Episode I
(Revealing a student’s room)
Mope shows irritation as her roommate’s mobile phone keeps ringing, she rolls her eyes picking up the phone to check the caller’s identity, “ Nomi!“ she shouts for her friend who had stepped out not more than twenty minutes ago, Mope was the only one who called her roommate ‘Nomi‘, they were a little close as friends and roomies, in-fact Mope was the only real pal Naomi had ever shared anything with as she rarely did, Naomi would talk about anything and everything except for her private life to anybody, she made it clear to anyone and everyone her personal life and relationships were strictly her business and Mope respected this, though she got really curious sometimes but was careful not to pry too much. She was about to shout her roommate’s name again when Naomi came in through the door with a mischievous grin on her face, “I know and I’m sorry Mopsy” she says teasing Mope, Mope on hearing what she’d just been called hissed “I’ve told you to stop calling me that, ahn! ahn!”, Naomi now laughing at her friend’s scorn replies “Well, I’ve told you too to stop calling me …., I think I kind of like how you shorten mine, Nomi sounds really foxy you know? So you better start liking the one I’ve given you”, Mope hisses again and flung the ringing phone back to the bed “And I’ve told you about this thing they call mobile phone, you, need to carry it wherever you go or its gonna end up in the dustbin on of these days”, Naomi now laughing out loud to annoy her friend some more picks up her phone and heads out again after seeing who the caller was. Mope watches her friend leave the room, shakes her head but still couldn’t hold the smile that crept to her face as Naomi had almost always succeeded in doing most times rather than getting into some kind of argument with her.
Naomi was the kind of girl who radiated like the sun, very pretty as she had been told alot of times, she was cheerful when necessary and not too stressed, other times she would rather be on her own reading a romantic novel or typing on her blackberry phone with such seriousness, intruders would rather not disturb her and her little world. At a height of 5ft9inches, she was regarded to be tall or at-least above average, her bosom as fresh as her light skin was simply moderate, it matched her hips too, she knew she was beautiful but never allowed it to get to her head, she dressed according to the occasion, from her house-wear to school and party-wear which usually were either skimpy or tight and to her social outing wears which were usually alluring and also with a sense of maturity. Her social outing were tagged as ‘RUNZ’ at her University of Ibadan although she convinced and told herself she was only offering her escort services to whoever was the highest bidder she was offering her services to, she kept this so called business to hers’ in a low-key and wouldn’t talk about it to other girls in the same business as she was, in-fact the relationship she kept with them were as simple as the one she kept with her course-mates at her sociology department, she avoided trouble with anyone and maintained a gentle approach to people and she smiled when returning a greeting. She was just that girl you wished was perfect minus that part of her involving different men of different ages and wealthy caliber or maybe the word ‘perfect’ was something we cannot describe.
