RAYS OF HOPE PART 10.

Angel Of Hope (heavenoasis.blogspot.com)

(Continued from the last episode...)

Five days later, Lizzy was discharged after we’ve already spent twenty thousand naira naira out of the money on bills, drugs and foods. That day we left Lagos and boarded a bus to Ondo State. There were a lot of differences between Lagos and the state. The quietness of the environment sharply contrasted with the buzzing Lagos hum. I found a cheap hotel in a street that charged 300 naira per night and I booked for a week, thinking that at the end of the week, we’ll be able to secure an accommodation.

Two months after our deportation from Lagos state, we settled down in Ondo State’s capital city- Akure and got a room in a slummy area (because of the amount of money we had left. ). When the problem of accommodation had been solved, I enrolled her at a public primary school in the area and I began teaching in the same street in a private primary school that pays 5000 naira to SSCE holders.

The New Dawn.

While I was still battling with the accommodation problems, JAMB result came out. I’ve already given up all thoughts of pursuing higher education since I’ve been separated from Miss April who was the source of my finances. I scored 366- the highest score ever since the examination began in 1976. I didn’t even know that I was the highest scorer until the result was sent to my phone and that I was to report at the nearest JAMB office with my JAMB slip.

When I got there, I was photographed and interviewed on how I passed the exam especially when 90% of the candidates that sat for the same exam scored below 200. I told the people there that I had all the books I needed then and that I was free from thinking about anything and that I prayed. These answers seemed to make the people happy so there was a round of applause then I was given my prize for coming first which includes a full scholarship to any public Nigerian University, a sum of two hundred thousand naira and an opportunity to publish a book on how I succeeded (If I had writing talent) and I did. In the book, I narrated the story of my life. How I began well and ended up very badly in my senior classes at secondary school. That book that I wrote is the one you are reading now.

I was at home two weeks after JAMB’s interview, working seriously on this book in order to meet JAMB’s deadline. Lizzy was outside, playing with the landlady’s daughter who was her age mate when someone knocked at the door. I thought it was one of our co—tenants because they sometimes use to disturb someone at crucial times and that particular time was very crucial “Yes who it?” I snapped angrily. Instead of replying, the knocker simply opened the door and came in.

It was Miss April!

I almost ran mad with joy seeing her standing there. It’s been almost a year since I saw her last. I rose up slowly from the floor, my heart beating wildly in my chest and I took three tentative steps towards her. I took her hands in mine and felt their softness and warmth.

“Is this really you?” I asked unbelievably.

She wanted to speak but her voice was teary. She choked back the tear and nodded her head, unable to find her voice.

No matter how much you’ve tried to hide your feelings or suppress it, loved will one day push you to the edge and make you misbehave and that was what happened. I took her in my arms and crushed my mouth against hers. For a very long time, I’ve been desiring her so much that whenever I couldn’t see her, I used to miss her so much that it hurts but I’ve been suppressing that feeling because of many reasons. One, she was engaged to Uncle Nat and should I fool around with her and she tells him, they might be the beginning of my end. Two, she was 2 years older than I was then. She was a graduate of second degree with her Ph.D. in view while I was just a JAMBITE. It’ll take me almost 10 years to achieve all she had achieved academically. Three, she was financially blessed more than I could ever dream of being in the next 30 or 40 years. So with all these, I used to think that what I felt for her was just a normal crush for her beauty and that it’s because she used to help me in trying times and that because we’ve seen much of each other for the past year so it made the feelings stronger.

I don’t know how long it lasted but the kiss was the best in my life. You know when someone asks you for your most memorable moment, that kiss was one of my most memorable moments. All the while I was expecting her to restrain me or pull away from the kiss but what I got was open admission. She held me tightly and yielded totally to me and we rendezvous in a blazing desire as we kissed as if stopped, we will never be able to do it EVER again. We kissed with burning passion and each of us was reluctant to stop it. When we finally pulled apart, we were both still unsatisfied and gasping for breath.

“I am so sorry…” I stammered “I…I…it was a mis…” I began to apologize but couldn’t find

the right

words. She scoffed.

“Why are you? I thought you’ve been having this feeling all along and what happened between us now is just a flunk?” she asked, her expression changed immediately.

