We were in Spintex. And it wasn't until Aunty Ama turned the car onto a junction beside a very familiar hardware store and drove down a tree-lined avenue that it began to creep on me that I was actually going to do this. When I woke up this morning, my only thoughts were how much of Gravitational force and Kepler's laws I'd be able to revise before moving on to some biology past questions with Astrid. I had never anticipated my day turning out like this.
God, did he even know I was coming?
Before I could ask that question aloud and get an answer, Aunty Ama stopped the car next to a wall entirely covered in hedge growth with tall trees on the other side nearly blotting out the view of the house itself. Right across the street was that architectural masterpiece I recognized as Uncle Eric's house.
Aunty Ama unlocked the doors and turned to us. She kept the engine running, so I knew she wasn't coming in with us. "I'll pick you girls up at around three. Is that okay with you, Tricia?"
"Yes, aunty." I replied, picking up my bag.
"Don't worry. I told your mum before we left that I would be bringing you and Astrid here, so she's aware you're not at our place."
"Okay." That was one hurdle taken care of. "Thank you."
"You girls enjoy your stay."
Astrid and I simultaneously climbed out of the car, and I let her take the lead as we walked towards the black gate. She pressed a doorbell that stuck out between the foliage, and we patiently waited. At the clanking sound of the gate being opened, I nearly gave in to the impulse to run back to the car, but forced my muscles to remain locked in place.
A young man with several black spots all over the fair skin of his face smiled at us as he pulled the gate open wider. "Awura Afua!" He beamed at Astrid. "Nowadays, you don't like coming to visit us at all. What did we do to you, hm?"
"Oh, Peter. It's school oh, hm." Astrid said dramatically as she stepped past the threshold. Once we were both in, Aunty Ama gave a wave and drove away. "School keeps me so busy, there's barely enough time to visit anyone. Anyway, this is my sister from another mother, Tricia."
"Hello." I smiled at Peter as he gave me a friendly nod.
"Your cousin is at the back." Peter told Astrid before disappearing into what looked like a guardhouse.
An Araucaria stood on one side of the compound, surrounded by a circle of freshly cut grass. Lining the front of the wide porch was a range of pruned Ixora shrubs with yellow and red flowers. The porch itself held a pot containing some sort of palm plants to one side, and a collection of cane furniture. The air here was cool, and there was a ton of shade. I imagined how relaxing it would be to settle into one of those inviting chairs and thumb through a book.
Astrid led me around the building on a paved path lined with actual rose bushes and bright violets. An orange tree stood a bit farther back, ripe with fruits that made my mouth water. As we neared the back of the house, the sounds of a ball bouncing off the ground reached us, along with snippets of conversation.
"With Jojo switching schools at the last minute, their defence will be shit for sure, and although Seyram can dribble quite well, his skill exists purely for showing off. I wouldn't rule him out so quickly, but I'm positive he won't be able to mark me. Besides, I am CA's best striker."
"So in short, you will have no competition on the field."
"Precisely."
David drew back a few steps, his calculating gaze going from the ball to the hoop on the other side of the court. He broke into a soft jog, brought his foot down on the ball and sent it soaring on a neat trajectory straight into the basket.
Astrid broke out into applause at his stunt and that drew their attention to the two intruders standing on the sidelines. David's eyes landed on me without a hint of surprise in them. For a few seconds, it was an awkward, tense stare-off until it was broken by another series of loud claps.
The boy who had been playing with David walked over, a blinding smile stark against his smooth, dark skin. "David's lovely cousin." He greeted Astrid, taking her hand in a handshake with a flirtatious wink, and then walked over to me with his hand extended. "And David's girl."
"I'm not David's girl." I immediately corrected.
His brows hopped up in surprise. He glanced over his shoulder, and when he looked back at me, there was a sly grin on his face. He took my hand in a firm grip, saying, "I'm Jonathan, and you're beautiful."
"Um, thanks." I said, my face heating up. Astrid shook her head with a small laugh.
"And it's a relief to hear you say you're not David's girl." He said and stood back, dropping my hand. "I saw your picture on his Instagram and was instantly jealous."