“Yes?” Mope called out as she hears a knock on the door, she was about to get the door wondering who it must be when she was replied from behind the door by a male “Hi, its David, is Naomi in?”, Mope sits back and calls on him to come in, she’s around the corner, you can sit and wait up for her if you’re not in a hurry, he comes into the room just in time to catch the offer of waiting up for Naomi, he smiles in the hope that he would finally be able to talk to Naomi after two weeks of her avoiding him, she was probably leaving for or from a class the last time he briefly saw her. He couldn’t search too hard for her as he didn’t want to seem too weak emotionally or desperate, they had had an affair he had hoped would result in a real relationship for two months, he had succeeded in taking her to bed the first time she had officially visited him in his neat and comfortable apartment outside school, he had kept this to himself but of-course word had spread on the latest spouses’ story in school both including some truths and many insinuations, he felt or thought he was already in love with this very romantic and sensual girl called Naomi, he wondered how a girl of twenty knew how and where to make a young man like him very happy in bed, he thought he would dig in deeper into her life and try to get to know her better but he noticed she spoke little about herself and her family-background, he sought to give her time as they still had so much time in their youthful lives to build a relationship. “Thanks, how are you Mope, I hope she didn’t go far?” he asks again, “Yes, she stepped out not so long ago, she’d be back soon, she went out to get a phone call” replies Mope, “oh!, alright and I thought she must’ve lost her phone or something as she hadn’t been picking up her calls lately”, Mope suspecting where the conversation was heading to picks up a book and opens it “I guess you know how she is with her phone, she’d be with you soon, I need to finish this book” she says and opens the book to wherever chapter, “Oh really? What book is that though?” Mope sighs and had to look at the front page to tell him the tittle of the book “Its things fall apart by you know who, I’ve got a test on it tomorrow” she told him, “All right, I’m sorry to disturb, good luck with your test tomorrow” David said, ”Oh yes, thank you” she answers his kind gesture as David wonders back to his thoughts again, he had only sat for very few minutes and he was already feeling he had been sitting forever, he was trying to reason why Naomi wouldn’t talk to him for over two weeks, it had just been a little argument and now all she had to do was to say it and he should leave her alone, he wasn’t used to being kept waiting by women, he had not been patient with his own mother and her constant nagging on having him being perfect in all the aspects of his life so he wondered exactly what he was doing sitting and waiting for a woman who was somewhere ‘yawning’ probably with one of the usual strangers that brought up their last argument, she had dropped her phone and he had snatched it in time to catch the text message she had been reading along with others before the blackberry could’ve locked automatically, the action he made that day was totally uncalled for, he was going through her phone before he knew he was, he held her away from her phone with almost all of his strength, he wondered why she got really uncomfortable when he held the phone in his hands, he was determined to know what she was hiding, he read a text of “Angel sexy , I’m back from Abuja, take the nearest cab and meet me at the usual hotel, I won’t eat till I see your beautiful face, you know I’d always take good care of you” and among the five texts he read was a notification of explaining a transaction of a hundred and fifty thousand naira into her account, the worst part of the whole message issue was that they were all from different men, by this time she had stopped struggling with him and had already started backing her way to the door showing little or no fear but caution. He had calmly asked her what the text messages were about and she had replied without changing her usual gentle tone “They are all about the reasons why I never took money from you”, although not until two days after their quarrel did he realize that he had never seen her nor heard her raise her voice at anyone in school or anywhere, at-least throughout her two and a half years in school, you would only see her and barely hear her most times. What escalated their argument that day was after her statement about not wanting his money, most times he had offered her the sum of five thousand naira to her for her to take back to school but she would always refuse to take his money and he only thought she was trying not to be like other girls, he never pressured her over this so not to make her feel like she was selling herself to him, he thought that one day she would probably be broke and he would be able to give her whenever the need came, she wouldn’t reject his money by then he had foolishly thought but after the messages he had read on her phone he finally realized that he had been offering what he knew she would had called peanuts money, as the his anger developed he felt smaller just the way his mother had tried and succeeded in doing whenever he had the opportunity, he was now an angry man but would never use his fist on any woman instead he threw the phone at her feet and asked her to leave his apartment before he does something stupid “Get your whore body out of my place right now, after all you’ve got a trip to make “ he had added, she sighed and resigned from even trying to talk to him, she picked up her phone which was now broken along