My Own Dilemma

Gloomy days. Gloomy nights.
I can barely tell them apart.

His betrayal is all I see.

9:00am

My left eye strains open, the bright light piercing through my brain like a sharp knife, but not more than his betrayal pierces me. I groggily reach over to turn off the alarm, my hand scrambling around aimlessly. Finally, I find my phone and hit the snooze button. Then, with a sigh, I snuggled back under the covers. Just five more minutes, I plead with myself. But as I drift off again, I’m jolted away by the memories of yesterday’s call. My dad’s voice echoed in my mind, ‘Where were you? You missed morning prayers again!’

With that, I sit up, getting my phone to join the morning Prayers. 9:00am is the only convenient time in the morning for all six of us to pray. Jade and Juli in Paris, Jordan in London, and the middle child… I. Everyone believes I’m in Abuja, supposedly slaying my ass in Law school, but in reality, I’m actually here in Lagos, slaying my days and nights lounging on this comfy couch in my best friend’s apartment.

12:00pm

It’s time to find out what Miss. Instagram has planned for us. Scroll. Stop. Scroll. Opeyemi is at it again, consistently impressing as my favourite food critic🤭, meanwhile, Veekee James is still thriving in her ‘na collabo’ duties, additionally, her posts never fail to entertain. Bellanaijaweddings …hun. For a while, I run my finger through the unfollow botton. Every of her post is a reminder of his betrayal, a that I’m here in Lagos and not in Law school. I had gotten into a public bus from Abuja, ten hours on the road to meet Femi. My first contact with Femi was on Instagram. I rolled up the sheets to my face, oh no! I’m not about to think about Femi again.

2:00pm

My wander drifts me to Femi’s account, scrolling through the perfect life I thought I’d be in by now. I look at every picture, every post, cross reference with everything he told me and they tally, they make sense. I’m brooding over our late night texts and voice notes. I’m playing over the ones he called my name, where he let it ring in my ears that he loved me and could not wait to see me.

So, what went wrong? Where’s Femi? I had called Femi three weeks ago, specifically when I was leaving Abuja, to share the exciting news that I was coming to celebrate with him as he was about to win the contract. Meanwhile, I had also confided in him about my plans, and he seemed enthusiastic about us connecting.

That way, he can return my school fees. I loaned it to him the day I was to pay for law school. Luckily for Femi and me, they extended the payment deadline to a month. Which was two weeks ago. I’ve not been able to reach Femi. I cannot go back to Abuja.

6:00pm

There’s a loud knock on the door. I ignored the knock at first, but it was persistent. So, I reluctantly got up to answer it, hoping against hope that it might be him, finally arriving. Perhaps, I thought, he showed up at last! With a mix of excitement and trepidation, I walked to the door, turned the knob, and opened it, only to be shocked when I stared at two unexpected, gleaming figures – Mum and Dad.

My heart sinks as I stare at my parents, their faces etched with concern and disappointment. I try to mask my shock, but my voice trembles.

“Mum…Dad…what are you doing here?” I manage to stammer. The weight of his betrayal already too much to bear.

The End.

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