Maple and Light.

“Jade! Where are you?” She opened the doors of the kitchen. I wasn’t there. “Jade! I’m going! Where are you?” She opened the doors of the toilets downstairs and the store-rooms near the kitchen. I wasn’t there either. “Jade! I swear it I’m gonna leave you! I’m running late! Jade?” She finally opened the doors of the huge library, and found me there, drowned in an ocean of books and tears, tears on my face. “Honey what is wrong with you? I’ve been searching the whole house for you! Not to mention that your room is messy as hell, but you can’t even clean that now because we’re late. Come on, get up! I can’t miss this conference again!” She stared at me. I stared back, unmoving. More tears dropped from my eyes. It seemed that she finally noticed my tears. “Why are you crying Jade?” I gave my mother no answer. “Okay, you can tell me why in the car. I’m going.” She turned to leave, gave me one last look of pity I really hate, and then went away. She called after her, “you have fifteen minutes!” That was my mother people. Isn’t she wonderful? My name is Jade. I am sixteen years old, would be seventeen really soon, in a few weeks, and I hate that fact. I know it sounds pretty dark and sad but, I’m really tired of living. I got up from the floor, surrounded by books, and walked to my room to change. My mom has this church conference thing she’s gonna attend, and she’s supposed to leave me at my grandparents’ place. That was the only thing I was looking forward to a little, because I love my grandparents. You’re probably wondering why I was found in the library, crying. Well, I was sad. You see, I’m Bipolar, which means that I have more mood swings than the average person. I was having one of my numerous bipolar episodes, which is why I was sad. And I love books, it’s my quick escape from present reality, which is why I was in the library. Makes sense, right? I came downstairs to wear my black sneakers, carrying it along with me (because my mother hates when you wear shoes around the house; except at the doorside, where she even created a shoe-wearing space she calls ‘shoe-slipping place/side’, with seats and all; so I couldn’t wear them upstairs in my room), then went out of the door of the house, with Juanita, our housekeeper, locking the door behind me, but not before she gave me a kiss of goodbye. I loved, and still love Juanita. She’s been with my family for as long as I could remember, as a housekeeper and nanny to my sister and me. I entered the car, sitting beside my mom at the backseat. “Drive, John,” She told our driver, and we began moving. She looked in my direction, and asked, “what is the matter, darling?” I looked at her, and tears glistened in my eyes again because I didn’t even know the answer. “I don’t know,” I said, with a half-broken voice. “Aw, honey.” She pulled me close to her and gave me a light hug, and a kiss on my head. “I’m sorry,” She said. “Maybe we should take that doctor’s appointment serious, Mom?” She sighed. I continued, “Mom, I know you believe Jesus can heal me, but we have to take action too. And frankly? I don’t think he can. I know a therapist can. I’m tired and sick and you know it. I need to treat my OCD and bipolar disorder.” “Give me some time to think about it honey,” she said. I slightly frowned, and pulled away from her embrace. I was getting angry, but I tried hard to calm the rage coming up within me as I spoke calmly; “Mom. I’m going to do it, with or without your help. Grandmama and Grandpapa are fully in support of me getting some help. They think it’s a good thing I still want to survive, and they want us to take advantage of that before I stop having this optimism, even if little, about life. Surprisingly, they see what you don’t.” My mom looked very sad, and we didn’t say anything else to each other the rest of the journey. We got to my grandparents’ place and I got down from the car, kissing my mother goodbye and waving at John. I smiled a little when I saw my grandparents’ house. It looks and feels so homely and beautiful and big. I really should move here, but my mom would be lonely at home if I do that. You can refer to my family as influential. “Rich”, in fact. Powerful too. You know how it goes. The gates opened, and once I was inside the compound and the gates were closed, I heard my mom’s car drive off. I smiled a little; it was a sweet habit of my mom to make sure I had safely entered a place I was to be before leaving me. Almost every time, like a ritual, she did that. I walked to the door and knocked, even though I could have pressed the doorbell button. I have a special knock, with a special rhythm, that my grandparents and I formed whenever any one of us was around, so we’d know it was us. I waited patiently, even though I was a little surprised. Grandmama knew I was coming today, I thought she’d rush to the door immediately with that smile brighter than the sun that she always welcomed me with, and then give me a big hug while calling me ‘omo re bi iyan,’ a yoruba way of praising children, as I am from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria. I live