CHAPTER ONE

I hear my home phone ring but I am not in the right state of mind to talk to anyone.
The caller should just drop a message like the twenty others before her/him. With some controls
on my Bluetooth linked ear pod, I can listen to the messages left me.
“Lola, this is like the tenth time I’m calling you. You are not responding to my messages or chat.
You are not picking my calls either. I said I am sorry. What do you want me to do? Please, let’s
go back to the way we were before. Before all this. I am truly sorry. So sorry. Please forgive me.
It has been like what…four days now? Let’s make up and forget the past, please. You are the only
true friend I have. Girl, please we have been friends for over two decades. Do not let anything
take that away from us, please. I am so sorry please forgive me. Call me. I love you.”
I have no idea what day today is or what time for that matter. I hear knocks on my door outside
but I’m too weak to lift myself from the bed. I did rather let whoever is on the other side assume I
am not home. I just want to sleep. Sleep and forget.
My phone’s ring tone woke me from sleep. It is seated 5 meters from me on my study table. I
stare at it willing it to stop ringing.
After a while, I clicked the play button on my ear pod to listen to the message and once again, I
hear Sade’s voice:
“Babe, pick na. On my way home yesterday from work, I dropped by your apartment, you were
not home. You know how much I do not like that your over-perfect fiancé, but I had to reach out
to him just so I could, maybe get through to you. What is going on Babe? You are not like this
na…please, I’M SO SORRY…let’s make…”
“Sade the Clients are here. We need to move.” I hear Sade’s business partner, Chris, calling out to
her.
“I have to go now. You know that deal Chris and I are trying to land; I think we might just have
the breakthrough with it this time. Chris just called me now that those guys are here. I have to go
now. Babe call me. I love you.”

The message ended. I dropped the device and went back to sleep. I tried to go back to sleeping but sleep would not come back to me, I stood to go freshen up. Once done, I lay on the couch in my sitting room and watched the whole event of my life playing out before me. I began to sob uncontrollably...

This is the first of my many short series guys.. I'll appreciate constructive criticism and support

Peace

©omolara khadijat tijani

“This is no longer funny. Should I be worried? What going on? Even Adedayo is no longer
picking my calls. Should I call home? Should I call your Aunt? Babe I’m worried. I am going out
of the country to Dubai for a week. I will come to your place on my way from work. Please be
home when I get there…I am getting worried now”
Another message from Sade. I clicked on the next button on my device to listen to the next
message:
“Lola, what’s all this?
I was just on the phone with one of the facilitators of the entrepreneurial
class I registered you to attend.
I asked you on several occasions if you were interested.
I asked you if you will be able to attend and you said yes.
You said you worked it in such a way
that your leave period would fall on the days for the classes.
We spoke at length about this
matter.
So, what’s all this? Do you think 150k is small money? I get its way less compared to your
monthly income, but you just cannot do this.
For Christ's sake, it is only a 5 days class!
Do you think of the people you will meet there? The
connection you will make. Even if not for yourself, then for ME? We spoke about this Lola. I am
very disappointed. Do you even think about me when you make certain decisions? Do you?
Do you really?

I am so beyond disappointed. I signed you up for several free classes; you brought up excuses why you could not attend.

I keep thinking about our future as it were. This is the second time I am paying for a class just to add value to you, to US! But no, this…this…this is
what I get.
Right, this is what I get! I don’t think I want to see you. Do not come to the airport tomorrow. Just
continue making decision as though you have no one to be accountable to…Unbelievable!”

This message, this last message I just listened to from Adedayo, the man I am pledged to marry,
the man who is to one day be the father of my children, hearing his voice was what finally broke me. Broke whatever yet was to be broken.....

Right behind you!

AryEmber:
Right behind you!

Thank you ma'am this means a lot more than you know

CHAPTER 2
.. let's listen to a song by Lewis Capaldi – ‘Someone You Loved’, and when we get back, we read
the last message for today. Do not change the dial. Its Three Threes FM…33.3. I will be right
back.
(Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi)
I’m going under, and this time, I fear there’s no one to save me.
This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy
I need somebody to heal, somebody to know
Somebody to have, somebody to hold
.
.
.I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug
I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved
***music fades***
That was a beautiful song. Beautifully sang. Lewis has this honest sad tune to his voice. You can
like actually feel the pain. Beautiful!
My name is Ife and every Thursday from 4pm – 5pm on Three Threes FM, I will be your
listening ear. You can tell me your stories and I will empathize with you. We all need someone to
hear our side of the event. So, I will read the last message for today and we will close the show
with it. Okay, the letter is from….errmm…no name….okay. So I start.
I do not know if I want to have my story made public or kept private. Maybe I do want my story
to go public, maybe I have finally gone mad and I am just this close to bursting. I felt you could
be my channel.
Please, I am in no way suicidal or anything like that. I think I am simply looking for
redemption...salvation...advice...hope...I really do not know. I just need an outlet of some sort...I
just feel so choked up…so…so choked…
I do not even know where to start. Lol…and I am one eloquent Lady. Hmmm…If people who
know me were to hear that I want to cut off my relationship with my fiancé, they would use
certain choice of words to describe me…emm…words like…”Mad”, “Insane”, “Sick”,
“Ungrateful”, “the Had I know set”…lol… except for maybe, my friend Sade who would probably celebrate with me

