We've got Fedes this time... or as the boys call him, Striker.
Bruno Mars - Grenade.
After half an hour of socialisation, students slowly begun to vacate the auditorium until those who had to wrap things up were the only ones left.
Whiles giving the list of names to Reverend Zac in one of the pews of the dome shaped room, Ashanti notices Anita giving her a bright smile far off in the distance which meant she wanted something from her.
" What?!" Ashanti groans afterwards as she walks towards her with a scowl across her face.
" Love the look on your face, reminds me of my six month baby sister trying to poop into her diapers." Anita chuckles at the memory and Ashanti quickly changes her facial expression,
" Anyway, you promised me I would get to meet someone here, or have you decided to forget that?"
" Oh... Zaron." Ashanti recalls.
" Oh, so he has a name now." Anita teases as she zips up her purse carrying her hymnal and Bible on one of the empty seat.
Ashanti rolls her eyes and walks up the aisle towards the podium where the instruments had been set up in the corner. Six boys including Zaron and his friends were rolling up wire chords dismantling microphone stands, disconnecting the speakers and zipping up the guitars and the keyboard into their respective cases.
As soon as they saw Ashanti approaching, Samed tapped Zaron, " Your crush is coming over, and I don't think she's here to talk to any us."
Zaron wanted to say something but it was too late, she was already close enough.
Ashanti approaches them with a warm smile, " Hey guys."
" Hello." They all respond, except Kobby who's eyes were fixed on something on the last pew.
" Can we talk?" Ashanti asks Zaron and the boys automatically begin to go," Ooooo."
" Ignore them, they're always like this." Zaron says as he zips up his keyboard and walked away from his friends. When there was a good distance between them and the boys, Ashanti gists him on everything and he seemed hesitant on meeting someone new. It took a lot of convincing to get him to walk to Anita who had some scripts in hand reading.
" Sister Anita, this is Zaron, Zaron...my school mom." Ashanti introduces.
" Nice meeting you." Zaron mutters out politely.
" It's also a pleasure to finally meet a friend of Ashanti who isn't her dorm mate!" Anita also beams, " Awww, you didn't tell me he's this Comely!...you two are so cute together."
Ashanti gives her a nervous glance. What exactly was she insinuating?
Kobby on the other hand was wondering why Fedes was still sitting in a pew reading the Bible...yeah, you heard me right. He was reading the Bible! Ciarra was also with Reverend Zac explaining the good reasons some people had for being late.
Was he waiting for Ciarra?
Ciarra says something to Reverend Zac at the back of the pews before he left off with the list then she turns almost catching him staring, he quickly went back to packing up his guitar so it doesn't look like he's been monitoring her.
" Hey." He hears her voice moments later as he unplugs another guitar.
" Hi." He looks up with a grin and says, not sure what exactly he was supposed to utter.
" I am going to be having brunch with Fedes, you probably know him. He's in your house." She informs him, " I just felt the need to inform you so you don't get the wrong idea when you hear it from someone else."
" Do you know him?" He asked after a brief silence.
" Obviously not that much, that's why we're going out." Ciarra tells him.
" Okay...no problem. See you in class tomorrow then?" Kobby agrees so he doesn't seem like an overprotective boyfriend. But she going out with him was a big problem to him.
" Sure, bye." She says and walks away towards Fedes. He smiled when he saw her and that literally ripped Kobby's heart out. After a few words, he leads the way out of the room.
" Oh lord have mercy." Samed sung, " Guys check his heartbeat."
Benard placed a hand on Kobby's chest and he quickly slapped his hands away.
" Charley, this one ibi hundred beats per minute." Benard cracks up laughing in the pidgin language most of the boys in the school had adopted.
" Kobby, shun, shun." Anel advises him, " Don't think about it."
They could all tell he was hurt by how he was standing still and quietly.
" Don't say anything, if you have anything to say put it into a song." Anel tells him since they could clearly see he was short of words.
" Guys, I have just turned Ciarra into someone else!" Kobby gasps then turns to Anel," But still I'll sing the song. You guys go be background acapella for this song."