in Nigeria too; Lagos, precisely. In Lekki city. One minute. It’s been one minute already and no one answered the door, not even Grandpapa or any of the housekeepers. My anxieties started kicking in and I began worrying if my grandparents were okay. Various images flashed in my head of the bad things that could have happened to them, which would explain why they hadn’t opened the door. A fire. No, that doesn’t make sense, it would smell if it was a fire, I thought. But, what if the fire was yesterday and it had stopped smelling maybe? I took a quick glance at the building. Nah, this building didn’t look like it was burnt. I knocked my special knock on the door again, harder and louder this time. An accident? Electrical accident? Was anyone electrocuted maybe? Grandpapa finds it hard to bend well lately, maybe he bent and tripped and poured his jasmine tea on Grandmama’s blender or laptop, or an electrical socket? I tried brushing away these intrusive thoughts, but it was getting hard to stay calm when the whole house was silent like a grave and no one had answered the door. I looked at my watch. It’s been five minutes now. Five minutes. God. I looked at the doorbell, tempted to press that button to clear all of my doubts that maybe no one in the house heard my knocks. I started thinking of maybe calling my mom to alert her about my suspicions, or 911...but there was no emergency... And I had to quickly remind myself that 911 doesn’t operate in Nigeria. Oh I dunno... I knocked one more time, deciding that if no one answers this time, I’d press that damn button. Looked at my watch. Seven minutes. Or could it have been a kidnap? I spoke to Grandpapa yesterday, he sounded fine. Plus, no one can really get pass that security at the gate, unless they’re family or they’re wanted there. But what if the kidnappers came this morning? What if, somehow, they broke through the security? My goodness, are they going to hurt my grandparents? Are the housekeepers even safe? Am I going to lose more out of the few people I actually like? I started reaching for the doorbell button. Are they even still alive? Little balls of tears gathered in my eyes. Is this how our story will end? Will I even say goodbye? Is this how- “Hold on please, I’m coming!” I heard a strangely unfamiliar voice faintly say from inside the house. I could be wrong, but the voice sounded young. Pretty young, like my age. I breathed a huge, huge sigh of relief and quickly wiped away the little tears that had formed. Three’s a charm. Thank goodness they weren’t kidn*pped, as ridiculous as that sounds. This is what kind of monster OCD is. Makes me worry to death about little things, almost always giving me a heart attack. I sighed in tiredness. I heard the footsteps get closer. “I’m coming please, hold on!” She said, whoever that was, because I’m pretty sure it’s not someone I know. The doors were finally being opened, and I breathed a sigh of relief, because I was even getting tired and bored of standing and worrying. I was so eager and prepared to run into my Grandmama’s arms and tell her about some certain things that have been happening lately. What I was not prepared for, however, is the unfamiliar face that opened the doors for me and said, “hello,” with quite a...sweet smile. I was tempted to smile back but I was quite...captivated and awed. Filled with wonder, even. And maybe a little fear too. She was...so...beautiful. Oh my goodness and holy Beyoncé. It felt like my speech seized for a minute, but I quickly recomposed myself and tried saying without stammering and with a straight face, even if only few things about me are straight, like my straight, blunt personality, and unlike my curly, curly, black hair; “hi...I’m Jade...the Olawuyis’ granddaughter.” She seemed to recognize me immediately as she went, “oh! Hi Jade! Your grandparents talk a lot about you! Haha we were just talking about you a little before you came. Come on in!” She looked like my age too, not just her voice. God she was so pretty. Jesus. “Uh...do you know me?” I hesitantly asked. “well, I know some facts about you, since your grandmother loves talking about you a whole lot.” I stared at her, and my look must have been funny because she saw, then caught it, and laughed. It sounded really good, her laughter...it made me want to laugh too. “Grandmama didn’t tell me there were gonna be visitors.” I hated myself immediately those words came out of my mouth, it sounded so cruel. “I know,” She said. “I’m a surprise.” I didn’t understand what she meant and frankly, I was not so sure I wanted to because I really hate surprises; they are filled with so much uncertainty. I just kept staring ‘cause she was beautiful, but I had to stop myself after a while so I didn’t look like a freak or make her uncomfortable. I gave her a small smile, and she led the way to the palour, where my grandparents where at. Suddenly, I felt like I was in the present, not floating around everywhere like I normally or always feel, and, as cliché as it sounds, it felt like something, or even everything, in my life, was about to change dramatically.