Nikita’s POV
Today was positively the worst day of my life. I’ve said that about a lot of days, like the time I ate raw peppers to prove that I was tough and ended up with every single pore on my face oozing for 5 hours, or the time I didn’t go for a field trip because I sick with chicken pox and everyone had a good time except me, or the time I had my menarche in the middle of Easter church service where I was wearing white and my butt looked like a crime scene and males stopped speaking to me and females won’t stop speaking to me.
Okay, today was the second worst day of my life.
I sat in the family car, roasting like a nice American turkey on thanksgiving, trying, and failing, to wipe the sweat dripping off my entire body with a now very wet handkerchief. My brother kept telling me to squeeze it to see if any water would come out of it and I didn’t because I was afraid water would come out of it and I was not mentally ready for that.
Maybe it would’ve made sense if I opened the car door at the backseat, or if I stepped out of the car, like my brother was doing now but, in this situation, it did not. I had decided to do what I wanted to do today which meant wearing what I wanted to do today which means danger in an African family, especially on a Sunday morning. I decided no earrings, because they made my earlobes itch, no tight clothes because it made sitting down a call for prayer, no makeup because it made me sweat and made me look older than I actually was and no heels because, if you asked me, heels were invented by the devil.
My mother was not happy with my recent desire to be free from useless fashion restrictions and it led to a row with her this morning and I found out she would rather have me looking ‘homeless’ than to have me not going to church at all. The awkward silence in the car was indescribable, even my brother shut up. Church wasn’t good either, that day, the church decided to have a joint service, which meant I had to be in the same church with the grownups and they wouldn’t shut up about my earrings or my lack of them. Someone’s wife even asked me if I was sick and my mum, who ‘couldn’t take it anymore’, reported me to the Osofo Maame and she sat down and spoke to be about my ‘absurd behavior’ during church service. I say sat down but she was the only one sitting, I was squatting in front of the entire church and begun to sweat a lot from the exertion because my knees were killing me. When I was finally released, I tripped, but thankfully didn’t fall because God exists, in front of everyone and marched straight to the bathroom and had my own service there that included a lot more tears than Friday night service at my church.
I trapped myself into this motorized oven when my brother got out of the service with the car keys. It did not stop the grownups from coming over to ask of the whereabouts of my parents and to ask me again what happened to my earrings. My brother, bless his soul, answered all the questions and gave all the fake smiles on my behalf and when anyone wanted to speak to me, he said I was sick. What a wonderful day today was going to be, and look, it was just 10 o’clock.
“Did you see Roses’ dressing today?” my mum said, suspiciously cheerful, as she settled all of herself, including the long-braided hair and the bag and her overly flowy clothes, into the car. At least she switched on the air-conditioning “She looked so wonderful, like a proper lady”. My dad finally settled himself into the car eyeing my mother and then giving me a half smile in the rear view mirror. My mother managed to spit out “I wonder where I went wrong” before my father sparked the car. He was about to switch on the radio when my mother placed her hand on the dashboard, daring him to remove it. As we left the church compound, she greeted and waved every single person we passed by before getting to the root of the matter.
“Nikita what is wrong with you? Why do you insist on embarrassing me, why?” she sounded near tears, it seemed she wanted to wait before we were out of the church compound before reprimanding me, loudly. She kept on asking a lot of questions that required me to answer and when I wasn’t answering because I was sobbing quietly, raised her voiced at me even more. It took a while before my father, thankfully, came to my rescue.
“Just leave the girl alone”
“Don’t bring yourself into this conversation Julius, because you are just useless in raising these children! If you wanted her to be left alone, you should’ve forced her to dress as a woman of her caliber!”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“There is nothing wrong with the way she is dressed right now! If anything, she’s dressed like a girl of her age! What’s the essence of making her wear all that nonsense, she’s 12 for God’s sake”
I was actually 13 but go dad.
“See the girls of her age! See how Rose dressed today! See how Rose is dressed every day! Why can Nikita not dress like that! How will people think of her if she chooses to dress like a homeless person?”