“NO! all I feel for you is true. I have a crush on you alright but that can never be. You are 2 years older than I am, a second degree holder and affluent. You have everything that I don’t have and you’ve done what will take me over 10 years to do- if ever I have the means to achieve them” I said.

She looked at me for a very long time, searching my eyes to fish out the lies that I might be locking inside my heart but I was plain Jane, I had nothing to hide.

“Now tell me in one sentence what you feel for me” She said seriously “Because I don’t understand you at all”

“Okay. If I say it, won’t you be mad at me? Maybe walk away from me forever and never look back?”

“It depends on what you say. If you say the wrong thing then I’ll be gone” She said seriously. God she was so beautiful even when she was angry, sad, furious, serious or anytime!

“I love you!” I sputtered “that’s how I feel and I can’t hide it any longer. I don’t care if you think that I’m weird or harm me or do anything to me. I don’t expect to be loved by you in return but that’s what I feel for you”

All the while when I was speaking she was shaking her head.

“Yes. It’s weird though. It’s weird that you say you love me and I’m crazily in love with you too. Maybe Nat was right all along. We shouldn’t have been this close, each moment we spend together inflames our passion for each other. My question now Michael is this; are you as deeply in love with me as I am with you?”

I was about to respond when Lizzy busted into the room. At first, she didn’t see her but when she saw her; she jumped at her and wrapped her arms tightly around her neck. April held her as harder as her strength could go. I left the two of them and decided to cool off my head. To sort out my life and to wake up if I had been dreaming about what happened between me and her the past five minutes. To know if I was ready to spend the rest of my life with April despite all the odds against us. I took a short walk to the end of the street then I saw him.

Mr. or Uncle Nat parked his car across from the street where I was and was leaning against the vehicle with his arms crossed on his chest. We both stared at each other for long moments without breaking the connection. All the while, vehicles and passersby were passing on the road that separated us. After a very long time, he signaled to me to come to him but I was scared of him. What if he attacks and assaults me again? I deliberated upon this again and again then I decided to give him the last chance. Besides, he wouldn’t dare attack me in the open street and in the broad daylight. I crossed the road and went up to him. I bowed slightly when i got to where he was, afraid of being jumped at.

“Good evening–sir” I added the ‘sir’ as an afterthought.

“Can we talk, Mike?” he asked coolly.

“Yes” I replied uneasily.

“Alright then, get in the car and let’s go for a ride”. He said and it took me another couple of minutes to get in in the car. After he had promised and sworn not to hurt me in anyway. We drove the streets of Oja-Oba in Akure till we reached a beer joint. He parked in front of the bar and told me to follow him. When we’ve settled down and been served beer and pepper soup, he began to talk.

“What’s between you and April?” he asked, looking steadily at my every move.

“Nothing” I lied glibly. The lie was so obvious that you could touch it with bare hands.

“That’s crap. Open it up. Tell me” He demanded and I began to fear him again but I didn’t say anything again. He continued “OK let me make it simple for you; you are in love with her right? You like her and you wish she could be your gf? Is that not so? Fine. Is she in love with you too?” He asked, touching the sore point.

I became defensive. “Nooooo!” I said, a little too loudly. He relaxed back on his chair and looked at me the way a pathologist will look at strange bacteria. His eyes were piercing and burning into me. I looked away. All the while my heart was beating and racing wildly in my chest.

“She is in love with you” He said as if pondering that sentence but I didn’t say anything. A silence that ensued after that was threatening and formidable. Neither of us touched our drinks nor spoke. He was looking murderously at me and I was looking prayerfully at the ground. Suddenly he busted into a wild laughter. It was dry and humorless. “It’s so funny that I who has never been beaten on anything before have just been floored by a poor, insignificant, unsophisticated, ugly and a lowlife like you. It’s just so funny!” He said then the laughter stopped abruptly as it started and he leaned over table between us. I almost melt in my chair because of the expression on his face. He looked as if he wanted to tear me to pieces but he didn’t touch me.