I am a 31 years old Lady who is currently dating one of the country’s most influential motivational speaker. He has traveled abroad to give speeches, he consults for different firms, holding courses on relationship management and personal development, he builds up homes that would have otherwise fallen apart, he has genius skill on the piano; on Sundays in church, on days he can, he plays for the church. He is well respected and loved.

Even though he is a motivational speaker and a life coach on a full-time basis, he has a passion for education. As I write to you, he is currently out of the country for a 2 years Master's program. The management at the place he works sponsored him.

His love for God and his skills with the piano were what first attracted me to him. My pastor not even knowing I had liked the brother from long ago introduced us with the hope that things work out between us. I had this other friend back then who was constantly nagging me about her interest in introducing someone to me and was so certain I would like the person. When the meeting was finally arranged, it turned out to be the same young man from church.

A match made in Heaven you would say, right?

You went to UNILAG, So you would know AKT (Akintunde Ojo). I go there to read almost every night. I had a triangular life back then. From lecture halls to hostels to church. No more no less. There were many places inside the University I didn’t know. On this one night, I made a new friend, Ezekiel. We chatted a while when I came down much later for fresh air.

I had the pressing urge to pee and I did not want to use the public toilet made available so I bent down at a corner just outside the toilet facility to ease myself. When I was done, a group of guys; three of them, accosted me. They threatened me and said if I made even as much as a whimper they did stab me before a soul could get to me. I cooperated and went with them. From AKT, we walked around and came to a place; there I met Ezekiel with another guy. Ezekiel seems to have been their spy;
the charming one to lure information from innocent girls.

Ezekiel asked me for my phone and collected my purse from me. At this time, I was trembling. The other guy with Ezekiel seems to be the head of the group as they had asked him what to do with me. Ezekiel had immediately spoken up, telling the others to release me and was giving me the last warning or threat of not telling anyone when their boss spoke up, instructing them to rape me in turns.

Four of them raped me except the boss. He stood there in the darkest shadows, giving instructions on who goes next while masturbating to me being raped!

When they were through with me, he told his boys to have me cleaned and dressed. All this they did with the knife held to my throat. Then left me and ran off.

15 years down the line and I am still plagued by this trauma.

It keeps me up at night especially when the date of the incidence; the 25th of May, draws near. In most of my nightmares, anytime I get close to the boss and try to pull him out of the dark to see his face, I feel thousands of hands, beating, molesting and pulling at me, preventing me.

When I try to focus on his voice, oddly, sometimes it transitions to my fiancé’s voice. But I pay it no attention.

About 2 weeks ago, I received a call from my mother-in-law to come keep her company. After a while, she brought out a family photo album I had not seen before and was taking me through events surrounding each picture when we got to one where my fiancé was shirtless with Ezekiel, showing off a freshly done tattoo.

I remembered that tattoo as clear as day! I saw the tattoo on the boss 15 years ago as they were running off that fateful night. My fiancé’s mum was proudly telling me that was his first-ever tattoo and he had gotten it with four of his other friends to celebrate her that day.

I LOST IT and ran out mad!

© Tijani Omolara

Something about this story seems to tug at my consciousness as I listened to the show anchor; Ife, bring the show to a close after expressing how deeply concerned she was for the writer and made promises to reach out to her.

I could not shake the feeling that I needed to remember an event, which maybe, was tied to the story I just listened to on Three Threes FM. I began thinking about my immediate family member, wanting to know if anyone’s narrative fit into that story. However, there was no one.

It has started raining at this time, raining hard. I once loved rainfalls. I remembered the good old days when, whenever my family and I go spend holidays in my father’s Cousins place, we the children would all cluster in the room of one of the twins, and appoint someone from among us to read to us a horror story.

At other times, the holiday place could be at my own father’s home or anyone of the elder’s home. Whoever’s home it was we were going to visit for the holiday, we the children were always together, doing our own thing. We kept this tradition for years even as we grew into teenagers until some horrific events which made our parents fight and exchange words occurred.