I laughed lightly, feeling some of the tension in my muscles dissipate. "Aren't you his friend?"
"Friend?" Jonathan looked downright offended. "Why would I be friends with someone who has such lousy football skills but acts over-confident to compensate? Someone with such mediocre looks and an even worse off intellectual capaci -oomph!"
There was a thump sound. Jonathan suddenly arched his back, his face contorted in pain. I gaped at the basketball rolling off the court into the bushes, and at David, who was coming over with a smug look as his friend hunched over on his knees, groaning.
"Talk shit about me again and it'll be that pretty face that kisses the ball next."
"Fucking prick." Was Jonathan's eloquent, pain-filled retort.
"Did your mum drop you off?" David asked Astrid, who was busily staring contemplatively at her phone's screen.
"Yeah." She mumbled absent-mindedly in response, her thumb hovering over the devices screen.
Jonathan straightened and stretched out with a pain-filled moan. "Can we go in? The sun is scorching."
"You're right." My best friend agreed and slipped her phone into the pocket of her sweats. "Five more minutes out here and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you and dark chocolate."
Jonathan's jaw dropped to the ground. I tried to suppress my laugh as best as I could, but a chuckle gave me away and earned me a betrayed look. He followed her with blazing indignation, complaining about how unfairly he was treated because of his complexion all the way to the screen door that led back inside the house.
Jonathan and Astrid took the light-hearted atmosphere along with them. David ran a hand through his hair, and I felt that suffocating tension from before wrap around us again. My fingers tightened on the straps of my bag. I wanted to walk away, but my legs were rooted in place. All the resolve I'd had in the car had deserted me.
"Can we talk, please?" His voice was soft, prompting me to lift my gaze off the lacquered floor and into dark, pleading eyes. "Just five minutes."
Just five minutes held promise for the various directions in which the conversation could go. I wasn't too fond of it, but if I would ever move on, I needed to do this. I found myself nodding as my resolve began to creep back, inch by inch.
"Okay."
I followed David through the screen door to the expansive kitchen, and then out onto a smaller porch, with a running Chromebook and an IGCSE English textbook lying on the glass table. I took a seat in the sofa, and almost freaked out when I felt something crumple behind me. A small white shopping bag had been lying between the cushions, and I'd accidentally sat on it.
Pretty sure if you looked up 'mortified' in the dictionary, you'd find an illustration of the face I made next to the word.
David chuckled lightly when I stumbled over my apology, and dismissively waved when I tried to hand the bag to him. "It's for you, actually." I tilted my head to the side with my mouth open in a questioning 'o'. He cleared his throat and elaborated. "I got that in Monaco. During the race weekend. I know you're not that big a fan of Formula One, but it'd be cool to have something to remember your favourite team by."
He had kept his eyes locked on the screen of his computer the entire time he spoke. It was a little endearing how David, who always looked one straight in the eye, was avoiding that now, as if he was scared of the confrontation. My smile came unbidden as I spared him further agony and dipped my hand in the bag, pulling out an orange and grey cap with the McLaren logo.
Underneath said logo were two signatures I would be able to identify even if I had just been pulled out of a coma.
A lump the size of the entire Savannah region lodged in my throat. This wasn't supposed to get to me like this. Paying for my snacks was one thing, and friends did all the time, but going out of his way to get my favourite drivers to sign an ordinary cap from the McLaren merch was just . . .
"I'm sorry about the way I spoke to you on Monday." He began softly, leaning forward to close the Chromebook. "You didn't deserve that, and I won't use my anger as an excuse to justify it."
"It's fine." I said after part of the lump had melted, giving me room to work my vocal cords. "I just felt compelled to jump in because you were getting so angry and I . . ." Put a foot in your mouth. I clammed up.
David glanced at me with a tired smile and sat up, clasping his hands in his lap. "A sneak peek of what my life here is like. Adam is like a kind of poison. He has a strong negativity bias and is such a skilled manipulator, and I am the one paying for it."
