Jeremiah
I threw my painkillers quickly into my mouth. The pain got worse everyday, and the worst part was, I was in no way trying to end up in the hospital. No one could know what happened, or how I got that scar. I had been so busy dealing with detention and my family that I never really thought to make out time to see Obianuju. She was the only person that knew. The only person that could help me. It was just a cut anyway. All she had to do was clean it and stitch me back up, and I'd be good again.
"Jerry!"
I threw the bottle of aspirin right into my sports locker and jammed it the moment I heard Kingsley call my name. I didn't even have to turn to look, but I could feel he was approaching me. I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I had tried to avoid him and everyone else, since math class for the right reasons. I slowly turned to him as fast as I could before he caught on.
"What's up?"
"I've been looking for you everywhere." He continued with a tiny smile on his face. Really tiny. You'd have to look really close to notice.
"Really? Why?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You know why." He told me. "It's about what happened in maths class." I squinted my eyes, pretending to not know what he was referring to. "About Kora."
Oh.
I turned back to my locker, and then pulled it open again, reaching for my tennis racket. I felt him run to my locker. He was trying to get my attention by all means.
"Bro, I didn't tell you what happened between her and Charles just so you could turn around and take his side." He continued. "Is this about his family pressing charges against yours? Is that why you're doing this? Is that why you're taking his side? Is that why you said what you said? I thought you said you liked her?" He scoffed.
"Not going to lie, I'm really disappointed you could do that to her. And what's with you holding hands with Oma now? Are you back together again? What's going to happen to Kora? How can you treat her like that and say all those things to her? At this point, I'm beginning to really consider the fact that you don't have a heart beating inside of you-"
I slammed the door loudly, and I could tell it made him jump in fright the moment I turned around to face him again. I still let myself frown, not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't help myself. I was going through a painful phase as far as my body was concerned, and his nagging wasn't helping me in any way.
"How can you be so heartless." He whispered his last words, but I could still hear him. Was he really that worried about Kora? I exhaled.
"I'm doing this for her." Now I had to come clean to him. I was going to eventually, but now that he had brought it up- "Kora," I continued, staring into his eyes with my dull ones. "I'm doing this for her."
"F-for her?" It was obvious I had just succeeded in promoting his confusion. He looked like he didn't understand a thing. I couldn't blame him though. If it was me, I wouldn't understand too.
"I have to find a way to expose what Charles did. I can't sit back and watch her suffer like that, while he walks around school acting like he did nothing wrong. Like he didn't practically destroy her life. I have to make him pay for what he did. This is the only way I can help her."
"Make him pay for what he did? Dude, you just defended him and accused her of throwing herself on him in front of everyone. You legit just made everything worse. How is that helping her? Everyone is going to start to read meanings to what you said. They'd want to know why you said it, and soon, the news of what happened would be all over school, but it won't be her version, it would be his. How on earth is that supposed to help her?"
"They were going to find out anyway." I cut him off. I could watch how he literally stopped trying to speak.
"W-what?"
"The Orji's already paid someone to spread the news all around school. They know it's almost impossible for Charles to last long in NAUN, if Kora is here too. Everyone is going to want to know why she acts so scared when she sees him, they are going to start asking questions, and eventually the truth is going to come out. Kora's truth. So they are trying to get the upper hand. They are trying to spread their own version first, so Kora can be forced to leave school."
I raised my watch to my eye level so I could see what time it was, and then I raised my gaze to meet his again.
"The rumors should have spread about now."
Kingsley looked so surprised. I could tell with the way he had his jaw had dropped while he just kept staring at me.
"I have to find a way to help Kora. I have to find a way to convince everyone that I'm not on her side. That way I can get Charles to confess during the settlement meeting. I'm going to have his confession on record. I can't get him to confess and trust me with the truth, if he thinks I'm on the same side with Kora. That was why I did what I did in front of the entire class. Everyone is going to talk about it now, and he's going to hear about it. I know this isn't the best method, but it's the only way I could think of."
"This is crazy." Kingsley rubbed his forehead. It was a lot to take in. I knew. But I also knew I had been dying to tell him about it. I out of everyone hated the way I had talked to Kora earlier. I had spent the whole morning hating myself for it, and talking to someone about it, someone that knew just how much I wanted to protect her was the only way to make me not hate myself even more.
