I stared at my phone in surprise going through each digit one by one and there was absolutely no mistake about it. That was my number.
"Alya!" I turned to see Stephanie's worried face. "What is wrong with you? I have been calling you and you have been behaving so weirdly. You're scaring me," she said.
"Sorry, it's just... The pictures were sent from my number. How would anyone have sent those pictures from my number?" I asked extremely confused.
When was the message sent? I was about to text Alesscia when I realized I was actually in that group as well. I facepalmed myself feeling so dumb for not realizing that earlier but I wasn't exactly at fault since my thoughts were more of jumbled.
I quickly checked my WhatsApp expecting to see at least four thousand unread messages in the group but there were surprisingly only about a hundred messages.
It wasn't hard to find the message which had indeed been sent from my number. I checked the date. It was about three days ago. The day my phone had been seized and coincidentally around a few minutes after my fall out with Mrs. Okoye.
"That basically means I can't even inform the school's authority because it looks as if I had sent the pictures and nobody would believe a shit tale about my roommates using my phone to send the pictures especially if they had been in the hostel mistress's custody within that period. And if anything, I might have been the only one who had access to steal the phone for any purpose."
"So you're basically trying to say that your roommates will just get away with doing this?" She asked surprisingly not calling me out for using a swear word for the first time in her life.
I shook my head. "There's no way they would get away with it. I just have to make sure I know exactly who did it," I said already finding the task tiring.
"It's going to be okay. They will get what they deserve," Stephanie said. I nodded.
****
I had been at home for three days and Stephanie wasn't making her annoyance about me not going back to school subtle.
I was listening to 734 by Juice wrld while wondering what my classmates were probably thinking about me at the moment when she walked into my room. I took off the headphone as she sat down.
"Get your things ready, you are going back to school tomorrow," she said in a tone of finality.
"I don't want to go."
"You can't just keep avoiding school because of something some undeserving people did. You are just proving to them that they have won. You can't let some stupid set of girls ruin your future.
"Let me remind you that you'll soon be taking your WAEC. Will you also skip going to school during that period just to avoid seeing your classmates? You know you'll eventually have to see them whether you like it or not. The sooner you get past this whole thing, the better it will be for you. Besides I have given you more than enough time to recover. You have spent three whole days at home doing nothing. It's time to leave!" She said with a mean face which I found amusing.
I knew she was right. I had to face whatever shit life threw at me. It was my life after all.
"Okay, I'll go. Tell the driver to drop me this evening by around four thirty."
"You want to go back to the hostel?" She asked surprised. I nodded.
"I won't run out of the hostel because of some stupid girls. You're right, I shouldn't let them think they have won. Besides, they have probably done their worst. It's not like they can kill me. If there's anyone who will do the killing, it's probably me."
She glared at me definitely not fancying my sense of humor as I uttered my last statement with a giggle.
"Just pack your things and stay out of trouble this time okay?"
****
I probably didn't realize the consequences of listening to Stephanie until I was in the parking lot of Venos high. I stayed in the car for about five minutes staring around the lot.
The driver occasionally glanced at me through the rear view mirror every once in a while until he finally worked up the courage to speak.
"You know you're supposed to get down," he said. I sighed.
"Can you please take me back home? I really don't think I can do this," I said tired.
"I am so sorry but I can't. Stephanie said that I should make sure you get to school and stay. She said I should make sure not to bring you back no matter what you say or do," he said apologetically looking slightly afraid as he uttered those words.
"Okay, I understand. But Stephanie isn't your boss, my mother is. And typically you are paid to drive me around so I think I should at least get to decide where I can and cannot go. So please take me home," I said trying to sound polite and not make it seem as if I was trying to boss him around.
"I'm so sorry but I can't exactly drive you home. Stephanie called your mother in front of me and she too confirmed that if I didn't drop you at school successfully, I would loose my job."
I groaned. What exactly was wrong with these women? At least I could understand Stephanie but what did this whole thing have to do with Ami Tara?
You remember she's your mom right?
I rolled my eyes at my subconscious. Honestly, Stephanie had been more of a mum to me within the short period I had known her than my actual mom had been to me her whole life.
In reality the only thing she cared about was her career, fame and money. And then she felt like she could make up for everything by drowning away her responsibilities with money and providing anything I wanted.
"Okay, it's not a problem," I said with a smile but made no move to get down from the car.
"You know you still have to get down?" He asked again after about two minutes.
"Yeah, sure. I'll get down now," I said my hand lingering on the door handle. I finally took a deep breath and opened the door. After much hesitation, I slammed the door shut and started heading for my hostel intentionally dragging my feet.
Along the path that led to the hostel, the weather was extremely dull, it looked more like there was a whole different atmosphere here from the one in the parking lot I had just stepped out of.
There was also this unnerving silence which was heavy in the air. The school had ended about thirty minutes ago. I deliberately asked to be dropped at four thirty to make sure that there wouldn't be much of a crowd when I arrived.
But the whole parking lot was surprisingly empty and then this silence wasn't exactly sitting well with me. By this time on a normal school day, at least a bunch of students could still be seen loitering around and also about a handful of cars could still be found.
In general there couldn't be this much silence. Such eerie silence...
I waved off the thought as I kept walking, increasing my pace this time around forgetting the fact that I didn't exactly want to see anyone from my class yet.
Soon enough I broke off into a run before slowing down when I heard the faintest of footsteps. I slowed down counting my steps and also the faint ones I heard. If someone was following me, they were likely to suspect that I had noticed them since I slowed down and would most probably try to hide.
I increased my walking to a faster pace before suddenly turning on my heel to see... no one? I stared for a while still surprised.
On turning, I saw Kaira standing in front of me causing my heart to stop due to the fact that I wasn't expecting to see anyone. There wasn't anyone around here so where exactly did she appear from?
"Alya! You're back? Where have you been these past few days? I was so worried you know, you just disappeared. You were just here one day and the next... You are gone. I even..."
"What are you doing here?" I asked plainly stopping her nonsense rant. She was supposed to be in the hostel.
"I was just taking a walk. It was getting really stuffy in the room..."
"The room with an air con was stuffy for some reason?" I asked implying heavily that she was lying. She smiled.
"Not stuffy as in the room being hot, stuffy as in, I can't just bear the toxic atmosphere. I know it isn't the right thing to say but Chiamaka is a real devil. I just feel so suffocated by her presence and her overall negativity. It seems she has been in an awfully good mood since you left. I don't... I don't just understand her!" She said looking a bit sad at the last parts but her smile not wearing off.
Have I ever told you that I thought this girl was seriously insane?
"Oookay!" I said dragging my words while something clicked. Chiamaka had been in an awfully good mood after my departure which only meant she had everything to do with the pictures that were sent.
Besides, she was the only one apart from Isa who had a real motive for hurting me. And it all ran back to Ifeanyi Chukwuemeka.
But in this case, I was the fool and no one else should take the blame for what I did to myself.
I stared at Kaira as her words which should have been coherent weren't making any sense to me as I nodded faking interest in what she was talking about.
Maybe I was truly wrong about her judging by her enthusiasm, she seemed genuinely happy to see me. Maybe, she actually did like me. Maybe, she didn't have any bad intentions. Maybe she had always been genuine and thinking she was not was just as Stephanie had said, me just being me... The horrible person I was.