with her bag and left. Now seated in her room he wondered again, she hadn’t apologized nor spoken to him since then and why was he sitting here in her room with her roommate pretending to read a book but was actually watching him from the corners of her eyes, he decided to leave to save himself from whatever embarrassment he wasn’t hoping to get, as he stood up walking towards the door and telling Mope that he couldn’t wait any longer he was unconsciously obstructing Naomi’s entrance, he turns as he follows Mope’s gaze back to the door, for a brief second of seeing Naomi as beautiful as ever and in such a close contact he got uncomfortable and speechless “Hi, you’re on my way” Naomi uttered, “Hi….eh…” he makes to move but she was already walking past him trying deliberately to avoid any bodily contact with him, he was only staring at her as she walks to her wardrobe to pick out some outfits, “I was just about leaving, I’ve been waiting for a while now for you” he says to Naomi “Mope said that I could wait up for you” he quickly adds, “Oh, I see” she answers him, he looks pleadingly at Mope who quickly stops staring as soon as she was caught and makes to excuse herself from the room but Naomi makes for her friend to sit back down through eye contact, Mope sat back helplessly, she was not confortable with situations like this, she thought it was beginning to look like the ones she avoided at home which was always between her parents, whenever her parents started with one of their many arguments she would always find one way or the other to leave their presence, the worst was watching them at each other’s neck like someone was about to kill the other person one of these days although nothing of such had happened yet. Mope also reasoned that she should stay with her friend should in case this handsome cool looking David got violent if he didn’t know how to handle rejection. David soon seeing that Naomi wanted her roommate around while he spoke to her sighed in resignation and was about to start talking when Naomi gently cuts him off “David, we really don’t need this” she said to him, “Naomi what? What are you talking about?” he asked her, “This” Naomi gesturing with her hands “Whatever you came here for, this girlfriend and boyfriend thing is just not in my dictionary okay? I can’t handle the drama or whatever it’s called” she answers him, David still trying to speak although greatly uncomfortable that they were not alone went “Drama? What drama? Baby we just had a little argument and I’m trying to make things right between us, I want us to work out” he says again, Mope occasionally turns to watch the two couple in embarrassment but none of the two were paying any attention to her personal plight. “Right, really I don’t want to hear whatever it is you were about to say, you remember what you called me before asking me to get out of your mansion?” she says the ‘mansion’ with sarcasm, “I’m not mad or upset with you, I just want you to know that I can’t date you, we were never dating, we just had a common fling and it’s very much over now” she says to him, Mope shakes her head as she could imagine how embarrassed David must had been but didn’t dare to involve herself, she could see that he was also trying to control whatever emotions he was holding back with the way he was being handled coolly by her roommate, Naomi acted like she was dealing with a bad tempered and stupid child, other girls would had laughed at this situation but she felt sorry for David, the little she knew of Naomi was that she was rigid with her decisions especially with the things that concerned mainly her alone. “I’m sorry Naomi, I’d get you another phone to replace the one I broke, I know I over-reacted, please baby” he says pleadingly and saw her drop the phone she had been holding to the reading table, it was a brand new blackberry and he saw that it was even more expensive than the last one he saw with her, she stops fumbling with her wardrobe and faces him “Please David, forget about what we had, it never happened, I’m obviously not mad at you, its my fault okay? This is why I’d rather not date my school mates, everyone’s talking about us, I slept at your house just once and your friends were already talking about it, I can’t handle such kind of relationship, wait I’m not even interested in any relationship for now, I’m sorry” she says, “I can make things work out, we could be discreet if that’s what you want, I never told my friends anything, believe me…” David was trying to persuade her on things but she seemed uninterested as she turns to face her wardrobe again, he sighs and only stares at her like he was trying to get one last long look at a portrait, he finally turned and left the room without saying any other word, Naomi heaved a sigh of relief and sat on her bed, turned to look at Mope apologetically but Mope wouldn’t talk about it, “Forget it” Mope said, the room was in silence for some twenty seconds then.
“Mope, I’m sorry you had to hear all that naah!” Naomi breaks the silence and Mope replied that she wasn’t angry at her as she watched Naomi trying to make a phone call over and over again “And why do you keep calling someone, hope its not who I think you’re calling” Mope adds, “Oh no, of course not” Naomi says rolling her eyes and adds “ I’ve been trying to get through to any of the three cab men on my phone but they all seemed to have bailed out on me or something’s going on, could you please try one of yours for me?” Mope picks up her phone and dials a cabman’s number for her friend, asked her friend when she needed her pickup and told the cabman to come around in an hour time to take her friend out.
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