"Wow! You could have said you already considered me dead from the beginning since you found it so convenient to finally do something decent and get married and not inform your own mother! It's a shame. A huge one!" Gammy lamented.
"What was the point of informing you when you neither like me nor the man I am married to? It wasn't as if you would fly all the way to California to attend the wedding."
"I could care less about your marriage and anything else happening in your life but I am still your mother and should at least have the right to know. But it's fine. Totally fine. Alya?" She suddenly called turning to me.
"Yes grandma?" I answered.
"Follow me to my room and help me unpack," she said and I nodded helplessly. A woman her age should probably not have much things that could be unpacked right?
"She won't follow you anywhere! There are servants here to do that..."
"I don't want strangers touching my things," Gammy said interrupting her daughter.
"It's not a problem mom," I said assuring her that I was fine with it and she shouldn't stress about it. I really didn't want the both of them to begin fighting again.
I followed gammy up the stairs and to the room she would be staying in. I entered the room before she did and gratefully noticed that there was only one box seating in a corner.
"Start with that box, the rest are on their way," she said and I turned to look at her in surprise.
"The rest?"
"Yes. There are about four more boxes," she said and my mouth dropped open. Even if she was moving in with us, would she need that much luggage?
"How long are you staying?" I asked out of curiosity.
"I see you are also in a hurry to get rid of me like your mother is."
"No, not at all. I was just curious," I said, my words rushed.
"I know. Can't I make a joke again?" She asked chuckling as she took a seat.
"I am only staying two weeks. I don't think Ami would even want me here for that long," she said wistfully.
"No, I am sure mom won't have a problem with you gammy," I said and she stared at me.
"Who was that boy in the swimming pool with you?" She asked taking me by surprise.
"He is a friend of mine," I said slightly nervous.
"A friend..." She repeated seemingly in thoughts. "I really don't like the position I saw the two of you in. It could have been easily misinterpreted and your mother cares too little to properly raise you. I just hope you aren't following in her footsteps. I really don't want you to end up with someone as foolish as that father of yours. This is the first time I have seen someone going back to her vomit. It's a real pity though," she voiced everything that had been going through her mind at the moment as I stood there wondering how I would unpack so many boxes.
'I needed to begin first of all,' I thought to myself as I headed for the box and turned it around to a position I could conveniently offload it's content.
I first found a bunch of cosmetic products which I carefully brought out studying the brands. I took some time to realize that the box only had cosmetic products.
Then came the agonizing task of arranging the items on her dresser. Luckily for me, she offered me assistance. By the time, we were done with the task, the next two boxes had arrived.
I lowered the second box which I found out on unzipping contained only shoes including high heeled shoes, open heeled slippers and sandals. I looked at her slightly surprised.
She should have at least been more than sixty. Shouldn't she have arthritis or some disease that prevented her from wearing heels? Do old people wear heels?
"I got the heels for you in case you were wondering," she said as if she had read my mind.
"Thanks," I said going through the heels that I just realized were designers. Wow! I did love them.
Next luggage contained her clothes which wasn't far from what I had expected. The box was most filled with full length gowns, blouses, skirts and very few pairs of trousers.
It was quite stressful unpacking that particular box which was notably the hugest among all the other boxes. When I finally left her room, I was leaving with a box of the gifts she had given me which contained heeled shoes, clothes, a few cosmetic products, a Bible and a rosary.
The rest of my two week stay at home was relatively uneventful and all I remembered from it were constant arguments between Gammy and mother, Stephanie and Kylie's almost non-existent presence in the house and my mother trying to persuade me to have a chat with her husband.
I left Monday morning for the hostel since I didn't have a choice of staying home as my mother had said. Bird by Billie Marten played in my head as I neared my class only holding a few books in my hand.
I prayed that this wouldn't be one of the days that Alesscia decided to take a ‘break’ from school for some urgent shoot or anything else that could have been enough of an excuse to grant her permission to be absent from school.
I lingered around the door entrance of my class for a while.
'What is wrong with you?? Like really what is wrong with you?' my subconscious actually barked at me as I just pushed the door open. Anybody who had a problem with me could go fuck themselves. I really DIDN'T CARE ANYMORE.
The few of my classmates present in the class were too busy doing one thing or the other to even notice me. I glanced around my class genuinely surprised.
'You see, it was all in your head', I assured myself as I took further steps into the class. I spotted Alesscia on her usual seat next to mine waving at me like a lunatic before making a signal with her hand that I interpreted as a phone and mouthing sorry.
Then she blew me a kiss. I was amused while watching her and wondering if she woke up with her right senses this morning but figured out she was just apologizing for my phone which her cousins dropped. While I was distracted by Alesscia, I didn't notice something heading straight for my leg until I felt a very strong impact that seemed to have damaged at least a handful of bones around my knee area.
I winced heavily as I held my possibly fractured leg unintentionally leaning on a table behind me. I was still clutching onto my leg when out of the corner of my eye, I saw whatever that initially hit me heading for my leg once more.
Both surprised and scared, I reflexively kicked forward my good leg to stop it before looking up to actually understand what was happening. It took me a while to observe the table in front of me with Delight leaning so casually against it.
A wave of pain rushed over my leg again and I stared at Delight who I just realized had slammed the table into my leg and had attempted to do so again if I didn't stop her.
Was she really trying to cripple me? And if yes, why exactly?
"What are you doing? Are you crazy?!" I asked Delight wondering what reason she had for such nonsense to have pushed through her mind this morning. I wondered why she would even resort to this.
Even if she was really good friends with Chiamaka, would she risk a suspension just to do this (assuming Chiamaka had set her up to it). I was still thinking about the possibility of that, when I saw her drag the table back and attempt to hurl it at my leg again.
Wide eyed, I pushed my other leg forward, this time knowing that I would actually break a bone or two. But the table was stopped before it managed to touch my leg, something that took both me and Delight by surprise.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alesscia leave the class. I glared at Delight the only thing stopping me from physical confrontation being that I didn't want to risk another suspension, I had a broken leg already and Alesscia probably went to fetch a teacher.
I really didn't want to look like the bad guy when the teacher arrived. Then my attention was returned to whatever or rather, whoever had stopped the table.
It was then that I noticed Aldrin holding the table behind Delight who was glaring at him. It was also then that I noticed that the class was only sparsely filled with almost half the population of the class missing and only about ten other people apart from I and Delight present there.
It also took me time to realize that Delight wasn't from my class. From my limited knowledge, she should have either been in the other science class or any of the art classes and it was a bit late for a student to transfer from arts to science.
It still seemed absurd that she would leave her class and come all the way here to slam a table into my leg. Only a sicko would do that.
Making my day worse, I heard the squeaky voice I had really grown to hate as the yellowish girl I had also grown to loath suddenly decided to speak.
"Leave her alone!" Angela said directly to Delight and I stared at her in surprise before rolling my eyes. This really wasn't the drama I was expecting this morning.