Beyond Forcados High

CHAPTER 2:THE OFFER

“So, what do you say, Miss Coker?... Um, Miss Coker?... Hello?”

The red-haired man with the crisp British accent said it twice before Efua snapped back to the present.

“Oh, yes! Sorry about that,” she said quickly, trying to smooth the shock out of her voice.

“I was still trying to… process the news.”Mr. Anderson, the WHO liaison, adjusted his cufflinks and gave her a patient smile.

“Right. So… are you in?”Efua exhaled. “Can I sleep on it and get back to you?”“Take your time,” he said, rising from the chair. “Have a nice day, Miss Coker.”“And you too, Mr. Anderson,” she replied, forcing a polite beam as he left.

The door clicked shut, and the silence in her office felt louder than before. She sank back into her chair and stared at the letter on her desk. The World Health Organization was offering her a lead position: head of a medical response team deploying to Nigeria. The compensation was significant, but that was not what had made her pulse spike. Money had not been a problem for the Coker family in years. No, the problem was the location.

Why Nigeria?

Lately, that country had been showing up in her thoughts more than once. She had always pushed those thoughts aside. Now fate seemed to be mocking her, delivering the one assignment she could not refuse and the one place she had been avoiding, right to her doorstep.

Her mind went, uninvited, to Jimmi. They had not lost touch because time drifted them apart. She had vanished.

After Forcados High, after everything happened, Efua made a choice. She cut contact. No calls. No emails. No explanations. She left Lagos, then Nigeria, and buried herself in medical school abroad. She told herself it was for her safety, for her sanity, for a future that did not include the house she was desperate to escape.

Jimmi tried. At first, he called. He texted. He waited. Then the silence from her end became its own answer. He stopped reaching out. She never gave him a reason, and she carried that guilt like a stone in her pocket for years. She was not a social media person. She found it performative and exhausting. But six months ago, curiosity had won. She created a f*******: account under a false name — Cynthia Ross — and sent Jimmi a friend request. She used a name he would not recognize. He accepted a day later. She never messaged him. She did not deserve to. She just wanted to look, from a safe distance where she could not hurt him again. And look she did. Her little Jimmi was gone. In his place was a man: tall, broad-shouldered, with a closely trimmed beard that suited him in a way she had not expected. There was a photo of him at a pool with old university friends. Water dripped from his chest. His abs were defined. His arms looked carved. Efua had stared at that photo for longer than she would admit to anyone.

“Okay, yes,” she muttered to the empty office. “Efua Coker is now a stalker. Sue me.”

Dating in New York had been a disaster. The last man she had gone out with tried to have s*x with her in his car outside her apartment, and another dared to ask her to pay the bill after dinner. She did not mind paying her way in life. But a man insisting on the bill, even if it was his last naira, had always struck her as a matter of character. It was one of the things she had quietly admired about Nigerian men.

She had told herself she would stay celibate. Her best friend, Talia, would not allow it. Talia was a romantic in the worst way, collecting Cinderella storylines in her head and trying to pin them onto Efua’s life.

“Well,” Efua said to herself,

“I cannot mix my personal life with this job. Think about the children, Efua. Just the children.”

She took a deep breath, picked up her phone, and dialed Mr. Anderson.

“Hello? Miss Coker, have you made a choice yet?” His voice was sharp, like he had been waiting by the phone.

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

“Count me in.” She could hear the grin in his voice.

“You won’t regret this. We’ll email you the details immediately.”

“Alright. Have a nice day.”

“You too. And welcome aboard.”

She ended the call and let her forehead rest against her palms. Nigeria. Jimmi. WHO. Three words she had never intended to put in the same sentence again. And this time, she would not be the one to disappear without a trace. Or so she hoped.

JIMMI’S POV

It was Saturday, and the boredom in his apartment was suffocating. Jimmi picked up his iPhone, unlocked it, and opened f*******:. He scrolled. He liked a few photos. He laughed out loud at a meme his friend Bro sent. Then he rolled his eyes at the endless stream of posts and ads from Caro. Caro was a full-time model. Makeup, wigs, scarves, skincare — if it could be photographed, she had modeled it. He paused on one image. She was tying a silk scarf around her neck. She looked beautiful. It felt like yesterday that they dated and people called him “Caro’s Jimmi,” and he had hated it every time. He smiled despite himself. They were just friends now. Good ones. Time did that. He switched to Messenger and scanned his list for someone to talk to. No one stood out. No one would pull him out of the Saturday slump. He was about to log out when he noticed a name at the top of his “active” list: Cynthia Ross.He frowned. He had never spoken to Cynthia Ross. He did not think she had ever spoken to him either.

“I should stop being a snob,” he thought.

He clicked her profile. It was blank. No photos. No posts. He was the only friend listed. That was strange. It reminded him, in a way he did not want to admit, of Efua. Efua had not drifted. She had disappeared. One day after graduation, she was just gone. No goodbye. No forwarding address. For months, he called her old line. He texted. He asked mutual classmates from Forcados. No one knew anything. The silence became its own kind of answer, and eventually, he stopped asking. Chima was his university roommate, and he had met him long after Forcados. Chima had never known Efua, so Jimmi never even brought her name up around him. Some absences were too personal to explain.

On impulse, he sent Cynthia a message: Hey. The “seen” check appeared almost immediately. No reply.

Jimmi stared at the screen. “Waste of time,” he muttered, cursing under his breath before locking his phone, grabbing his car keys, and heading for the club.If Cynthia Ross wanted to be a ghost, she could haunt someone else’s inbox. He was done chasing people who vanished.