“Listen dude,” He said his voice barely above whispers but it slices through the air like a cold steel slicing through a slab of meat “I don’t like rivals and I will do anything to crush anyone that is silly enough to rise up against me on anything. You’ve just gotten yourself into the most dangerous situation you’ll ever find yourself in life. I’ll overlook all the pains and embarrassment you’ve caused me if you’ll back off and disappear into thin air. I’ll travel you out of this country into any country of your choice apart from USA because I don’t want you to run into her or any of her family members there. I’ll give you enough money to make you comfortable for the rest of your life BUT if you refuse, you’ll put your life and your siblings’ lives in danger. I know where the other two are and it won’t take long at all before I deal with them. Tell me, does this stupid feeling you have for her worth the lives of your sibs combined together? I think I have been fair and generous enough. Do you agree?”

I didn’t answer. He asked me one more time but I remained mute. Then he stood up, opening his blazers to reveal a pistol hidden under his belt.

“I’ll take your silence as no. between us the war just began” with that he walked away and got behind his wheel and drove off. Thirty minutes after he had gone, I still remained on my seat, heart pounding madly in my chest and I looked vacantly at the seat where he had sat as if he was still there, sitting across from me. I rose up slowly and made my way out of the bar back home.

“It’s Mike, he is back Aunty!’ Lizzy shouted as I pushed open the door into our room. I was too dazed by Mr. Nat’s threat to notice the brain numbing and mind blowing aroma of food April was cooking in a corner of the room that serves as the kitchen. She looked as if she’d been living there all her life. I felt like going up behind her and taking her in my arms but I resisted the urge. Instead I just pecked her on the cheek and fell heavily on the bed, no chair in the room.

After dinner, we watched a movie on her laptop and Lizzy fell asleep in the middle of the movie, leaving us. We’ve watched the movie together at her place but there was something about that movie that relates to us and I was the one that insisted on watching it again. After the movie, we sat down and talked about the movie- especially the end of the movie where Jack laid down his life to save Rose. We also talked about the book I was writing for JAMB (this book) and we wrote few pages together. She told me that she found us by reading the newspaper and seeing my picture on the front page and all the interviews and award. She said she made enquires till she got my address the previous day and travelled down to Ondo sate. Somewhere in the middle of our discussion, our minds wandered away from it and united as one as we inched closer to each other and made love.

At first, we were awkward. We made love tentatively as if we were being watched but as it grew intense, we lost ourselves in the ecstasy.

We were woken up the next day by a knock from a co-tenant. When the co-tenant had gone, we woke Lizzy and we said our prayers. After the prayer, she began tidying up the room and I took the opportunity to jog. I seldom jog but finding me idle was the perfect motivation I needed to jog and to put my life on the right track.

When I came back in an hour later, Lizzy had gone out to lesson so only April was left. I quickly showered and came back in to the sumptuous jollof rice whose aroma could be perceived miles away from the house. While I was eating, I noticed that she was strangely calm and quiet. Naturally, April was the chatty type. She likes talking even when she was reading so it didn’t take me long to notice the change.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving close to her on the bed.

“Hmmm…..nothing” She said “I’ve just been thinking about yesterday-about us”

“I know, I’ve been thinking about us too but do you want us to talk about it?”

“I don’t know but sooner or later we have to do it so why not now?”

“Okay” I said and pushed the plate aside, leaving most of the food uneaten.

“Uh, uh” she said “Finish your food. It can wait….”

“No, the food can wait instead. So tell me, what have you been thinking about us?”

“Does it make sense that we do this…..as in, have a relationship?”

“Why not?” I asked hotly “You love me madly and I love you back same way, what’s there to be worried about? Though I may not have money to buy you the most beautiful things and take you round the world today but someday, I swear and promise you with my life I will do all these and more. Just take me as I am now and let’s be grateful for what we have. Or are you reluctant because of my financial status?”

She discarded the question with the wave of her hand “That’s nothing. Money is a prostitute, it sleeps wherever it pleases. What I am really worried about is our age difference”
“Age is just a set of meaningless numbers devised by humans. In the long run, it doesn’t really make sense who is older or younger. What matters is love and we already have that in abundance”

“Your arguments are reasonable and logical but not practicable” she said

“How so?”

“Well, you are a guy and I am a lady. Let’s look beyond now and think about the future; women age faster than men. What if in the next twenty or thirty years I look too old such that I lost all my beauty and qualities, did you know that even by then you would still look almost like you do now? Then it would be too late for me to start all over again, looking for whom to marry but you definitely would have a bevy of ladies at your beck and call….”

I busted into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

(To be continued later...)

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RAYS OF HOPE PART 10.

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