"I get you Jay, I really do, but we are talking about a rape case. If this goes out, if the truth goes out, the entire NAUN is going to know that Kora is a rape victim, the whole country is going to know. And if it doesn't go out, they are just going to think Charles was saying the truth, that Kora forced herself on him, and was trying to blackmail his family into paying her and her mum from accusing him of rape. Both ways, Kora is going to get hurt. Worst part is I don't think getting a confession from Charles is going to be easy. I mean, he's all things, but stupid isn't one of them. Plus he knows how you almost punched his head off because of her. There's no way he's going to fall for this easily."
"Charles is a very proud person. It's the only thing that makes him the douchebag that he is, and hopefully it's the only thing that's going to ruin his life. He loves to talk a lot, and brag about the things he achieved, or how influential his family is, influential enough to probably cover up a rape case."
Kingsley gasped.
"You're going to talk him into bragging about what he did."
Bingo. Thank Goodness he was beginning to understand now, and he looked really amazed.
"Is it- is it going to work?"
I exhaled.
"I hope it does. We have a meeting with his family and lawyer by 5 PM. My family is trying to find a way to prevent the assault from getting to court, and so they agreed to meet with us to talk. I'm going to take my chance to get him to admit the truth then."
"Bro," he took a step towards me, "then you should tell her. Kora. You should tell her what your plan is. Tell her, so she doesn't misunderstand or get upset with you. "
I shook my head. That was the part where I had to disagree. I couldn't. I couldn't tell Kora what my plan was. It wasn't safe for me to yet.
"I can't tell her yet." I told him. "This has to look real, for the story to be bought. I need Kora to act accordingly, she has to get mad at me, everyone has to think it's real. If Kora finds out what I'm trying to do, she's definitely going to talk me out of it. I'm just going to have to hope she sees through me, or forgives me after this."
I took a sharp breath, holding my head immediately and shutting my eyes for a minute, the moment I felt a sudden sharp pain in my head, piercing through my skull.
I could hear Kingsley say some words to me, but they sounded just like echoes for the first five seconds.
"Are you okay?" The static noise stopped when I felt his hand on my shoulder. I blinked twice, my hand still at the side of my head, while I tried to catch my breath. The pain got worse. More like a migraine. I needed a minute. I managed to open my eyes so I could see him through my blurry vision, forcing a smile on my face while I looked at him.
When I said I didn't want anyone to know I had a knife cut under my uniform, Kingsley was on that list. He was an anyone too.
"You good?" He asked me again.
I nodded.
"I'm fine." I lied. Pretending like my head didn't just try to explode a second ago.
"You sure?" It looked like he didn't believe me. "Now that I think of it, you've been acting all weird this week. You look like you lost some weight and some color to your skin too. You look really pale. Are you sure you don't need to see a doctor?"
I exhaled, and then held on tight to my Racket.
"What I need," I raised it up so he could see. "Is to beat you at tennis today, so I could have something to brag about before the meeting with the Orji's."
He scoffed playfully. Now he bought that.
"Come on." I turned. I knew I had to change the subject as fast as I could. "Let's go play tennis."
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Lady K
Did the torment never end?
A lot of old money students couldn't help but ask themselves this question everyday for the past two weeks. It wasn't like they could help themselves, the renovation of the old money building was taking longer than any of them had expected. Not only did they have to share lecture halls with the rest of the school, they had graduated to playing sports with them too, and now they even had to share the bathroom and locker room with them too. Oma was the most irritated. She couldn't even stand thirty minutes in the football field with all of them without hurrying to wash her hands in the bathroom right after. This was the second time she was doing it. She was very bad at hiding it too, and this time, her friends were obviously not trying to get themselves worked up with her.
She stormed into the restroom in her pink sports jersey tiny shorts and white trainers, ignoring the girls that were chattering in front of the tap before she walked in. You should have seen the silence that had filled the room. How they all stopped talking the moment she walked in. It was the Oma effect. She commanded silence wherever she walked into. No one could help but notice her, and the moment they did, an awkward silence followed. They always just knew they had to be on their best behavior, not like Oma cared. She was good at ignoring people that didn't bother her. All she wanted to do was wash her hands and leave like she did twenty minutes ago. She turned the tap on, even though she could hear the girls beside her whispering softly to themselves, she pretended like she didn't. She turned the tap off and then reached for a napkin, right before one of them cleared her throat.
"You guys wouldn't believe who I bumped into at the Ozor's ranch on Saturday when I went horse riding with my older brother." One of the girls started, pretending to wash her hands too. "If I told you, you would never believe me."
"Please tell us Ozzy, we are dying to know."
