"I can't punch his face," Daniel groaned, his face twisted in utter irritation. "Mara got her some of her facial features from him, so I guess not."
"It's true."
"But that man is something else. Always a killjoy."
"I can't agree more." I gathered rice into my spoon. "I'll always wonder how you managed to spend time with him while growing up."
"God's grace, my sister. I swear, guy. He doesn't know when to stop. Like during her eight birthday party, he didn't even let her play as much as she wanted to." Daniel lifted his fingers, counting off as he continued, "The bouncing castle? No. The train ride? Nope. The normal card games? Still no. Now he's forcing her to do a subject she isn't good at just because he supposedly liked it when he was in secondary school. Omo, I don tire!"
I reached out for his hand across the table and begged him to lower his voice. I got that he was annoyed by everything. But first, we didn't need people facing our way; and second, as much as we disliked Amara's father, there was nothing much we could do except wait till her dad finally understood not to be overbearing.
After sharing more words of complaints, we were joined by the other guys. Nathan returned to his sit by my side while Caleb sat by Dan's left. Caleb was the only one, out of all of us, that didn't have as much as a dent between his eyebrows when he got to the table.
"You finally came here, eh?" Caleb said, knowing fully well my reasons for not wanting to be here at all. "Nnoo."
Nathan paused stirring his rice and stew to look up, asking, "What's the meaning?" He turned to me for help.
"Welcome in Igbo," Dan explained, and Nathan nodded, probably registering it in his head. Daniel's face gave away a pity-like expression for Nathan's lack of knowledge. "It's Kaira's mother tongue."
"He knows that." Caleb chinned up. "I also told him abo—"
"He told me about the major tribes," Nathan interrupted, already back to facing his food, as if he didn't want Caleb to continue with his statement. That caught my attention. "And his own tribe, of course."
Caleb nodded. "Yeah."
The three boys around communicated silently with one another, no matter how short. I couldn't understand why they did that.
"You." Daniel drew his chair forward, aimed his empty pepsi bottle at Caleb, eyes narrowed to slits. "Mister man, aren't you eating?"
Caleb puffed up his chest like a gorilla and said, "Yes. I ate my salad about an hour ago."
"Ugh." Amara scrunched up her nose, dropping herself on the chair beside me. "How will human being be eating mostly vegetables? I doubt you'll even survive on the basketball court if you continue eating like that."
It was a good thing that Daniel sat in-between those two because Caleb lifted a warning finger at Amara, stating at her as if she truly offended him. Caleb followed a strict, self-made diet, and Amara referring to what he made with such revolted expression on her face must've hurt him a bit.
"Ezeh, mind yourself." Caleb pointed his index at her.
"Yeah, whatever."
"By the way, how was the furt––" Daniel quickly clasped his hand of Caleb's mouth, muffling the rest of his words. Brushing Dan's hand aside, Caleb almost shouted, "What was that for?"
"We can't discuss Further maths now," Daniel explained.
Caleb shrugged like what Daniel just said didn't matter and before he could talk again, Dan warned, "Don't test your luck o."
"Chill, guy. I wasn't going to test it," Caleb chuckled, surrendering. He was well aware that he couldn't win when Daniel was that serious. "So what do you want us to talk about?"
"Anything," Nathan answered.
"You'll have to narrow it down to something," Amara stabbed a fried potato into her fork. "This guy here can take that anything to a whole other level," she continued, pointing the chunk of potato at Caleb accusingly.
I scraped the last grain of jollof rice from my plate and pushed the empty pack to the rim of our table, ready to watch the exchange between my two friends. Caleb and Amara argued over trivial things sometimes. Amara was getting set for one of those trivial arguments.
And boy, did the sharpness of her tongue and a razor hold little to no difference whenever things got worse.
Daniel covered his face, a sigh of exhaustion leaving his mouth just as Caleb leaned forward for a better view of Amara. "And what does that mean?"
"Do I need to break down my word now?"
Someone began clapping behind us. The kind of clap that obviously wasn't to show praise but to ridicule. I wasn't surprised at all to see that Omotola was the one clapping, walking towards us. I was surprised to see Jeremy standing with her, his strong hands possessively on her waist. He oozed off an aura of indifference, like he would do anything to not be here right now in our midst.
Seeing them together reminded me of the time I'd caught them standing very close in under the staircase. I thought hard and soon realized that I knew few things l about Jeremy. Just that he was short distance athlete for a while and a member of SS2 Ivory. The sudden relationship between him and Tola baffled me. Were they together or not?
"Why are you clapping?" Amara asked before anyone else could, definitely taking the question out of our mouths. Everyone had questioning looks on his or her face.
What was amusing, and what was she doing here? Why? To start another drama because she saw that I was in the cafeteria? Or simply because she didn't have anything else worth doing at this time.
Tola rolled her big eyes. "Someone has guts to come back here."
"Who?" Caleb asked grimly, although he knew who she was referring to, and Omotola snorted.
"Are you seriously asking me?"
I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands, sighing. Of course she was talking about me. I knew we wouldn't be able to stay here without Tola spotting us and trying to make a scene out of it all. I was far too tired to take part in whatever nonsense she was planning now.
I lifted my head to catch Tola's glaring eyes on me. What in the world did she want?
Daniel asked, stopping Amara from saying anything to Tola. "Aren't you tired of being so…annoying and troublesome?" When Amara wanted to say something again, he nodded towards her unfinished meal, urging her to continue eating. "Omotola, you don't like moving forward."
"Says who?" Tola folded her arms across her full chest, already at our table. "We both know that Kaira told us she's never entering this place again."
"I don't see how that matters," Nathan said, resting back into his chair. "She came to have lunch here today, and I don't hear anyone complaining," he added after scanning the room.
