IMASUEN’S PLIGHT : CHAPTER 1 – THE END
Written by Temi Akintade
Chapter 2
I followed Ebube to the dinner party organized for his colleagues at work. Initially, I wore the only long black dress that I bought last Christmas. But he dismissed the dress saying that the dress smells like it was bought from Okirika. I was offended but I covered it up with a smile. He gave me a bright red dress and a nice perfume he bought from the mall before stopping to pick me.
I knew that the red dress fit me perfectly when I noticed that Ebube could barely keep his hands off my back all through the party. It was almost as if he was trying to show the world his latest trophy and I didn’t like the thought of that. It was never like this with Busayo. My heart would race each time I thought about him. and the last impromptu kss we shared would snatch my heart and leave me breathless for more. And even though I had successfully ignored his calls and texts, I didn’t think that I had successfully ignored the way my heartbeat at the slightest remembrance of him.
“You shouldn’t have told them that you were a teacher,” Ebube told me. We were seated in his Range Rover sports car while he parked in front of our gate.
“What should I have told them then?” I scoffed. I was tired of his bossy attitude. First, he had bossed me around into wearing a red dress and makeup which I rarely didn’t even like. Now it was my profession?
He tapped on the stearing like he was thinking up a great idea. “When we get married, you’re not going to be working as a teacher.”
I glanced at the diamond ring on my third finger. Suddenly aware that I was engaged to him, I felt choked. He had proposed that night, in front of everyone and I had said forced a smile and said yes. Even though I wasn’t so sure about my decision. But I said yes anyway. After all, love comes softly.
That night, I called Joy to tell her about what had happened and her words were shocking. “Babe! It’s a good thing you are engaged! If he says you won’t be a teacher then so be it. Maybe he will be paying you a monthly salary. That means you will join the big women’s club, the Abuja wives association!” she laughed.
But I didn’t find that funny. That night, when I slept, I dreamt that Busayo and Ebube were having a wrestling match and anyone who wins would take me home as a trophy. Busayo beat him, pun¢hed him, and won, and then he took me home as his trophy but on his way, Ebube sent some boys to attack him and take me back to him. then I woke up, sweating!
IMASUEN’S PLIGHT : CHAPTER 1 – THE END
It was later, the following day, exactly some few days before the Christmas celebration that I went to the school where I taught as a teacher and tendered my resignation letter. The principal persuaded me not to but I told him that I was getting married soon, and was going to move out of Gwagwalada. Somehow, he bought my excuse.
I went back to the house, packed few clothes into my luggage, and waited for Ebube to come and pick me since we were spending the new year with his family.
True to his word, Ebube came around. My family especially my parents were happy to see him because he wouldn’t leave without sIapping a handful of crispy new notes into their palms. My mum once told me how very happy she was with me that I had decided to open my eyes to bring a proper man home.
Soon, we were on our way to his family house in Lagos. We took the evening flight and because it was my first time on an airplane, I struggled with the seatbelt and because I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed, I signaled to the other guy who was seated beside me on the left, to help me out. When he finally did, Ebube got angry and wouldn’t even speak to me all through the flight he simply tucked his ear pod into his ears and closed his eyes until we got to Lagos.
The air in Lagos was quite different from that of Abuja. I wanted to tell him that, Lagos smelt of dirty air. But he didn’t seem to pay too much attention to me because his brother had not come to pick us up. So he ordered an Uber instead.
We got to Banana Island after a long drive on the endless bridge which Ebube had called, third mainland bridge.
“I thought that the Island has so many banana plantations that was why it was called Banana Island.” I released a small laugh.
But Ebube’s face was stoic almost as though I hadn’t said anything. It was after the Uber driver dropped us that he spoke. “The island has the shape of banana not what you are thinking. I’m surprised you should know all these. After all, you were a teacher.” He snapped.
I felt like I have just been sIapped. I wanted to speak back at him but then, I remembered that I was in Lagos and I knew no one there even if I wanted to leave the city. So I kept mute until we got into his parent’s mansion.
Their home was nothing compared to that of my parents. He had told me that his father once worked in an oil company while his mother, owned a bank. One of the most thriving banks here in Nigeria. I wanted to ask why he wasn’t working in his mother’s bank but he said he wanted to explore Dangote and that he would later return to handle his mother’s business.
As soon as his siblings saw him, they screamed for joy and jumped on him in excitement. Two other guys who were also as tall as he hugged him while their sister, a tall slender girl with a body that could easily pass for a model, jumped on him.
“Sonia, I have missed you! Where are Mum and Dad?” Ebube gave her a bear hug.
Sonia waved a greeting at me. I felt almost invisible as though I wasn’t needed. Soon I heard a loud yelp from the inside and a light-skinned woman walked out in an alluring gait. Her skin was as smooth as glass and I almost thought that she wasn’t Nigerian because of her skin tone and hourglass figure even after four grown kids. She greeted her son and they exchanged pleasantries.
Suddenly they all stopped to look at me and she pointed her long, perfectly manicured finger at me. “And who is this?”
Ebube grinned. “Oh! She’s the one I told you about. My fiancée.”
“Oh?” her eyes widened.
And I wondered if it was because I knelt to greet her that she widened her eyes or the fact that Ebube told her that I was the daughter of a nobody.
IMASUEN’S PLIGHT : CHAPTER 1 – THE END
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