What a poorly rehearsed script. At that point, it was obvious they were intentionally just trying to get Oma's attention. Whatever it was she was about to say, it was obvious she had already said those words to them before, and now they were trying to replay it again so Oma could hear them, and trust me, Oma knew just what they were trying to do. When you're engaged to one of the hottest guys in the country, it was every other girl's job to spite you out of jealousy, and constantly try to tell you anything at all that could bring your relationship crashing down, and that was exactly what these girls beside her were trying to do. They were trying to do what other girls tried to do. To annoy her.
"I saw Jeremiah." She gasped and then turned to her friends. "He came horse riding with that girl from hundred level. The one in new young money. The one he kissed at the gala."
Oma paused for a second, gripping on tightly to the napkin in both her hands. A smirk appeared on the girl's face the moment she saw that she was getting the reaction she had expected from Oma. Another one gasped.
"Are you serious?" She asked the first one. "You saw the both of them at the ranch?"
She nodded.
"I swear to God." She chuckled. "It looked like he was teaching her how to ride a horse. They looked so adorable together. At first I thought it was Oma, since they both almost have the same physical features. but then I looked again and it was that girl from the gala. You should have seen the way he held her on the horse. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen."
Shared the same features? Shared the same features with who? Kora? Oma was trying so hard not to look upset. She had to pretend like what they said didn't bother her at all, even though her head was about to explode. She kept on cleaning her hands, this time, a bit slower.
"And then after that, they sat in the sunset and talked for some minutes. He even fell asleep on her thighs."
"Really?"
"Oh my gosh, that sounds so cool. Did you really see them?"
"Of course. With my two eyes. I'm not playing. I saw them. I was almost compelled to take pictures for my new wallpaper, but I had a low battery. I was able to use my brother's phone anyway." She slowly got out her phone. It took a few seconds before she got out a picture that all of them seemed to be interested in looking at.
"Oh my gosh, it's really them."
"They look so adorable. Aww,"
"Oh my goodness Ozzy, how were you able to take this." You could literally hear the pretense in their voices. They were bad actresses. Oma leaned forward and grabbed the phone from their hands. Now they had her attention.
"Hey!" The first girl yelled at her, while Oma just focused on the picture of Jeremiah and Kora on a horse. Her heart was starting to break into pieces, but she just managed to put up a tough front. She hated it. She hated how happy they looked. Happier than she had ever looked with him.
She threw the phone on the floor so lazily, and then stepped on it as hard as she could while the girls just gasped.
"Oh my god, my phone." The first girl yelled, but Oma remained unperturbed. You should have seen her in all her grace and attitude. She hurried down to pick it up, but Oma applied more pressure on her feet.
"Do you know you can get sued for taking photos of someone without his permission?" She told the first girl. "Would you like to talk to my lawyer, or Jeremiah's?"
She scoffed.
"Sued ke? I was only trying to -"
"I don't care what you were trying to do." She turned to the other girls. "Jeremiah just took her out for horse riding, what's so special about that? We go horse riding all the time. Must you all read meanings into everything? I'm his fiancée. Why are you trying to spread rumors to tarnish both our images?"
"Hey, Oma-"
"Do you know you can be sued for defamation? How dare you?" Oma took a deep breath when it was obvious that the girls were starting to get scared now. "Just in case you didn't know, there's nothing going on between Jeremiah and that girl. Whatever it is you've been hoping for, it can never happen. I'm just going to let this slide because I'm in a good mood, but the next time you three try to sabotage my relationship with my fiancé, I won't let it go so easily." She grabbed the girl's arm and then squeezed it so tightly, glaring into her eyes.
"Do you understand me?"
She pulled her hand away from Oma's immediately, wincing in pain. She was starting to get so annoyed. She bent over quickly and then grabbed her phone as fast as she could.
"Come on girls," she announced to her friends. "Let's leave this place."
That was better for them. Oma turned away so she didn't have to watch them leave. She didn't have to give them all her attention all the way. She waited, folding her fists and gritting her teeth. God she was so upset. The picture she had seen made her even more upset. She held on tight to the pavement, drawing deep breaths and trying to calm herself the moment she heard the door shut close.
Why did Kora have to be in her way all the time? How dare she? Horse riding with Jeremiah?
Oma scoffed.
There was no way she was going to let Kora get away with this one. She had to react, and she knew exactly how she could.
She managed to pull out her phone as fast as she could, and then she took a deep breath. It was time for the final step. She pushed a few buttons and then placed the phone on her ear.
"It's time." She said. "Proceed with the final plan."
She took her phone down from her ear, and then slowly raised her head to the mirror, taking deep breaths.
There was no one going to come in between her happy ending. She was going to cut them off, whoever they were.
Whoever they were.