The Reckless Agenda
563 Words
Wednesday. 9:12 AM.
Lara barged into Efe’s room like a hurricane wrapped in perfume and oversized sunglasses.
“Please tell me you’re joking,” she said, arms folded. “Because if you’ve started texting me nonsense in your sleep again, I will baptize you with cold water.”
Efe didn’t flinch. She sat cross-legged on her bed, sipping orange juice like it was champagne and she was at a yacht party in Lekki.
“I’m not joking,” she said with a calm, dangerous smile. “We’re going clubbing this Friday.”
Lara blinked. “We?”
“Yes. You and me.”
“Clubbing?”
“Clubbing.”
“As in… alcohol, loud music, strange men with too much cologne and zero boundaries?”
“Exactly.”
Lara paced like a lawyer building her case. “You hate crowds. You hate smoke. Your immune system is basically powered by vibes and ibuprofen. You almost died two weeks ago. What exactly is wrong with you?”
Efe didn’t even blink. “I’m dying, Lara. That’s what’s wrong.”
Lara stopped moving.
The silence grew thick.
Efe softened. “I’m not trying to be dramatic. I just… I’m tired of being careful. Of being the girl everyone pities. The one everyone talks around, but not to. The one whose dreams are always shelved under ‘Maybe Next Time.’ There is no next time. This is all I’ve got.”
Lara’s voice dropped. “So, your solution is to go out and… misbehave?”
“No. My solution is to live a little recklessly.”
Efe’s eyes sparkled. “I want to have fun. Drink. Dance. Maybe kiss a fine guy who doesn’t know I’m dying. Just once.”
Lara scoffed. “You say that like it’s nothing.”
“To me, it’s everything.”
Lara sighed, defeated. “You want a pity kiss?”
Efe leaned in, grinning. “I want a wild, desperate, toe-curling, soul-shaking kiss that makes me forget I’ve got less hemoglobin than a mosquito.”
“Gross.”
“True.”
They both burst into laughter, the kind that made Efe cough halfway through. Lara rushed to hand her water, worry flashing across her face.
But Efe waved her off. “I’m fine. Don’t ruin the moment.”
Lara sat beside her. “Your dad will kill me.”
“He’s out of town this weekend. Work trip.”
“I hate that I’m even considering this,” Lara muttered. “This is pure madness.”
Efe smiled, sweet and wicked. “Say it with me: Operation Reckless.”
Lara shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. That name alone is asking for thunder.”
Efe raised her glass of juice. “To one night of foolishness.”
Lara reluctantly clinked her own bottle of water against it. “To your funeral.”
“Lara!”
“What? Just being honest.”
They both dissolved into another fit of laughter.
But beneath the humor, under the teasing, was the quiet truth they didn’t say out loud: this might be Efe’s last birthday, last night out, last chance at something normal.
And they were going to make it count.
Later that night, in her dim-lit room, Efe opened her old journal and scribbled one more thing under her “Before I Die” list:
17. Be kissed like I’m not dying.
- Writer