“At least she’s not going around with boys and getting pregnant” my brother said, trying to sound funny but failing. My mother shot him a look that could kill but didn’t address his comment and continued her rant to my father, and indirectly me, on my “childish and irresponsible behavior”.
If it were me that had interrupted my mother mid-rant, I would’ve received a beautiful slap.
I did not say a word despite my mother’s urges and my father’s less aggressive urges till I got home. I went straight to the bedroom I shared with my brother and locked myself in the bathroom. I was sorry I did that because it made me seem like I was sulking while I actually needed a bath after all that sweating but hey, a bit of sulking would help too. My mother who liked to have the last word but apparently not all the words begun to bang on the bathroom door and said many hurtful things about my body she knew I was insecure about. I slid down the bathroom wall and cried. I closed my eyes and increased the water pressure of the shower till I could barely hear myself breathe. My mother stooped after a while after my dad came to stop her and she screamed “I hope you’re happy, you just like to make everyone unhappy” for good measure.
“Can I come in?” my brother called.
“No, leave me alone”.
I eventually came out and found out my parents had gone out.
Good for me, I send people away from their own homes because I’m a terrible person to live with.
I lay down on my bed with just my towel on and closed my eyes, hoping the aliens everyone keeps talking about would come and take me away. Except the one with the probs, those freaked me out.
“You should’ve at least worn the heels” my brother whispered. I closed my eyes tighter begged the aliens to come for me, even the one with the probs “You know how mum feels about dressing. It’s important to…”
“I have had old people, the pastor, Osofo Maame and your mother, tell me this over and over and over again, several times. If you think I haven’t heard all that you are saying enough, I am telling you, I have heard it enough” I retorted, trying and failing to keep my voice from breaking.
“I’m not trying to say anything against you I’m just...”
“Shut up, okay, shut the hell up!” I was losing it, with everyone and now my brother. I wanted to pull out my hair but I didn’t have that much hair so I just scratched my head, and it begun to burn “Everyone keeps telling me what I should’ve done but does anyone really think about what I did? What did I do? They’re all talking about how I’m making everyone feel, but what about me? Doesn’t anyone care about how I feel?” I was sitting up now, tears falling freely down my cheeks but my voice was surprisingly clear.
“Nikki…” my brother tried again to spew nonsense but there was a limit to nonsense anyone could take and I had reached mine.
“Shut up! I thought twins were supposed to understand each other, even stand up for each other. How would you feel if you were forced to do things against your will everyday just because you are cursed with a vagina? Huh? And what’s with this deal about dressing up for church! Do you think God wants that? No! Read your damn bible! I am tired of everyone and everything! Like everything is so annoying, are we Christians, are we beauty pageant queens? Fuck if I knew!” my brother tried once again to get a word in but I was tired of listening to people. I was hot with anger and embarrassment and I was frustrated. I was also disappointed in him and I told him so. I didn’t even bother to check his facial expression, I threw on a top with jeans, with no bra because I thought my breasts were too small for them and my mum wasn’t here to tell me what to do. My brother quizzed me many times where I was going as I put on my boots. I said I was going to the library and ran out of the house.
I rode as hard as I could, not because I wanted to reach my destination faster, but because I wanted the wind in my face. I was beginning to regret myself, to regret being me. Why couldn’t I just conform? Why couldn’t I be mindless and as simple minded as the women in my life? What was wrong with me? The emotional roller coaster that was my life threated to spill out of me in the form of tears so I rode even harder, but the wind wasn’t enough to stop it. I wanted the wind to take me, I wanted it to take my life. I begged the wind to make me conform, to erase everything that was me and make me into Rose. I yelled at the wind, practically screamed at it, not caring who was looking. It was just the wind and the girl on a bike who didn’t want this life.
Make me like Rose!
I didn’t even realize that I had closed my eyes and when I crashed headfirst into a tree, it was quick and painless.