No matter how quiet they thought they were going on about their issues, we the kids heard snippets and could guess that trouble was brewing in paradise; it was clear that there was tension everywhere. It came as no surprise when our parents stopped contacting each other and my father forbade certain family names. This, of course, affected our little ‘gang’.

We were six in our gang, well almost 6. There was this very shy girl that wouldn’t leave her parents’ side whenever the elders meet up in someone’s home for meetings in the disguise of holidays. They stopped showing up after a while and when I asked about them, at one time, I was told the girl’s parents had died in a car accident. At other times, I was told they had moved out of the country. After a while, I stopped caring. What was her name again? Was it Laura? Lara? Lola? It should be one of the three.

Adeolu; one of the other twins; the troublesome one, had taken a liking to her and we teased him a lot about it back then. What sweet memories! The twins were Identical. It took many pranks later before I was finally able to tell them apart. Adeolu and Adedayo. It really does feel a lifetime ago.

Adedayo is now a life coach. It has been over a year since we last spoke. We don’t even have anything to talk to each other about really. Who would have guessed? Adedayo, a Life Coach! Well, he was the smartest among us all and had been the one who had worked extra hard to keep his family together following the series of events surrounding the death of Adeolu. Hmmmm...indeed a lifetime ago.


I woke from my reverie, walked up the stairs to my daughter’s room, to check up on her. She was still sound asleep; my pretty angel. I readjusted the blanket to cover her well, kissed her and gently walked out her room leaving the door ajar. I went back downstairs to the sitting room, picked my phone and saw four missed calls from Adedayo on WhatsApp. I was truly surprised. I called him back. He picked immediately as though he was hoping I call back.

His first set of words to me

“Zainab, I was wrong. I was terribly wrong”

He sounded like someone that has been crying for a while. I couldn't bring myself to tease him.

“Ade, be calm. What happened? Are you crying? Are you walking? Are you crying while walking?” I asked him

“Please Zainab, I need your help. I was just on the phone with my mum. She said she has been trying to reach me for weeks. She has also been trying to reach Lola too. I was so wrong Zainab. I thought it was the other sister. The one here in the UK. The one here at the University. I was so wrong. Mum told me about Lola and the picture.

Please, do you have a pen? Write down these addresses. Please help me check up on her. Please. I am coming back to Nigeria on Sunday. Please just hold her until I get there. I am working on the process….and just…write down this address...”

He sounded panicked and anxious at the same time and he was stammering. Ade never stammers unless he gets overwhelmed. Who is Lola anyways? What picture?

“Okay, Ade. I will go see her and bring her home with me. It would be better to send me the address and her phone number on WhatsApp. My husband is not home yet. He should be home soon. I will explain to him and leave thereafter to bring her home with me. I need you to be calm Ade. Please. I have a few questions but I will wait until you are here. Be calm Ade. Stop crying.” I tried to soothe him

“Thank you, Zainab. Call me when she is with you. I was terribly wrong. Thank you, Zainab. I owe you”

“Sure, you do and I will collect. You know me na.” An attempt to brighten his mood.

Many promises and assurance later, the call ended. I immediately tried the number he sent me but my call went straight to voicemail. I sure hope all is well.

Ahmed; my husband came in at past 8 pm. When he was done praising my cooking skills after dinner, I told him about the call with Ade. He agreed I go bring the Lady home and said he would help arrange the guest room for her.

I drove off into the night to Lola’s apartment.

© Tijani Omolara

To say my heart is heavy would be an understatement. I have spent all my adult life seeking to make restitution. Restitution to the Onileolas’ family. The quest of which made me propose to Lola, marriage, barely 6 months into the relationship thinking that way, I can have free access to her younger sister. I had focused all my attention on the younger sister, getting her stuff from my travels, always responding to her every need once I get to know.

Even when we three go out to spend time together, I would always pay more attention to her; gently probing her about a night, she never seems to remember and I had attributed that to trauma. Not knowing she could not recount anything because nothing had happed to her! I had not been able to comprehend Adeolu could ever do that…that…to Lola - the little girl he once had a crush on. And had believed it to be her younger sister. Lola had once challenged me if I was involved with her younger sister due to the extra attention I pay her. I had laughed it off and made a joke off it.

Stupid me! Stupid…stupid me! I should have known. The nightmares she mentions occasionally. I had thought it was her way of seeking my attention, as the nightmares do not occur whenever we are together.

This is the second time one of the Airhostess will come ask me if everything was all right with me. With red eyes brimming with tears, I had nodded in the affirmative. But what right do I have to be all right? I looked down at the series of tattoos on my left hand and my eyes were glued to one in particular.