"During the day you guys argued in the lab," I said carefully, watching him for any sign that I was crossing the line. There was none, so I carried on. "He spoke as if there was something he had done years ago that you still hadn't forgiven him for."
"Forgiveness likely doesn't mean much to him, not when he just finds new ways to upend my life and make sure I have even less of a relationship with my father than my mother does." Ouch. "Trust me, Tricia, you want to focus on your WASSCE and getting into a good school instead of bothering with us."
I cringed. "I didn't mean to pry."
"I know."
We sat in silence, comfortable silence, watching the wind lightly ruffle the leaves from the hedge growth on the wall. It was a warm afternoon, and I sat with my legs drawn up into the couch and David's gift lying against my knee, contently observing a pair of white butterflies dance around the bright yellow flowers of the Allamanda.
This was my little pocket of peace until I had to return home and face the consequences of my decisions.
"I hated the way you looked at me then, that expression of your face." David spoke. The butterflies disappeared over the wall, possibly startled by the sudden rupture in silence. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright." I breathed, wishing the butterflies in my own stomach would also disappear. "You have more than made up for it, anyway. This was an awesome thing to do." The signatures on the cap didnt feel real no matter how many times I ran my finger over it.
David smiled, and it was the same smile he had worn on our way back from the coffee shop on the crowded streets of Soho. "Made mum question her sanity for several minutes when I met the papaya guys in the paddock instead of heading to Mercedes." I laughed at that. "I also got it because you can't go to a race without wearing something of your favourite team's."
"If I ever go to a race, that is."
He leaned forward with an arm on the back of the couch, a challenge blazing in eyes like black holes. "I made a promise that I'll take you to a race one day. Are you underestimating my powers of thoroughly convincing you?"
"Whatever powers you think you have won't be enough to drag me to an obscenely loud event with cheers and the smell of burnt rubber." I replied.
David, in response to my gloating, took the cap from my hand and set it on my head, tugging a bit so it fit snugly on my tied-back locs. "There." He nodded to himself, leaning back to admire his handiwork. "If you attend school in the U.K, we'll go to Silverstone." He said, purposefully ignoring what I'd said earlier.
"What if I choose to write the SAT and attend school in the States?"
"Even better. Lots of venues to choose from. Miami, Austin, Vegas . . . you name it."
"And if I choose to remain here?"
"I'll send you an invitation, you'll join mum and I in London, then we'll go to Silverstone."
"With your mum?"
"No. Just us. There's no winning for you here, Tricia."
"You're crazy." I laughed, though the grin I wore hadn't left my face in minutes. Maybe, I was the crazy one. "You just won't give up."
David laughed as well while he got to his feet, a sound that was somehow equivalent to a gust of fresh air. "I said I was taking baby steps with you, not that I was simply going to throw in the towel when you proved to be difficult." He then held out a hand.
His words burrowed under my skin, filling me with a tingly sort of energy I'd never felt before. I felt as light as a helium balloon, but grounded all the same. The more time I spent in his company, the more the seconds ticked away and prolonged the exchange of quips and laughs, the heavier the weight of my feelings for him grew.
"Tricia?" He was still waiting, hand extended.
Smiling to mask my thoughts, I accepted his hand and allowed him to pull me to my feet. He didn't let go immediately like I'd expected. Instead, his grip on me tightened almost imperceptibly.
"It's great to have things return to normal. It's been a miserable week." He murmured, staring down at our joined hands.
"Funny how well I can relate to that."
Another shared smile, like we were both in on a secret. A wave of giddiness I tamped down. Level-headed and cool, like mum.
I helped David pack his books while he unplugged the PC and shoved it into a bag that had been lying beside the sofa on the ground. He held the door open for me, a guiding hand resting on the small of my back. I wanted to lean into his touch, but I chided myself.
I'd let too much show already. Any further action was permitting what was forbidden to take root in the first place to germinate and grow, anchor deeper, find purchase in my heart. I needed all my focus for school, to make the 8 A's during the WASSCE.
I'm only proud of you for making the right choices.
Mind over matter.
Mind over matter like every other decision I made.