A low sigh of relief escaped my lips when the signboard of the community school came into view. With enough courage to muster after an uncomfortable silence on the bus, I raised my voice, and it came out as a whisper.
The slender man, who was in some overstuffed suit with a heavy briefcase that lunged forward anytime the bus plunged into a pothole, thrusting his slim frame along, threw me a quick glance before looking out the window again. I cleared my throat silently, swallowing to clear my dry throat.
“Driver, I will drop you off at that junction by the community school.”
The junction the driver passed while I was clearing my throat.
“Ahnahn, talk fast nah, you don’t know where you are going ni?”
Someone hissed. He stopped yards away from the junction.
I paid no mind to him, nor did the disapproving glance the passengers tossed at me as I descended the bus. I let out another lingering sigh, slower than the previous, and made the incredibly long journey down to my apartment.
The room was shrouded in obsidian darkness, and if it wasn’t for the song blaring through her MP3 box, I would have guessed Janet had gone out again. The noise was blaring from the bathroom, and Janet was singing at the top of her voice.
Amaarae.
I banged on the bathroom floor once to notify her I was back home before making my way to my side of the room, where my hoarded plastic bags lay haphazardly across my bed from a hurried search hours ago.
“Who’s that?” Janet screamed, and Amaarae’s voice shut off, followed by a few seconds of silence. Before I could inform her, it was me, she shouted again.
“See, I have a knife here; don’t try anything funny.”
I dropped the bag I was holding onto and made no attempt to answer her. I was too exhausted to talk. With a hand, I pushed the plastic bags to one side and slumped on the bed, letting out a hazy breath, my heart skidding at the sudden action.
The bathroom door flung open. She stood by the door, peeking into the room with an energetic charge, an iron hanger clamped between her palms. Her eyes widened in annoyance when her gaze fell upon me.
“Chisom, why do you dey scare me like that, na?” She swung me a disdainful look, the hanger still firmly by her side.
“You are the one scaring yourself by leaving the front door open” I muttered in sheer exhaustion before letting out a sharp hiss at my half-clad roommate.
In retaliation, she drew a long hiss before heading back to the bathroom, a trail of water plopping down her feet and staining the tiled floor. Amaarae was back on, but Janet’s voice was out of the noise.
I stretched over the mattress to my trolley and took a sachet of water, hungrily gulping the content in seconds. The air was stiff all of a sudden, and I grabbed a handful of the curtains into the iron burglary, silently preparing for an opportunity to berate Janet for her love for heat and dark rooms. She came out of the bathroom and stood by the entrance. I could feel her eyes on me.
“So you are back, Chisom?” She said after seconds of silence, sweeping her gaze all over my tired frame. Her face was scrunched in unmasked disgust.
I shot her a questioning glare, “What is it?”
She nodded and headed towards the kitchen. Our kitchen, a space just behind the door of the one-room apartment we shared, She brought up an empty pot and stood in front of me, water still dripping. I trained my eyes on the patched puddles her feet had made. This was one of the things she did to get me irked. I made no effort to show any reaction to the unfolding drama Janet seemed to be planning.
I raised my brow questioningly, my eyes still on the puddles.
“Where’s the food inside this pot?” Janet asked slowly, her lips pursed grimly.
I knew where this was going. I rubbed my palm over my face and adjusted my head on the pillow. I didn’t reply.
“You don go give that your yeye boyfriend abi?”
“JANET, don’t get on my nerves this evening, please.” I closed my eyes, unable to meet Janet’s eyes, my chest tightening, my composure failing, my fingers tapping on my stomach furiously.
“That your nerves, is what I want to get on, Chisom.”
I shifted uncomfortably and turned to the wall, my back to her.
“What’s wrong with you? We cooked enough to last us through the day.”Her voice turned up a notch. “But no, Yemi is hungry, and he has broken limbs and cannot cook. He would die if you did not bring him food, abi?”
The pot clanged to the ground at her last word.
“When was the last time he took you on a date?” I admit that stung.
“Except for carrying his legs here and giving excuses for not bringing anything. What does he actually do?”
I could hear her stomp across the room. “Mr “I didn’t have cash.” What happened to the transfer?”
