365days between us

The morning sun spilled lazily over the rooftops, gliding through the curtains of a modest room where three sisters slept in the kind of peace that never lasted past 7 a.m. Somewhere outside, a rooster crowed like it had personal beef with silence itself. And in the middle of it all, Elsa lay still, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like it owed her answers. Unspoken, unwritten, but etched deep into her like a scar that healed wrong. She hate that her admirers are always boys younger than her. “Am I that little?.” Then she had a rule that she won’t have anything to do with boys younger than her. It wasn’t arrogance, it was armor. Because somewhere between girlhood and now, she had learned that hearts, especially hers, were expensive things to lose. And she wasn’t handing hers to anyone who hadn’t at least lived long enough to know how to keep it. She rose slowly, the wooden floor creaking beneath her feet like it was announcing her to the day. Today was registration day for the external exams, the kind that could tilt the axis of her whole future. She dressed simply. A fitted blouse, jeans that hugged her petite frame just enough to turn heads without inviting trouble, and her hair packed back like she meant business. By the time she stepped out of the house, the streets were already alive, hawkers calling out prices, okada engines groaning under morning traffic, and the unmistakable buzz of young people gathered outside the examination office, clutching photocopies of birth certificates and passport photographs like life rafts. That was when she felt it. Not one pair but several eyes A cluster of boys, tall, lanky, some with the kind of jawlines i********: filters tried and failed to recreate, turned their heads as she walked past. One of them nudged his friend. Another straightened his back like he’d suddenly remembered posture mattered. Elsa caught the glances, catalogued them the way she catalogued everything, quickly, quietly, without moving her face. “Cute”, she admitted to herself, almost annoyed that she had to. She didn’t know their ages, not really but something in the way they carried themselves, the eagerness, the boyish urgency in their stares, told her everything her rule needed to know. She lowered her gaze, adjusted the strap of her bag, and walked past them like she hadn’t noticed a thing. Behind her, she heard a soft “wow” and the sound of someone getting playfully punched in the shoulder by his friend. She almost smiled. By the time she filled her registration form and had her passport photograph stapled to a stranger’s expectations of her future, the sun had climbed higher, and so had her hunger. She headed home with the kind of tiredness that only bureaucracy could produce. Evening came softer, kinder. The kind of evening that invited conversations sisters only had when their mother wasn’t around to raise an eyebrow. Elsa sat cross-legged on the bed, her two younger sisters, Bella sprawled dramatically on the floor, and Tessa perched on a stool she’d clearly stolen from the kitchen, surrounding her like a council convened for the most important discussion of the century: marriage. “I’m just saying,” Bella began, twirling a strand of her braided hair, “if I marry a man and he’s like… ten years older than me, at least I know he’s settled. Not confused about life.” “Ten years?” Tessa scoffed, nearly falling off her stool. “You want to marry Papa’s mate? No, no. Small gap is better. Two, maybe three years. That way, we grow together. He won’t be talking about SS3 wahala while I’m still trying to understand secondary school.” Elsa chuckled, arms folded, enjoying the theatre of it all. “And what if,” she said slowly, testing the water, “the man is younger than you?” She asked as if she is expecting an answer that would worth her to accept proposals from the younger boys. The room went still for half a second , the kind of stillness that precedes chaos. “Ha!” Bella sat up so fast her braids swung like a whip. “Elsa, ah ah. Younger? You’ve been reading too many of your own stories o.” “I’m just asking a question,” Elsa said, laughing, though something in her chest tightened slightly, like the question wasn’t entirely hypothetical even to herself. “Mummy would not agree,” Tessa said, wagging a finger with all the authority of a seventeen-year-old who’d clearly rehearsed this speech in her head before. “You know what she always say, that a woman’s time is not the same as a man’s time. A woman’s beauty, her body, her chance, it reduces with time. But a man?” She snapped her fingers. “A man can wait. A man can marry at forty and still get a fresh, young wife. But a woman who waits too long…” She trailed off, letting the sentence hang like an unfinished punishment. “It’s not even about what mummy said..” Bella chipped in. “This is Africa and most younger man older woman marriages doesn’t last, because definitely the woman will disrespect the husband one day because she knows he is a junior to her and will see him as a junior brother one day and yell at him just like Elsa yells at Tim..”she added almost laughing. “ .. but if he is cute and has money, I mean enough money, I won’t mind” she said touching her hair like a model on a stage for beauty pageantry. They all laughed. Bella can be a clown sometimes. “So you’re saying,” Elsa said, her voice quieter now, “a woman should never love a man younger than her? Even if he treats her right?” she said eagerly. Bella and Tessa exchanged a look, one of those silent sister-to-sister transmissions that needed no words. “Elsa,” Bella said carefully, sitting up straighter, eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion. “Why are you asking like this now? Is there someone…” The lights flickered. Once. And then Twice. Then the room went completely dark, throwing all three of them into stunned silence, save for Tessa’s small yelp and the distant hum of a generator refusing to start. And in that darkness, Elsa’s phone buzzed once against the bed, a message notification lighting up her screen like a secret the universe wasn’t ready to keep. Somehow, she lost interest in knowing who it was but her mind races. “Who can it be?” She didn’t bother to check. She felt her rule is about to be tested again.