" Don't worry, just start." Benard assures him whiles the others laugh in the empty church auditorium.
" The way I dey love you nerr
Nobody go fi love you like I do
Odo aa me do wo deɛ
Dem dey talk say you do me Juju
The way I dey love you nerr
Nobody go fi love you like I do
Odo aa me do wo deɛ
Dem dey talk say you do me Juju
Nɛ so whatever go happen ee (Ohemaa)
Meni wo aa na ɛko oo (Ohemaa)
Whatever go happen ee (Ohemaa)
Meni wo aa na ɛko oo (Ohemaa)
You bi my alomo oo (Ohemaa)
Meni wo aa na ɛko oo (Ohemaa)
You bi my alomo oo (Ohemaa)
Meni wo aa na ɛko oo (Ohemaa).
OoO
The Café felt warmer and cozier because of the cold outside and the smell of freshly baked goodies didn't escape anyone present's notice.
Fedes chose a booth further back from where she and her friends usually sat to prevent drawing undue attention. He was so sweet and easy to talk to because he always had a question or a thought in mind that always seemed to keep a conversation going.
Calvin smiled their way especially at Ciarra as he approached their table. Veronica had earlier given her a note to him, informing him that she wouldn't be able to meet him that Tuesday because of a punishment she was still not done with but instead they could meet up on Thursday Eve.
" Cocoa, you?" Fedes asks her.
" Decaf." She replies and slipped him the folded envelope with a wink to which he grinned before leaving, " You're not into coffee, are you?"
" Surprisingly no, I can't take the rush. I prefer to do things with the adrenaline rush I already have instead. You didn't order for whipped cream or creamer?."
" Nope, I'm not good with such things." She replies and he nods in understanding, " Anyway, you haven't really said much about yourself."
He chuckles but still responds.
" Federico Sekani is my name, I am seventeen the youngest amongst my friends. I was supposed to graduate June this year but unfortunately I and my friends were involved in an orchestrated accident. Fortunately, after over a month of being stuck in coma, we are now ready to finish what we started."
" Federico??, sounds foreign to me." Ciarra enunciates, staring into his dark emerald eyes which you wouldn't notice unless you were in a well lighted room with him.
" Actually my Dad is black but he was raised in Brazil. You might probably know him, Anthonio Sekani."
Ciarra tries to remember the name because it did ring a bell. That was it!
" He's one of the coaches of a team in the European champion's league. My Dad has mentioned him before as Toni Sekani."
" Exactly, my mom is Ghanaian and she really wanted to settle down at one place instead of having to move everytime he had a new job. So we live in Ghana now."
" Makes sense." She agrees.
" Why come back to this school even after the accident, aren't there other schools?" Ciarra probes, playing with the fringes of the woven placemats.
" I also thought of that too, turns out if a school like Nelson rejects you, all other schools don't want anything to do with you. Nelesco sets the standards for all other schools in the country and whether they agree or not, they are all in one way or the other, striving to be like her."
" Wait, why did the school reject you and why did they suddenly change their mindsets and let you in? Because one thing I have noticed about Nelesco is that they rarely change their minds."
" Let's just say we did a lot of things we are not so proud of now, whether directly or indirectly, we had a part in it. But fortunately because of our family's prestige and immense contribution to the school, Yankee had no choice but to reconsider her decision. Even with that, we had to persuade her a lot. Now, we're practically treading on thin lines because the least thing we do, she's going to let us go regardless of the loss the school is going to make. She is that principled. That's why she's been holding up a school like this for over a decade."
" Yeah, my Dad says she's scary." Ciarra reckons, " So how does it feel to be around new faces and to be in class with your juniors."
" Pretty weird but if you're focused, you literally go through the day without noticing a thing. And I have a lot to catch up on." He smiles. She gave him a skeptical look and he could feel her eyes burn into his very soul.
" What did you guys do?" She finally asks the question on her mind and he goes silent briefly as Calvin returns with their orders.