That was just one time, Janet. He had finished late at work but fulfilled his promise to come see me. I had smoothed his forehead, which had creased into worry lines as he complained that his working hours were increasing, and I did the only thing I could to relieve his stress.
“And you still made semo for him. Semo that we were managing, Chisom.”
My chest tightened more with the way she kept screaming my name, but it didn’t look as if Janet was about to end anytime soon. I knew she was currently dressing up for her night shift at the same time spooling up my matter as if I had done more than being a doting girlfriend.
“And when we talk now, you will say he has a lot on his neck; he is the first child of his parents. As if me Janet Olaleye, is also not a first child”
I began tracing my fingers on the wall, sketching out unidentifiable figures—anything to tune out Janet’s tantrums.
“Aren’t you the one who told me he is collecting 100k as salary now? And situation never changes.”
She cackled as she said those words. Of all the days I could serenade Janet with wild comebacks, this time, I was still. Still as the framed photograph of Yemi and me that I placed at the top of my trolley. My teeth ground against each other, and my legs were shaking from bottled annoyance. I would be the bigger person. I could have told her Yemi got involved in a crypto business that took all his savings. The crypto business he had thought could pay for my master’s programme. Or inform him of his plan to take up various side hustles to get back on track. All I could do right now was support him and be there when he needed me.
“Always complaining that he is broke, he is broke,” Janet sings, her perfumed spray taking over the room.
Suddenly, the room was silent. I turned around and sat up, reaching for the phone while still ignoring my roommate, who was standing by her bed, looking into a hand mirror.
“Better jazz up, Chisom!” Janet resumed, now advancing towards me. She sat on the edge of my bed, her face heavily made up and her huge eyes staring into my soul. “Wake up, you are doing too much for that one wey no rate you. For Christ’s sake, Godswill, oh God bless you where you are. My guy would have bought you things even when he fell short of money. It’s these little things that matter.”
“Ah, you are doing too much, Chisom, too much.” She stood her head. I began clicking on nonsense on my phone, opening apps, and closing them. Janet was not going to make me lose my cool.
“Let me tell you, if a man notices you love them more than they do, they will start behaving anyhow. You will go to his house and do all the things he did not ask you to do—clean, wash, run errands, and even buy him expensive things. Wetin be that one?”
“Chisom, when has Yemi bought you a bag or, wait, an ordinary wristwatch, ehn? Abi, you are still on; it’s the thought that matters.”She spat.
“And that other day too, you were busy telling me he was out, and he didn’t remember you saying you were coming. As how, Chisom? I’m even tired. Which kain nonsense love you dey love sef?
I had had enough.
I rose, straightened my gown, and faced the human that was making my evening sour. “You are just pained; you don’t have someone that loves you as Yemi does to me.” I said to my 6-year best friend and roommate, and made my way out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me.
Janet’s shouts traveled down with me as I intensified my steps away from the house.
She never understood the relationship between Yemi and me, and how would she know? She was always ending relationships with men as if she were discarding used tampons. Her irrational and irascible behavior was the core reason she couldn’t have a stable relationship. How would she understand a sweet and enviable one like mine?
I alighted from the bike that I spent minutes searching for right in front of Yemi’s place. He was the only one who could soothe me at the moment. I had been living with someone who hated my happiness, and all I needed was to be with the one who could make my whole being better.
The gate was ajar, like it always was. The next thing that got ajar was my jaw when I caught sight of my 2-year-old boyfriend opening the door for a girl, beaming with a crazy grin. I stood by the gate, nonplussed. Yemi told me he had no fuel in his car, and I had transferred my last 5k to him for fuel.
His full grin was an insult. He touched her chin lightly and said something, which they both laughed at. He hurried towards the driver’s side, still oblivious to my presence, his evident excitement clouding his sight. I hurried behind the gate and watched as the car slid past and moved out onto the dusty road, a glimpse of my purple flask in the girl’s manicured hands catching my eye.
I boarded the bus back. This time, the driver passed my junction, and I didn’t tell him to stop.
OBAFEMI AWOLOWO HALL PRESS 
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