Mum had been diagnosed with ‘Intermittent Insanity’. This illness started shortly after our birth. It would start suddenly and last for short periods. She has been going in and out of psychiatry hospitals. This time however we had almost lost her. The illness came while she was behind the wheels. To celebrate her victory over death, although she still has to go to the rehabilitation center, Adeolu who had always wanted to get a tattoo done, seeing that as his opportunity had suggested and convinced dad and I, we all get a tattoo. So, we did. We got the same tattoo done on our left arm. That was my first tattoo. Mum had been so happy, moved and proud. Adeolu had however taken it a notch further by making his group of friends have the same tattoo done. His reason was that to him, they were also his family.

Before all hell broke loose, we were a happy family. Dad was doing great in his business. He and his goons. They deal in Golds and in Oilrigs. Dad had at one time tried to explain the scope of his business to us but I wasn't interested. Adeolu, however, was so fascinated by the dangers and numbers manipulations. He became dads’ favorite. Dad would take him along to business trips in Ghana, Cameroon and sometimes to Dubai to learn more about the business.

My dad and his business partners meet up regularly with each other families during holidays and social functions. In fact, we spend our holidays in a rotational manner. One family may host everyone this particular holiday and another family will be the host for the following one. It was in this circle I made my first set of friends. Zainab, Daniella, Tobechukwu (we had Lola too but her dad rarely brings her along).

We were always together on each holiday. Playing pranks, doing our own thing. One night many years ago, I was sneaking to the sitting room to watch the TV thinking my parents would be long asleep when I heard voices coming from downstairs in my dad’s office. I had wanted to run back into my room when curiosity got the better of me. I tiptoed toward the office’s door, and carefully opened it a little. I could see my dad and Zainab’s dad. There was somebody else in the room. My dad was the one doing the talking. He was talking persuasively to the third person, telling him he doesn’t have to go to Dubai and see Abu-Bakr. That Abu-Bakr already has his suspicions; getting his hand on the financial data will confirm his suspicions. And this will mean ruin for all of them.

“I don’t care. My conscience won’t allow me. Was that why you both kept this from me? Is Emeka aware? Does he know about this too?” The third person was Lola’s dad. I recognized his voice.

“Do you not understand what giving that data in your hands to Abu would do to us? TO ALL OF US! To what we have worked hard for all these years? Do you not understand?” My dad quietly screamed at Lola’s dad.

“I will not be part of this conspiracy. Hear me and hear me well…the both of you. I, Onileola Samson will not take part in this. My integrity means more to me” Lola’s dad replied with anger, walking away toward the door.

I quickly ran back upstairs to my room. The next morning at breakfast, Lola’s dad's chair was empty. When I asked my dad about him, his reply to me was that he had to rush home for an emergency. I knew better. Many holidays later, The Onileolas family stopped coming to our functions. Adeolu who had taken a liking for Lola had asked why they had stopped coming. We were told at one time they had relocated abroad and at other times, we were told they were involved in a ghastly accident and had died. We always wondered what had truly happened. However, after a while, we stopped caring.

By the time mum would come back from the rehabilitation center, in a span of 21/2 weeks, a whole lot has happened.

At first, I started noticing tensions between my dad and Tobechukwu’s dad. Then the secretive meetings dad was having with Adeolu. Adeolu had become dad’s right hand at this point. If there was any shady thing dad needs done, Adeolu has “the right contacts” for the Job. How he was able to command men way older than he was at such a young age of nineteen remains a mystery to me. He had once invited me to a club and formally introduced me to his gang. I remembered getting a weird vibe from one of them. Ezekiel was his name. Adeolu, however, seems to trust him completely. To him, that was his own right-hand man.

Our dad had told us one Sunday afternoon that he was going to his cousin’s (Zainab’s dad) place. Not long after, Adeolu received an urgent call from Zainab’s dad asking him to come meet him in his home. I knew it was another one of their “meetings”. I couldn’t be less bothered.

The slam of the door was what had woken me. At first, I was disorientated then I slowly registered my environment realizing I had slept off on the couch. I looked at the time it was past 8 pm. I heard smashing sounds coming from the kitchen. I went in and was alarmed at the sight before me. Broken glassware everywhere, with drops of blood on the floor. I watched Adeolu pick up the rack of plates in anger and was about to smash it. I quickly ran to him to stop him. Struggles later, he collapsed on me, sobbing uncontrollably and began to tell me a horrifying tale.

© Tijani Omolara

AryEmber:
Right behind you!

.

please do u hav nyansh? Big?