He defended me even when he didn't know what Tola was playing at. I hadn't told him any of it, and neither was I planning on telling him because I feared his reaction. Not when we finally discussed properly today. God…not today.
"I don't blame you." Tola's laugh was humourless. She smiled devilishly, moving nearer to stand between Caleb and Nathan, very close to Nathan. "You don't know what she did and why guilt stops her from being here or—"
"You don't know what you're saying," I gritted, her words dangerously getting close to my switch. Her presence and the fact that she still wanted to be a nuisance upset me. "It isn't guilt, so please shut up."
And it wasn't guilt. It really wasn't.
"Why should I shut up? Eh?" Tola tipped up her jaw, her stupid beads jingling. Her eyes trailed down to Nathan, and she smiled again. Jesus. I was dangerously reaching beyond the border of annoyance. "Oh, you don't want him to know, right?"
I gathered my skirt into my palm, feeling the soft clothe. I had to stop myself from doing anything stupid, like snapping and gaining more attention from the students around.
What was her business if I didn't want Nathan to know? If she were the one, would she go around telling her new friends her secrets and the foolish mistakes she'd made? There was no way she'd do that. She couldn't just spill her guts to Jeremy by her side who whispered something into her ear and left us. I knew he'd get bored of watching us argue.
I wondered what he'd think if I told him how Omotola was a betwetter up until she clocked eleven. Maybe he'd be interested in knowing how her parents bribed the higher ups in order for her to receive admission into our school. But I wouldn't tell Jeremy. I wasn't anything like her.
Nathan wiped his mouth and asked, "She doesn't want me to know what?"
"Nothing," Caleb replied instead, obviously restraining himself from pulling Tola far away from our table. "There's nothing to know."
No one wanted to get riled up. We all had it cool, but there was the fuming Amara.
"Omotola, you're really testing my patience." Amara tapped the table, shaking her head. "You should be grateful that you're still in one piece. Leave this place unless you want to go home a blacker shade than you are."
"So you guys haven't told him yet?" Tola smirked, ignoring Amara's threat, her black eyes fixated on Nathan. "And you guys keep hanging around, joined together like Siamese animals."
I gripped my skirt tighter. "See, we obviously aren't in the mood to play with you right now. Just go away. Go and read for your test."
"But Nathan needs to know the kind of girl he's hanging out with."
This girl seriously doesn't want to have sense this afternoon.
"Omotola," I made sure to drag out her name, already seethed. It was a miracle that none of us was at her throat. "Stop this rubbish. What you're saying or about to say is nonsense."
Her lips curved upwards; God, she was enjoying this. She glanced at Nathan. "Do you know why Kaira stopped eating here? Or why she doesn't really talk with everybody? Haven't you ever wondered?"
"If she wanted me to know, she'd have told me," Nathan answered, his voice deep and serious. "Even if Kaira and I are friends, there are some lines we can't cross unless we're given the green light to. And that means whatever you want to tell me, you can keep it to yourself. Because I don't need to hear it from you."
"Thank you," the rest of us said simultaneously.
I released a long exhale. I liked the way he didn't cave in to her desire for him to know everything. I was sure he was going to become curious about it later, though.
My hate for Omotola doubled for how she tried to generate a rift between Nathan and me and for giving him hints on what I'd been keeping myself from thinking.
It was my fault, and I didn't do it on purpose. It was never meant to happen. He should've been in the school with us, probably up to one of his shenanigans. I could picture how he'd be laughing after trying to pull down Daniel's trousers; and how he'd smile while adjusting my things for me; the times he'd ruffle Caleb's hair despite knowing how Caleb hated when he did that.
I missed him more than anyone. But I was the reason he left our school, so maybe I deserved this.
Tola snorted, rolling her eyes yet again. "She has brainwashed you."
The time was drawing near for my switch to finally flip. I was honestly going to lose it if not for Daniel who gestured for me to calm down.
"Oh, shut up that maggot hole of a mouth you have," Amara almost shouted. "Tell that to some fool, and maybe he'll believe you. Nobody brainwashed anybody. You're just disappointed he didn't indulge in listening to whatever lies you were about to come up with."
"I wasn't going to lie. Amarachi, mind your b—"
I stood up and cut her words short. "If you're not going away, then I will. And if you like, say all the lies in the entire universe, I don't care. I'm too tired to deal with you, and I know I'll regret my actions if I do."
The whole conversation dampened my mood since the beginning. Seeing how she was hell-bent on telling Nathan know about what happened the term before made me realize how little she'd moved on. Just like me.
I needed my head cleared. My nostrils flared as I breathed. I was angry at her. More so, at myself. For the stupid mistake I'd made. For letting her know about that mistake and not correcting the lies she had everyone believe. If I hadn't done that, my school life wouldn't be like this. I wouldn't have to be like this.
I put my Geography note inside my bag, grabbed the empty food pack, and turned to my four friends, ignoring Omotola, "I'm off to read for the next paper. The only way she'll leave us alone is if I leave this place."
"No, don't go. You know that's what she wants." Amara held my hand, preventing me from getting up. She eyed Omotola, her eyelids going up and down furiously. "She should leave since nobody wants her here."
"I've sha said my own," Tola hissed. By now, she was aware that whatever mission she was on would be fruitless.
When Omotola shamelessly turned on her heels and left, I sat down. Physically it was if I had maintained my composure. But deep down, I felt like crumbling to the floor, every fragment of myself falling apart. This whole thing was draining and unnecessary.
She shouldn't continue troubling me, and I should stop feeling bad. Months have gone by.
Everything should be alright by now.
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I hope this one was interesting enough
I wrote the chapter in a rush, so please let me know if any part feels off
Oh and btw, that star thing looks better when tapped🌚
Till next time…