If only

chapter 6

Third term in SS1 started with change.

Our hostel mistress had been transferred, and the school brought in a new one firmer, louder, and, as everyone whispered, wicked.

She came with three daughters.

Azizaxt, the middle child, was in JSS 1.

Mariam, same class as me.

And Oyin I can't remember the class she was in .

That first week, Tomi leaned in during evening prep and whispered,

“Don’t get too close to Mariam. Her mum is ******. The kind that will punish you for breathing beside her child.”

I nodded. And like that, I marked Mariam.

Every smile she gave, I questioned.

Every move she made, I watched.

She didn’t know I had a problem with her but I did.

I started disliking her without reason.

The way she laughed. The way she folded her sleeves. Even the way she swept in the hostel.

My own mind turned her into a villain without her doing anything at all.

But time has a strange way of peeling off lies.

Somehow slowly, quietly we started talking.

It started with borrowing toothpaste. Then a joke about one of the seniors. Then silence that didn’t feel awkward.

I forgot to hate her.

By midterm, we were close enough to walk to class together.

But life isn’t soft.

Her mother the hostel mistress punish me the day we were meant to take our test.

I don’t remember what I did wrong. Maybe I was making noise

She made me kneel in the school compound while others prepared for their test. The sun hit my back like it had a grudge.

And something in me broke.

I kept my head down.

But the tears came like they had been waiting for that moment.

Not just for the punishment but for everything.

For the dream.

For the spoon.

For the cat that ran.

For the brother I left mid-sentence.

I didn’t cry because I was kneeling.

I cried because my chest had been full for months and finally, something cracked it open.

I was crying because grief has no timetable.

And sometimes, it uses the wrong excuse to pour out.