Nahlela
When Kadmia and I were in Primary school, on the feast of all souls, after school we will come home, remove our school uniforms, eat and go to the cathedral with our parents and mom’s family for mass. We will sit by the grave side of our late grandma, decorate her graveside with flowers and candles, make our prayers and talk to her. Kadmia and I always picked special flowers for grandma from the school garden and tied them with blue and pink ribbons. She died when I was three years old, so I did not really remember her but I knew she had joined the Angels in heaven, so I always told her my secrets and prayers. In a sad way, the feast of all souls was bonding time for our family because we reminisced about our dead relatives while eating boiled corn and groundnuts with sandwiches and other snacks.
This year, as has been the case for the past two years, I wasn’t in the mood to bond with family members and reminisce. My sister, my best friend, my playmate, my womb mate, my partner in crime, my best version, my prettier version was dead. I could not bring myself to wake up from bed. I could not bring myself to take flowers to her grave and light candles for her. I could not bring myself to behave like all is well when nothing in my life was going as planned. Kadmia had her whole life ahead of her and didn’t deserve to die of cancer at the age of 23. She always dreamt of being a lawyer and I think she could have made the best lawyer ever. Whenever she saw kids arguing, she tried her best to make them reconcile and they always did. If anyone deserved to live, it was her. Most at times, I really wished that I could take her place but then I am not God and everything is out of my control.
I wore a simple black long gown and wrapped a black shawl on my face. I went to work and took permission from the boss to leave early. Seeing my parents today in a vulnerable state was going to be really hard on me. Since Kadmia died, my parents had always tried to be strong for me but I knew they were hurting inside. Burying a child was not an easy thing and I couldn’t even fathom the pain they were feeling. Since Kadmia died I stayed away from home, not because I was angry at them or anything but because there were a lot of memories I was trying not to remember. A lot of things at home made me remember. I think I had at least one memory for every spot in the house. It was just so difficult being there. Anytime I entered our childhood room, I always expected her to speak to me or scold me for not arranging the bed or for stealing her dress and not washing it, but sadly, she didn’t speak.
At noon, I left the office and went home to my parents. I pushed the gate and entered. The parlour door was always locked, so I passed through the garage door. Mom was in the kitchen when I entered and she stopped what she was doing to hug me before I could even announce my entry. As usual, the house was spotless and it smelled like home. Mom had bought a new house plant and apart from that, everything else looked the same. I asked for Dad and she said he had gone to buy some things.
I went into our childhood room to change into a dress I could use in the kitchen and I noticed that I didn’t have any clothes there. All of the clothes there were Kadmia’s. After her death, Mom and Dad told me to take her clothes but I refused. I could not bring myself to take them. Taking them meant accepting the fact that she was no more and I still had not accepted that bitter and painful truth. I opened her box for the first time since her death and took out the first gown I saw and changed into it.
On our way to church, I begged Dad to stop at my primary school; I promised them not to waste time. I met the day watch who had been there for as long as I can remember. I asked for his permission to cut flowers and take to Kadmia’s grave and he accepted. He reminded me of how we always cut flowers from the garden which was against the school rules and ran when we saw him. Choosing flowers without her had to be the most boring thing ever. At least, her favourite flowers were still in the garden so I cut one of each with a few of my best and tied with pink and blue ribbons as we always did when we were kids.
When everyone had left the graveside, I stayed back. I had a lot to tell Kadmia but I didn’t know where to start from. My mind was clouded and tears were rolling down my cheeks. I cried till I could cry no more. Before I knew it, places were dark and just the candle lights were making the place bright a little. Normally I could be scared in a graveyard, but today I was not scared at all. I made a short prayer, requesting that her soul be granted eternal rest. Her life may had ended prematurely but she deserved to rest in peace.
