Thursday, February 27, 2014
- School
- Supper
- Help Sarfoa with homework if she has any (make sure she studies for an hour if she doesn’t)
- Study
Just as Dad was backing out of the driveway, I saw Chidi’s car. It was three houses away. He still hadn’t washed it. I wasn’t sure he’d stop but he did. Dad got out and walked to his car and they talked. I shut the gate and stood in the middle of the road.
He hadn’t returned any of my voice messages and he was obviously well if he could drive to school. I’d been worried when he was sick and when I’d seen his dad crying, but now that he was here, I was angry that he hadn’t even sent a text message.
Sarfoa got out of the car with her backpack and ran to Chidi’s car. I got my bag and walked over. I let myself in and buckled up. Dad waved and went to move his car out of the way. The pen drive was plugged in again and Hillsong’s ‘Still’ was on repeat.
Sarfoa was talking enough for the two of us. She asked if he knew the story of why spiders are always in the corners of houses weaving webs and Chidi said he didn’t. So she told him. We got to her school and she waved bye and ran off to join Mefia who had also just arrived.
Neither Chidi nor I spoke. I didn’t get out when he parked the car in front of our school. He didn’t either.
“Are we going to pretend that Sunday didn’t happen?” I asked turning to look at him. He had shadows under his eyes and he looked tired.
He looked hurt when he turned to look at me. “Is that what you want?” He took a tissue out of a box on the dashboard and blew his nose.
“You’re the one who hasn’t returned any of my messages.” I wanted to add, “And you’re the one who ran out of the room,” but I didn’t.
In a small voice he said, “No, I don’t want to pretend Sunday didn’t happen. I just . . . I like you a lot, Gyikua, and I shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t get into it right now.”
“It’s because I tried to seduce you, isn’t it?”
“No, of course not.”
A thought occurred to me and I blurted it, “You have a girlfriend in Nigeria.”
“No. No, I don’t. I’ve never had a girlfriend.”
“Because the Bible says you shouldn’t be yoked equally with unbelievers.”
“No, no. There’s a verse that says, ‘now we know in part and one day we shall know fully,’ do you know it?”
I nodded. It had been Paul talking to the Corinthians. I knew the verse very well. It was one of many I had memorized as a child and had used in Quote I Quote competitions in Sunday school.
“Sunday was the best day of my life. I won’t change any of it for anything. I left because I didn’t trust myself to stay without sleeping with you, and I really, desperately wanted to. Please trust me when I say it’s complicated and I can’t tell you everything now, but know that Sunday was the best day of my life.”
“It was such a great day that you ran out and switched off your phone and didn’t bother replying my messages? You left home at 7 today. You always leave after 7:30. You didn’t even tell us you were well enough to go to school today. If we hadn’t happened to have come out at the time we did, would you have picked us up?”
He looked away.
“I’ll tell my Dad to pick us up this afternoon. Thanks for the ride.”
I got out of the car and slammed the door hard. He remained seated. He didn’t sit by me at assembly and I didn’t see him afterwards. At break time he was waiting by my door.
“Did you call your Dad yet?”
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry I didn’t return your messages. I was really confused. I still am. Let’s just take it slow. Really slow, okay?”
I nodded.
He smiled his old smug smile and took my hand. We held hands all the way to the cafeteria.
When school closed he was waiting for me by my door. He reached for my hand again and we held hands as we walked to the car park. People snickered as they walked by us, but he didn’t seem bothered by them and neither was I.
At the car park, Nana Kwame, Kwaku Duah, Afua Gyamfua, Nhyiraa, Eno and a group of boys were waiting beside the gate. There was more laughter as we walked past them. I read what was written in the dust on the rear windscreen of Chidi’s car before he did. Someone had written:
NAIJA MAN, BETTER BE CAREFUL. YOUR GIRLFRIEND HAD GONOREA LAST YEAR.
To his credit, he didn’t drop my hand. He walked me to the passenger door and opened it for me. Then he got a duster and wiped the windscreen. I could still hear the laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he drove out of the parking lot.
I didn’t say anything. I just stared out the window.
“Gyikua just ignore them. They’re not worth your time. Gyikua? Gyikua?”
I kept looking out the window and willed myself not to cry.
“Do you know the killer whale has two hundred and sixty teeth? Do you know that there’s a bird called the lyrebird that carries all the droppings from its nest to the nearest stream? Do you know that when a snake is ready to shed, its skin splits from its lips first? Do you know that Italians first called the tomato the golden apple, and it was once considered poisonous? Do you know the fingernail on your middle finger grows the quickest? Do you know a chameleon becomes black when it is angry? Do you know a bed bug can live up to two years without food?”
He stopped talking and looked at me when we were caught up in traffic.
“Gyikua, say something.”
“Keep talking please. Just keep talking.”