AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 13
Lysha’s mouth was moving. I was pretty sure it was moving. Okay, yeah, it was moving, but instead of her sharp-tongued quick-paced East London patois I heard The Internet,Syd’s smooth, satin voice pouring out, out of sync with the movements of Lysha’s lips. Then Lysha’s mouth stopped moving abruptly—Syd kept crooning, crystalline. Lysha’s eyes narrowed in focus on me and before I had time to react to what I knew was coming, my girl had leaned forward to abruptly pull Syd’s voice from my ears and me out of my silken cocoon and into the cacophonic din of the sixth form common room. I rolled my eyes and Lysha clapped in front of my ears.
“Yo, Kiki, you listening to me? What you wearing on Saturday? Jason’s eighteenth?”
I blinked. My knees were curled up on the seat beneath me—my usual meditative position. I was zoned out before our last period of the day and we were tucked in our corner of the common room, closest to the double glass fire-escape doors that led out to the field. We had chosen it because it gave us an excellent view of the boys playing football at lunch, without us needing to go outside, a great matinee show from a royal box seat. The Usual Suspects were in their usual positions. Lysha sat on the sofa opposite me flanked by Yinda, who periodically blew pinkgummy bubbles that matched the lacquer she was coating her nails with. Her bio textbook was balanced on her knees, doubling as a mat to catch any drips and spills.
To my right, my best friend Rianne Tucker sat on Nile’s lap, Wood Grove High School’s power couple, our king and queen, a decree made by the two tenets of High School Aristocracy: they were both the most good-looking people in our school and both happened to be fair. In those days, that space, the two were interchangeable, synonymous. Coronation by way of caramel skin. They attained the tricky balance of enough detentions to make them edgy without getting excluded. They did alright in school. They weren’t delinquents but were in trouble enough to give them an air of fearless cool. That’s really harder to do than it would seem, in a school with mostly white teachers.
At one point—maybe year 11 or 12—Nile had made moves toward me (comments on my Facebook pictures, a few “You look nice today you know, Keeks”); it was around the same time that boys were starting to get intrigued by my smart tongue, curious as to whether they could be the ones to soften it, if they could make it malleable enough to curve around theirs. But before I could test the curiosity, pick it up, look it over, and thinkmaybe,my mum got sick. I started to turn inward. I skipped out of parties that I used to be the beating heart of (for a while my nickname was Koffee, due to the amount of living room coffee tables that were transformed into podiums when my song came on) and Ri didn’t hesitate to take up the mantle. Rianne was my right hand, my ride or die, my partner in crime, and I was grateful for her and grateful for her taking up space for the both of us. There was less pressure on me to return to the person I was before—which worked out great because I had no idea who that person even was anymore. When my mum got ill I forgot what the point of it all was, and it all seemed so flavorless, so stupid. Rebellion lost its allure, because what was I even rebellingagainst? It sped up the epiphany that most people have when they’re in their first year of uni—when you’re away from home and you’re no longer living against parents you feel you need to resist in order to find yourself. I had a new respect for my ma, quick-witted, raucous laugh, could haggle light from a star, the seventeen-year-old who came from Nigeria on her own and cleaned toilets to put herself through a polytechnic and then university, before becoming a social worker and constructing a life from dust, work, faith, and hope, and who fell in love with a fellow newly come Nigerian boy who really liked to cook and dreamed of opening a Nigerian restaurant, but who drove taxis because nobody would give him a job. Met at a wedding, introduced by friends. I wanted to be like the woman who put her dust, work, faith, and hope with his and built some kind of life. I wanted to be just like her. And now I was facing losing her. What was I rebelling against? Adolescent risk wasn’t tasty when my whole life felt like it was tipping on the edge.
Which was why I said to Lysha, “I’m not wearing anything to the party on Saturday.”
Nile laughed. “So you’re going naked?”
Rianne squared her elbow in his gut and I rolled my eyes. Since he started dating Rianne, our relationship had mutated into a weird, tentative frenemyship. I thought he wasn’t good enough for my girl and he thought I was stush. He insisted that my mum being sick had nothing to do with my stushness, that I was like that before (although this hadn’t previously stopped him from trying it on with me) and therefore this absolved him of being an insensitive prick who called a girl dealing with a sick parent stush.
I levelled a cool gaze at him. “Yeah, Nile. I’m going naked. Idiot.”
Rianne threw Nile a stern look before turning back to me. “Kiki, you haven’t gone to one party this term, which I get, but it isn’t healthy, man. You need to let loose. Lose control for one night. I can’t go because I’m at a family wedding. Go on my behalf. Please. You even said your mum doesn’t want you seeing her this weekend, after last time.”
Last time in question involved Kayefi bursting into hysterical sobs at the sight of our increasingly frail mother, and me having a panic attack the following Monday on the bus to school.
“I have to look after Kayefi.”
Lysha shrugged. “Look, my little sister is having a sleepover with her mates this weekend for her birthday. I know they go to different schools but your sister gets on with mine. Our parents have met, you used to sleep at mine all the time. I’m sure it’ll be cool. You can get ready with me. You can wear nipple tassles if you really do wanna go naked. Your body, your choice.”
Rianne grinned. “See! Problem solved with Lysha’s ho couture suggestion.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t know you guys. I feelguilty. My dad’s going back and forth from the restaurant and hospital and—”
Yinda blew on her baby pink nails. “You’ve been doing that too, sis. Working at the restaurant, going to the hospital,andlooking after your sister. You going to feel guilty for being young? Listen, you been kind of a drag lately, and I get why, but sometimes it’s really like we’re chilling with a ghost or something. It’s creepy—”
Lysha turned to Yinda sharply. “Are you dumb, Yinda?”
Yinda’s wide eyes widened further. “Sorry,man, you know what I mean, though, innit.”
Rianne rolled her eyes. “What Yinda is trying to say is that we miss you, we miss having a good time with you, and it ain’t been the same without you. Right, Nile?” Rianne’s glossy lips stretched in encouragement at her boyfriend, nodding so her contraband silver hoops jangled.
Nile nodded and gently nudged me with his elbow. “Yeah. We all do. Who’s gonna make fun of how I dress? I’ll look after you. Don’t worry.”
I shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”