" To start off with, have you heard about Flora?" He asks before taking a sip from his mug.
Ciarra thinks about it briefly.
" No, was she in our dorm?"
" No, she was in your twin dorm. Dorm 1 Cortess, isn't it? She's not there anymore though." He discloses and Ciarra goes silent, tapping a finger on the table.
" So our dorm isn't the only dorm missing a dorm mate, is it?" She asks more to herself than to him.
" Why, is someone missing from your dorm?"
" Yeah, there's supposed to be twenty of them present before we arrived but there's only nineteen...tell me, how many of Ivy's dorm mates do you know?"
" A handful since Ivy isn't one to always be moving with crowds; I know Velar, Beullah, Candace, Joy, Myria, Jade, Lartifa,Anita and one girl Anita used to always walk with. Her name just escaped me."
" Anita walks with someone?... She's always been the lone one amongst them all." Ciarra updates him.
" That's not right. They were always together. The others, not much but Anita was always doing things with her. She wasn't that tall, a bit skinny for her age, about 5'4 with bushy eyebrows and a scar on the tip of her left eyelid from a cat fight your dorm mates had with her when she was in her first year. I don't know, but most of them always seemed to have a problem with her. That's all I recall."
There was no one in their dorm with such a description, infact, no one in the house. Ciarra decided to let that be at the moment.
" So...you were talking about Flora." She reminds him with a perky smile as she sipped from her cup.
" Oh yeah, Flora was probably the most innocent and carefree student in this school. She had this optimistic aura always surrounding her and believed in anything and anybody."
" She must be crazy!" Ciarra chuckles, setting her cup back down.
" You're right, she was non compos mentis and yet very intelligent. She was the only girl from Manhattan who was in Nelson's technical school on the other side of the lake."
" Lake?" Ciarra asks.
" Yeah, the man made pond for the fisheries department. It was supposed to remain a pond but spread itself out into a lake due to the heavy rains. You haven't seen it?"
Ciarra shook her head in disagreement, " I'm pretty sure something happened there, that is why no one told you about it. Yes it is off bounds, but it is always included in every orientation tour." He says,
" Anyway, Flora was an Automechanic student at the technical school. She was pretty close to Ivy and she always believed that anything was possible. Ivy protected her from cunning people in the school who wanted to take advantage of her free spirit and honesty but she's only human, she wouldn't always be there. The guys made a bet about who could get her to fall in love with him first and get her to lose her virginity too. She believed solely in chastity and wasn't into the loose life of hook ups that most girls in this school were into. Sly of all people joined the bet just for fun. She never liked him in the first place but as his name intends, he's sly. While still with Ivy, he manages to observe Flora's likes, dislikes, irritants and schedule. Using these as his tools, he dominates the game. He'd just show up when she's alone sketching the engine of a heavy duty car or give her a helping hand in changing the car tyres of vehicles in their study garage whiles stealing sometime to try having conversations with her. Turned out she was also into the English premier league. They'd talk hours about teams and games. Slowly, she didn't just come to enjoy his presence but to also expect it. Now he wasn't only meeting her at the garage, but now he was showing up at the Snack Bar and the Morning Café everytime she was there alone. Soon, she begins to feel subconscious because she still cared about Ivy. Ivy didn't feel threatened though, because Sly said he was just trying to help Flora socialize a bit. He had a motive. By our first semester in our senior year, she not only fully trusted Sly, but had also fallen in love with him. Now she suddenly felt conscious of her clothing and stuff, she no longer wanted to be seen in overalls and carwashes. Ivy gave her a makeover still not suspecting much. She saw it as Sly's help working." He narrates in deep thought and took a sip of his drink.
" Now I get why Ivy hates him so much." Ciarra observes, the pain could clearly be seen on her face because she imagined herself being manipulated.
" During midterms, he met her in the empty house . One thing led to the other and according to him, she still didn't want to do anything with him because she didn't want to hurt Ivy but he convinced her that he had broken up with Ivy and that she consented to their relationship . Flora, guileless Flora." He shook his head in regret as he spoke,
" He video taped everything because for the boys in this school, proof meant seeing what went on."
