Do you know how I felt being dragged by the police officer like I didn’t have legs that worked? It was like these dirty walls planked at either side of my vision was the last thing I would see.Fear found my soul and spread through my bloodstream. I breathed loud so I could hear myself taking in bouts of breaths without that if felt like there was no air reserved for me, like I didn’t deserve it anymore, like there was no point for it.One good thing was that I haven’t cried since.That was a win, in the midst of this chaos and upending of my sad little life, this was a win worth celebrating. At least, I wasn’t being a crybaby on top of all my other depressing qualifications. Imagine being a murderer and a crybaby on top of it all.I was breaking apart and no one had noticed. And no one had to know.Just then, the officer took a turn that didn’t lead to the holding cell, we came out of the building in general and pulled towards a black car parked but with the engine still running.Jus

“That’s not news anymore.” I bit back with the biggest smile I could find.He wouldn’t get to me this time, not when I knew what he really thought of me-that is that Angel girl behind all those jabs and insults.If Angel was me, which I knew she was not me, okay, but in a hypothetical sense, if he thought that Angel girl was me and he loves Angel then he loves me, a total imposter but nonetheless, it meant those eyes darkened with rage was just superficial and misrouted. He didn’t hate me even as those death glares screamed hatred to my face.“I don’t know why you keep doing this for me. It is just super nice of you to help me in the worst situations that I managed to put myself because you guess it, I’m pathetic.” I shrugged. “See, you don’t have to say it all the time, I know, the world knows. You have to be born yesterday to not know that the new meaning of pathetic is Colette. Me.” I laughed at that even though saying that aloud made me realize that jail or no jail, my life could

NIKKII wasn’t trekking the whole journey home but I was getting out of her sight. I put one foot after the other seething in fury, justified fury because it made no sense why Colette would treat me this way after everything I had done for her. And we’ve been friends since our first school leaving examination day when we met in the same venue, we were barely ten years old then. She let me copy from her math answers and stretched her neck over the answers on the general papers on my OMR sheet.When we got into the same high school and found out we lived in the same estate, it seemed more ordained for us to be friends. Especially to Colette, she called me her best friend from the very beginning and wanted to only be where I was and do whatever it was that I did. Little me thought it was cool, that I was cool to have my own personal sidekick. We did everything together but everything really did change after that day. That night when I saw her covered in her own blood, a new fear gripped

“I don’t believe you,” he spat after a long stretch of silence.“Huh?” I swallowed.What was I thinking? He couldn’t just believe me because I said so. I would have to prove it with their shared experiences of which I had none. I couldn’t be Angel without knowing one thing about her or him or heck about their time together. What if they had like a signature greeting? Or maybe they had pet names for themselves. I let out a sigh loud and clear as I soon realize that the wall I had just pushed myself to.“I don’t believe you.” This time he had magically covered the distance between us. I stepped back as his glare crawled all over my body like eight-legged insects. I pushed back even further as he covered the breathing distance I had created, until I hit the foot of the bed and sat forcibly on the bouncy foam did he stop.“If you will allow me…”“Allow you to do what?”I swear I didn’t even know where I was going with that. A chance to explain? Explain what exactly? That I pretended to be