Kora
I dragged my feet as I walked lazily down the hallway. If you saw me, you'd have thought I was depressed. After everything I had seen and heard today, I sure knew I had to be. It was a lot to take in, and I didn't always do too well with secrets. At that point, I wished I had listened more to the voice in my head. I wish I had not heard all the things I had heard, and most of all, I wish I wasn't caught hearing them. I couldn't stop thinking about the look on his face when he saw me. Even amidst all that anger in his eyes, and harshness in the tone of his voice, he was scared, I could see it. A side of him I had never really noticed before. I opened the door to my room and walked in.
All the parts of my body were working independently now, without me having to tell them what to do. My brain was too busy with a whole lot of other memories to be bothered by them. I turned on the lights and threw my bag on the ground in a hurry.
"Mum!"
Jeremiah's voice kept echoing in my head, even as I kept pulling myself to the bed. Was it really true? Everything I heard, everything he said? Was Jeremiah really an illegitimate son of Benjamin Ozor? Had the Ozors really been deceiving everyone about their true identities? About his identity? Was that why he was barely ever home? Was that why he had lived most of his life in the states? Did they banish him?
All those questions, I needed answers to. Not that it was any of my business, but knowing what I did already made me a part of their mess. Plus, it was Jeremiah. He might not have known who I was yet, but I knew who he was, and I had gotten so close to him that I had already made him a part of my life unintentionally, so yes, it really bothered me. I wondered how he was doing. Seeing him the way I did, hearing those things made my heart feel for him. Watching Nanny turn her back on him like that...
I always wondered why Nanny never really talked about her past. Why she never got married, or had children. I guess that was it. Was she really Jeremiah's mum? Did she really abandon him with the Ozors for all those years? Did Jeremiah have a hard time living by himself all those years? Does he have a hard time living with them now?
I threw myself on my bed, not even bothering to take off my shoes.
Everyone had always thought the Ozor family were straight forward, without any drama at all. You should have seen articles about them. They seemed so happy together. So peaceful. How could so much be going on within their home? How did they have so much dirty laundries? I turned on my phone's screen. It was seven thirty. Thirty minutes past my date with Jeremiah. It looked like it was impossible for us to see today anyway, not after everything that had just happened. I was sure I was the last person on his mind at that moment. I still kept my eyes focused in my phone.
Do I text him?
Was it going to be awkward if I did? A part of me just wanted to talk to him, to know if he was okay. I was worried about him.
Just give him space, Kora.
I turned my phone upside down. I had to stop myself from reaching for it and actually texting him. I needed some space myself. I needed time to get over the side of him I had seen today. I shut my eyes. I was tired.
Really tired.
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Jeremiah
I was tired. I barely noticed the maids that greeted me from the moment I had walked out of the car. I didn't care about them or anything else. I looked so sick, I felt so sick, and I was sure they could all notice, especially since I wasn't walking the way I used to. I kept dragging my feet, maybe it was because I was exhausted and out of energy. My hands were cold, and my face was pale. I walked up the stairs as slowly as I could, finding my way towards my room. I opened the door and walked in. I cringed the moment I turned on the lights.
"Took you long enough."
It took four seconds. Just four seconds for me to come back to my senses, and recover from the shock of seeing Emmanuel sitting comfortably in my bed, staring at me with his hands crossed on his thighs. I exhaled and then turned to the couch. I threw my bag in it.
"I always wondered what you were up to since I was gone. It looks like you've been up to a lot, since you don't come straight home from school anymore."
"Nice to see you too, Manuel." I picked up a plastic cup and walked to the water dispenser. I was thirsty. "What are you doing here?" I wasn't exactly in the mood for uninvited guests. "Thought you weren't coming back until next week?" I took a sip from my plastic cup.
"I wasn't supposed to." He told me. "Until I got a report that you've been visiting Mr Eggies again."
I froze.
How on earth did he-
I turned back to him, trying to act like I wasn't extremely surprised by the news. I should have known better.
Manny knew how to read me like a book. He knew me better than anyone else.
"You're surprised aren't you?"
I let out an exhale.
"Can we not do this right now? I'm honestly not cut out for any of this tonight."
I walked towards the glass.
"If news about your recent whereabouts could get to me, who was miles away from you, cities and countries away, what on earth do you think about the chances of that same news getting to your father?"
I turned to the glass, taking another sip from my cup. I didn't know, I didn't care. I couldn't care about anything else at that point. I just didn't want to.
"You think I'm the only one he has given orders to keep an eye on you? Your father knows how attached I've become to you. He knows I've been keeping information like this from him, and best bet, he has other eyes watching you, watching me. I bet he knows everything right now, but being the man that he is, he'd never talk to anyone about it. We'd just wake up one morning, and the worst part for me would be that I'd lose my job, but for you, a lot of things could go wrong. He could end up hurting everyone you care about, just to get you to obey him. What if he sends her away again? What if he sends her somewhere not even you can find her? Did you ever think of that?"
I frowned.
I wasn't exactly too excited to talk about anything at that point. I wasn't exactly filled with words. I knew Manny's words were filled with a lot of truths, but I was just too caught up in my feelings to admit them.
"Just tell him if you want to tell him." I didn't even bother to look at him. "Stop trying to act like you're on my side, because we both know you aren't. You're going to tell him everything eventually, to save yourself." I placed my hands into my pockets, then drew a deep breath "So save us both the time."
"Oh," Emmanuel stood up from my bed. "Trust me, when it comes to sides, I'm the only one in this house that is on your side. I'm the only one looking after you, and that's why I'm asking you to let this go. To stop this nonsense for your own good, and hers. You've broken so many rules one time too many, since you got here, and all I've done is lie and make it go away, in order to protect you. I'm beginning to think I've been making the wrong choices all along, risking my job for your sake, and you're not even trying to acknowledge that, or behave. You keep doing the same things you're asked not to. You don't even know what you're doing. Like it or not, Jeremiah, I'm only looking out for you as I would to my younger brother."