" I can only imagine having to walk into school with everyone gawking at me and making fun of me whiles watching that kind of video of me. Traumatic."
" Yep, it was all over and the one person she knew she could get comfort from was beyond disappointed and pissed at her, Ivy. I saw Flora that day, she was between lost and petrified by all the stares and giggles coming her way. She's autistic and has a communication disorder so even if she did have a great explanation, she wouldn't be able to spell it out clearly. She couldn't seek help from the school counsellors either because she couldn't bring herself to elaborate it to anyone. It's only now that I am telling you that I am realising how much pain she must have been going through." He recalls as his eyes waters and he looks far off into the distance.
" But you didn't do anything, it was Sly." Ciarra tries to point out to him.
" Oh no, I was a part too. Not doing anything was also something wrong. I knew what was going on but I didn't warn her. Now she'd stay back in class until everyone was gone and it was siesta before she'd leave class to her dorm since the walkways would have less people hollering out profanities and inappropriate teases at her. She went back to how she used to dress previously and engrossed herself in her classes. She'd usually start crying whenever they did this to her but it was pure fun for some of us until the pain brought out a different person inside of her. She hated Sly so much now, so much so that during the holidays when Baby had sent his car for servicing at an auto shop, she'd gotten herself employed there. Her work was good so the man in charge entrusted his car into her hands. We were to use it in journeying to the airport to meet Sylvester's Dad who was arriving. We didn't even know she worked there."
" You guys messed up big time." Ciarra says.
" I know." He agrees in a solemn tone, " I'll still never forget that moment of life and death we experienced on the highway when Baby's breaks weren't working and we were heading full speed towards our death...if Baby hadn't thought fast and swerved us into a nearby stream to slow us down, I'm sure we would have died in a nasty crush. Even with that, we were still drowning in the water with the car ablaze upside down. Fortunately, a passerby had seen everything and had called the police, fire service and ambulance.
I for one, was very close to death when I was found. I was in coma for the longest period of time. Flora drained all the brake fluid from the car so all the breaks failed."
" I am so sorry." Ciarra sympathizes.
" Sly's Dad wanted the culprit caught. The workshop traced it all to Flora and even though Baby's Dad protested for Flora not to be arrested, Flora's own parents weren't ready to fight for her, so they let them take her. More like her Dad, according to Baby who was the first to be conscious, her father was already sick and tired of her and didn't see any future for an incapacitated girl like her though her mom pleaded on her behalf. The court proved she wasn't that well in the head but Sylvester's Dad still insisted she be put behind bars though she wasn't even eighteen yet She was put behind bars were she had her first real life fight with some thugs in the cell. She suffered a concussion that has slightly worsened her case, now she behaves even more childish than before. Because of the incident, Ivy's Dad paid for her to be placed in a transparent glass cell where she can be monitored alone. Ivy cares a lot about her. According to Baby, Flora's mom never visited, neither did Ivy. I feel awful because we just ruined the life of someone's child forever, no automobile company will want to hire her even if she gets better with this kind of record. She didn't even get to write her final exams.I wish I could go see her...you know, so she'd at least feel that we still care."
They are both in silence for a while. This was a lot to take in.
An idea pops up in Ciarra's mind.
" We can visit her, can you drive?" Ciarra asks and he hesitates briefly before asking.
" How?"
" I have my ways. I'm thinking next week Sunday, nobody knows whether you are on campus or not on weekends. We'll be back before dinner." Ciarra elaborates.
" But how are we going to elude Nelson's tight security?" He wonders in shock.
" We won't be eluding it, we will go out by required procedure. Get me your Exiat by Saturday. I know someone who can sign us out."
" Damn you're witty. Why didn't I think of that? It's a deal then?" He offers her a hand.
" Deal!"
*********
Thank you all for your vote and love.
Anyway, this is a link to one of my short stories, please read and pass your comments on to me. Iced Flames
https://my.w.tt/WZl32o60Acb.
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