PASTNahlelaThe semester had just begun and Kadmia was admitted in the hospital. She had been experiencing dizziness, weight loss and fatigue. After attending all my lecture, I went to the hall where she had lectures for the day and collected notes from her classmate and photocopied, then went to the hospital to see her.When I reached the hospital, everyone looked sad. Mom was clearly trying not to cry and Dad looked like someone had died. Kadmia gave me a sad smile and it just confirmed that something was not right. I asked Mom what the matter was and she burst into tears. I turned to Dad and the look he had on his face was not inviting. Before I could ask Kadmia what was wrong, she said “I’m dying, I have leukaemia”.I felt as if life had been knocked out of me. What did they mean by Leukaemia? Ka
NahlelaToday is the first day I was meeting up with Mr “sex on heels” so I have to dress to make a statement. I was going to a football field so I definitely had to dress in a sporty outfit and going to the office and then passing home to change would be a waste of time. I thought of putting on the Chelsea Jersey I used as my sports attire when I was in the university, but it was too obvious. I thought of putting on my pink tied together sweatpants with its matching no sweat crop top but decided against it. After trying different outfits, I settled for my puma classics black and pink tracksuit with black and white vans. Nadine tried taking permission from the boss man so that she could leave early and join me in going to see Jam Timi but unfortunately for her, and fortunately for me he refused to let her leave early. Not that I didn’t want Nadine to come along but It was my first meetin
TimiIn my entire life, I had never met a girl like Nahlela. Most at times, people ignored the bullshit I said and tried to kiss my ass but I must agree, she put me in my place. I intentionally called her Nadia instead of Nahlela to make her feel irrelevant, like a fly on the wall but instead, she told me off. I must confess that she was bold and daring and of course, very outspoken. I always tried to avoid the press as much as possible, but I found myself wanting to do the interview. Not because I was interested in the article she planned on writing, but rather because I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to know what made her tick. When I first saw Nahlela at the football field, I was immediately drawn to her. She had this glossy dark skin which looked like it was dripping with melanin. she had slender eyebrows with long lashes which looked too long to be natural. Her eyes were li
NahlelaI had just settled down in the office when Nadine rushed into the office and started whispering “He is here; he is here”. I asked her who she was talking about and when she said Jam Timi, my face fell immediately.“Are you not supposed to be happy girl?” she asked.“I think he is coming to report me to the boss. I kind of insulted him.”“what do you mean by that? It is either you insulted him or not”“When I approached him, before I could offer one word, he told me he is not interested. He thought I was propositioning him and when I finally introduced myself and said I am a journalist who wants to write an article about him, he implied that I am trying to use my looks in getting him to do an interview so I told him off and walked away.”“Wow girl, so he said you were sexy?”
NahlelaLast night, I forgot to set my alarm and by the time I woke up, it was already six o’clock. If I didn’t hurry up, I was going to be late. As I was coming out from the bathroom, my phone was ringing and it was my boss. Early morning calls from my boss usually meant more work. I picked up and he told me that Jam called him and informed him of the meeting we had today and he told me not to bother coming in. I was about to tell him that we had no meeting when he dropped the call. I checked my WhatsApp messages and I saw a message from Mr arrogant. It was the location he was talking about last night so I sent him a reply “I will need a better description. There’s no way I am showing a bike rider or Taxi driver this; I will look stupid.”I didn’t expect him to reply immediately, but he did two seconds later
Timi I was just from dropping Amanda off at her place when I met I met Nahlela. When she saw me, she quickly put on her sun shades and bent her head. I knew calling her last night was a bad idea but I still did. I was with Amanda when I called and I noticed that Amanda’s mood changed and she started frowning but I didn’t care. From the start, I had told her that I wasn’t looking for a relationship. What we shared was just sex. We were compatible in bed and that was all that mattered. I didn’t tell her personal stuff and she didn’t tell me anything too. When we hung out, we had sex, talked about nothing serious and then more sex. No personal information was exchanged. We didn’t even do the “how was your day” shit. We didn’t go on dates because dates meant opening up and we had decided against that. I always insisted on giving her money but she told me that she had money of her own and she wasn’t sleeping with me for money; so I settled on
CHAPTER ELEVENNahlelaI felt bad that Timi came right to my parent’s place to drop me, so I invited him in. Dad recognized him and they immediately started talking about football. When I joined mom in the kitchen to set the table for dinner, she tried asking me questions about him but I told her that I was interviewing him for an article and we had a meeting today. She tried to dig deeper but there was nothing more to say. Mom always complained that I was not dating anyone and I was growing old, so she always tried as much as possible to encourage me to go out more. Once or twice, she had tried to set me up on dates with her colleague’s sons but I didn’t even go because going meant giving her hope and I was not giving her false hope and of course, I wasn’t wasting my time. I saw Timi looking at family pictures on the wall and I thought he was going to bring
TimiThe same way I didn’t plan on ending my arrangement with Amanda but did it anyway, was the same way I didn’t plan on texting Nahlela but I did. I read somewhere that midnight was the best time to text girls because the lonely ones will always reply and so, I decided to try my luck. I was surprised when she replied and I was shocked when she told me about her twin sister. I had noticed their pictures at her parents’ house, but I didn’t want to bring up the issue because it was a sad story. I knew a few things about Nahlela from stalking her on Facebook but I pretended as if I knew nothing and waited for her to tell me everything herself.I had spoken about my family with Nahlela and it was a first for me. I had never told any girl anything about my background. Some looked up information about me from google and tried prying for more but I never told them anything. I was letting her in