I turned to him.
"But that's the point isn't it?" I asked him. "I'm not your younger brother, as a matter of fact, I'm not your brother at all. I could never be your brother, and guess what, I don't take orders from you. Your job is to serve me, always has, and always would be, and not the other way around. You work for me, you work for my family, and you'll act as such and stop telling me what to do. Know your place."
Not that what I said was necessary. I was beginning to transfer all my frustrations now on Manuel, and he just stood there, listening. I didn't want to, but I just couldn't help myself. I just had too much anger inside of me, and I needed to take that frustration out on anyone at all. Manuel didn't deserve it.
I heard him let out a weak exhale.
"Of course." He told me. "It's not like you can even recognize people that mean well for you, and people that don't." He told me. "I don't expect any special treatment at all from you, when you don't even know how to treat yourself and the people around you. When you don't know when you're being used and catfished."
I let out an exhale. Now what was he talking about? I narrowed my gaze on him.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your friend." He cut in. "The one you're always texting on phone. Do you even know who she is?"
I scoffed. What did Kora have to do with anything?
"I didn't know it was also your job to do background checks on my friends."
"Seeing that you don't have much, you bet that that's my job. Also seeing that you now have interests in older women, older-married women."
I scoffed
"What do you mean older married women?" I eyed him. Kora was only eighteen years old, and she wasn't even married.
"The lady you've been talking to, day in-day out, her name, her real name is Lilian, Lilian Olori. She's married to Peter Olori, CEO of Don Royale. A cement manufacturing company. Lilian and Peter have been married for two years now. They have one child individually and share a son together."
I held my breath.
"That's the woman you've been talking to? Someone's wife?"
I scoffed. There must be some kind of a mistake.
"W-What are you even talking about?" I was so confused, even as I watched him walk back to my bed, and then pick up a brown envelope from it. He walked back to me, and then handed it to me. I hesitated. I looked at the envelope, and then back at him. Did I really want to know what was in it? I sure did. I needed to understand what was really going on. I reached for the envelope, and then opened it. There were a few pictures inside. I brought them all out. Kora was on the first picture, or at least the person I thought was Kora. She had a huge smile on her face.
"That's her. Lilian. Thirty eight year old ex stripper, prostitute, waitress and currently a house wife."
I held my breath. It was impossible. There was no way in hell that Emmanuel's words were true. I pushed the first picture to the back, so I could see the second one. It was another picture of her and another girl. I could recognize who the other girl was without even thinking twice about it. I squinted my eyes. It was her, the nuisance in my life. The girl that went to the same school with me. The one that always showed up in my face without a warning or an invitation. Why on earth was she in a picture close to Kora?
"And that's her daughter, Kora." Emmanuel continued. "She's eighteen years old and she attends NAUN."
I couldn't believe it. I turned over to the next picture. It was a picture of the two people I had seen in the previous picture, with three other people around them. There was another girl, probably the same age with the first one, a little boy and a man. It was a family picture.
"I don't- I don't understand." I raised my head back to Emmanuel, my hands were slowly beginning to tremble. "There must be some kind of a mistake."
"Oh no, this is not a mistake at all. There's only one explanation to all of this, cat fishing." He told me. "You're being cat-fished by either that lady in that picture or her daughter, but whoever it is, what do you think your father's reaction is going to be when he finds out? When he finds out that you've been sending pictures, and catching feelings for someone else's wife? Someone old enough to be your mother what's worse, when you have an engagement party with your fiancée coming up really soon? What if someone- what if they try to use this against you? A political propaganda by your father's business rivals to blackmail or hurt this family in the future? What if they turn to the press?" I could feel my legs begin to weaken.
"How do you think you can even handle that? How does it feel knowing that you've been made a complete fool out of? To know that you've been deceived once again, because you were too eager to trust someone so much so that you let your guard down, and let those people take advantage of you?"
I had no idea when the envelope fell from my hands, together with all the pictures. My nerves were worked up. My senses too.
"What did you say again? That I wasn't on your side? I'm the only reason no one knows about this, at least not yet. You don't even know how much the little things that you do could affect you in big ways, you can not even imagine. You don't know who you are, and what you should and should not be doing. The sooner you realize that I'm the only one that actually cares about what happens to you, that I'm the only one on your side, the better for you, because that's how it's going to be for a long long time."
I was barely even listening to anything he was saying. I already had a lot clouding my mind, and there it came. The pain, the sharp exhausting pain that came with my anxiety finding its way back to my chest again. I couldn't breathe, and even when I tried to, it felt like there were a hundred needles, automatically pricking my heart at the same time. I placed a hand on my chest, taking a fist full of my shirt, and holding on to the wall for support.
"I honestly wish you could just come back to your senses, before it's too late." Manny threw something in my direction. It was my inhaler.
I was slowly finding my way to the ground, just as Manny turned his back on me. I could see him walk towards the door, while I struggled so hard to breathe, beating my chest so hard to let air in, to let myself breathe.
Manny walked out of my room and then shut the door behind him. My heart was racing. My head too. I didn't want to make assumptions yet, but I just couldn't help myself. Was it really true?
Was all Manny had said true? Had I really been deceived all these while? Was Kora really making a fool out of me? It was beginning to make sense now, everything. How much of it was a lie?
I could sight my inhaler just a few inches away from me, and I hurried to get it as fast as I could. I reached for it, and then sprayed it into my mouth, two times before I dropped it. It was okay. I was beginning to get better now.
I took a deep breath, and another one. I closed my eyes.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
Who was the real Kora?
Who exactly is Kora?