Campus Confessions

At 10:52 p.m., exactly eight minutes before the hostel lights went out, Tomi Adeyemi was doing the most dangerous thing a Babcock student could do: holding her phone under a blanket, running an illegal empire. Well, not illegal. Technically. The school handbook said nothing about anonymous confession pages. It said plenty about jeans that were too tight, visitors after hours, and "inappropriate use of electronic devices," which she suspected covered this. "Tomi." Chidera's voice came out of the darkness on the other bed. "If you're on that page again, I'm not bailing you out." "I'm revising." "Your phone screen is the brightest thing in this room. Even God can see you." Tomi dimmed the brightness. Chidera sighed, rolled over, and was snoring within a minute. Some people had a gift. Tomi went back to work. The inbox of BU Confessions had 214 unread messages, and the page had 9,000 followers, which was almost half the campus. Nobody knew who ran it. That was the whole point. She opened the first one. Confession: I have been sneaking jollof rice into my hostel in a Tupperware labelled "Bible Study Notes." Security has searched my bag twice and respected the label both times. Tomi snorted into her pillow. She typed: Brother/Sister, the Lord sees your heart and your Tupperware. Proceed with caution. 🙏🍛 She posted it. Seventeen likes in a minute. The next one: Confession: I told everyone I fasted for three days. I fasted for one. The other two days I was eating in the dark like a thief. The Lord is merciful. Your stomach, less so. Next time, chew quietly. The next: Confession: I have been in love with the same guy since first year. He doesn't know I exist. He once held a door open for me and I thought about it for two semesters. Tomi paused. This was the kind she took slowly. She had a rule: the funny ones got jokes, but the real ones got care. She typed carefully: Two semesters on a door is a long time. Maybe the next door you hold, you hold for him. Be brave. We're all rooting for you. ❤️ She posted it and exhaled. This was the part she liked best, the part nobody would ever thank her for, because nobody would ever know it was her. She was a ghost with a keyboard. The next confession was about Dayo. Confession: Dayo from 400L Accounting smiled at me in the cafeteria queue today and now I can't think. Is he single? Asking for my entire hostel. Tomi's thumb hovered. She knew Dayo. Not personally. Everyone knew Dayo. He was the guy with the dimples, the easy laugh, the one lecturers pretended not to favour. He'd also, last month, caught her staring at him across the library and smiled before she could look away. She had read the same paragraph about depreciation eleven times afterwards. She typed: Single status unconfirmed. Dimples confirmed. Proceed with research. She posted it. Two hundred likes in six minutes. "i***t," she whispered to herself, and wasn't sure which of them she meant. The clock on her phone said 11:41. Curfew had passed. The porter's flashlight moved along the corridor outside, bouncing off the walls, and Tomi froze like a rabbit. The light slid under the door, paused, and moved on. She waited a full minute before breathing again. One more, she told herself. Then bed. She refreshed the inbox. A new message had arrived at 11:47 p.m. There was no username, no profile picture, just the page's usual blank sender line. She opened it, expecting another jollof confession. Confession: I know who runs this page. Tomi blinked. She read it again. Then again. The words didn't change. It was probably a joke. People did that, claimed to know the admin, to get attention. She'd seen it a dozen times. She had a standard reply. She started typing the standard reply. A second message arrived before she finished. You've been very busy tonight, Tomi. The phone slipped out of her hand and landed on her face. "Ah!" she hissed, scrambling for it, her heart slamming against her ribs. She stared at the screen with one eye half-closed. There was no mistake. It had said her name. Across the room, Chidera shifted in her sleep and mumbled, "Don't eat my Indomie..." Tomi didn't move. She didn't breathe. Somewhere in the dark, someone had just done what nine thousand followers, a Dean of Student Affairs, and every gossip in Ilishan-Remo had failed to do for two years. They had found her. A third message popped up. Don't delete this. And don't tell anyone. I'll post it myself if you try anything. Then, as she watched, three small dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. They pulsed and waited, as if whoever was on the other end was savouring this. To be continued...