chapter 19

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Don't waste your life 

trying to impress others.

~ Anonymous

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The church service was longer than expected, and Emily blamed it on the naming ceremony. Although, she didn't complain much, because the youth there were worth her coming. She liked their vibe and went with the flow. More importantly, they helped clear her mind of any thought regarding Martin.

By the end of the service, Emily had collected and given out her number to a dozen number of people.

“Emily, I've been looking for you!” One girl ran out of the church to meet her by the right end of the entrance. 

Emily couldn't remember the girl's name, but played along by plastering a smile on her face. She concluded that if the girl had made a solid impression, she wouldn't have had a hard time remembering her name.

“I wanted us to take some selfies,” the girl told her, and she agreed. 

They were taking pictures, when a masculine voice boomed a greeting from behind them.

“Jide, what do you want now?” The girl asked in her scrawny voice.

“Can't I greet somebody again?” Jide asked.

“No.” 

“Diana, I didn't come for you o. Just pack yourself and be going.”

An invisible light bulb lit up in Emily's head immediately. ‘Diana!’

“Who are you now here for?” Diana asked, though smiling.

It was like she enjoyed having him around than she hated to admit.

Jide ignored her and offered Emily a handshake. “Hi. My name is Jide.”

Jide was tremendously fit, probably even more muscular than Bankole. He was the impressive definition of TDH (tall, dark and handsome). Although he looked a lot older than Emily, Emily couldn't care less, as she took his hand.

“I'm Emily.”

“Emily,” he sang softly and released her hand. “Beautiful name.” 

She smiled. “Thank you.” 

“You're welcome.” He clapped his hands. “You're welcome to Christ' Disciples Ministry. I hope you had a lovely time today?” 

“Yeah, I did. It was nice.”

“I hope to see you again.” He winked.

Emily was about to reply him, when she saw Jessica standing a couple of distances from them, eyeing Jide's back with her arms crossed.

“Jessica?” She said and Jide turned around.

A steely glint in Jide's eyes caused a questionable frown to cross his face, and Emily wondered if he knew Jessica.

“Emily?” Jessica made her way to them, tilting her head. “What are you doing here?” 

Emily intended to give her a sarcastic reply, but then decided against it. “I'm here with my aunt and cousins for the naming ceremony. One of our neighbours invited us.”

Jessica clapped her hands together, wearing a grin. “Really? That's nice!” 

“You guys know each other?” Jide asked, staring at the two girls.

“Yeah,” Emily said. “We go to the same school.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really?” 

Jessica turned to him. “Dad wants to see you.” 

‘Dad?’

Jessica's grin never left her face and it was starting to creep Emily out. 

There was a slight hesitation in Jide's steps, before he finally made a decision to leave.

“See you next Sunday,” he called at Emily.

“You too,” she called back, although she wasn't so sure about that any more. Considering the fact that Jessica was here too.

Emily hadn't realized how much she didn't want to see Jessica again, until that moment. 

Jessica hadn't done anything wrong to her; in fact, the only thing Jessica did the day before was being all over Bankole — which Emily found extremely disgusting — and had also smoked the heck out of a designer cigarette pack she was holding.

It was a little disturbing for her to see Jessica smoke to that extent. It wasn't that she wasn't acquainted with smokers — Bidemi, who had been expelled from her former school had been a chronic smoker. Emily just hadn't expected to see such from Jessica.

And there was also the thing with she and Martin. If he was as close with his friends as he had told her, that'd mean they all knew — that thought made her feel tense.

Emily hadn't notice Diana was still standing beside her, till she saw the long, hard stare Jessica was giving the girl.

“Can you excuse us?” Jessica told her.

Diana wasn't too pleased with the supposed request, but left anyway. 

Jessica gave Emily a look, standing on one hip. 

“What?” Emily asked with a confused smile on her face.

“Nothing.” Jessica shook her head, smiling.

She knows, Emily decided, and a chill running down her spine caused her shoulders to stiffen even more. 

“So, how are you?” Jessica asked. “What am I saying?” — she laughed — “You're looking great.”

“Emily!” a familiar voice cut in from afar. 

Grace ran up from behind Jessica to give Emily a tight hug that almost knocked the air out of her.

“Grace, you're killing me,” Emily chocked out, and Grace let go.

“Sorry.” Grace bounced on her heels, grinning. “I wasn't expecting to see you here.”

“Neither was I expecting to see you here,” Emily told Grace.

Nor was she hoping to see anyone of them, till the next day at school. The party the night before had made her realize how green SHE was — even when compared to someone as tiny and innocent-looking as Grace.

While the party was still going on, Emily had taken a bathroom break, and had come out to see Grace kissing a guy way older than her. But when she had asked Grace if that was her boyfriend, Grace had simply laughed and shook her head. Like she had asked if humans had two heads. 

Now, not only did she find out that Grace was sexually active, despite her age, she also found out that Grace was a habitual user of the flavoured, single-stemmed instrument called hookah, a.k.a. Shisha.

There was no doubt they must have seen her as a cub amongst lions, and Emily hated that. She was determined to prove to them that she was mature enough to make decisions like they do.

“Oh, this is our church,” Grace had later said.

“Our church?” Emily asked.

“Yeah. Dave,” — Grace counted her fingers as she mentioned — “Ope, Jessica, Martin and I.”

“Martin's here too?” Emily started looking over their heads.

“He's probably upstairs.”

Christ's Disciples Ministry was enormous, so Emily could understand why she hadn't seen Martin, or any of them for that matter.

“Where exactly? I need to talk to him,” Emily was saying, when her aunt called her from the church entrance.

“Let's go home,” Aunt Jane told her and collected the carton of fruit juice Mercy was holding, prompting Mercy to whine loudly, while stomping her feet.

“Your aunt?” Jessica pointed.

“Yeah. I've got to go,” Emily said, disappointed. 

~~~

Whenever Emily's phone buzzed, she checked to know if it was a message or a call from Martin. But each time, disappointment prevailed, and she sunk deeper into a depressed state. 

Her phone rang again, and she sat up, grabbing the object from her table. But it was Isabelle. Again. She muted the ringtone and dropped the phone on her desk. 

Isabelle probably wanted to know how she was doing and if she was awake. When she had come to visit later that afternoon, after they had come home from church, Emily had pretended to be asleep.

She didn't want Isabelle seeing her in the state she was. She knew if she had let Isabelle stay, the girl would have figured something was wrong. And she'd much rather lose a foot than hear an 'I told you so' from Isabelle.

While staring hard at the blue-painted wall of her room, she tried so hard to fight back the tears that threatened to spill. Why was Martin doing this to her? She already apologized for not telling him. She was sorry and needed him to at least hear her out. But him ignoring her hurt more than the fact that she was no longer a virgin. 

A notification caused her phone to chime loudly, and she reached for it. But It was an e-mail. From her brother. Again. He had been the one who emailed her that morning.

She almost smashed her phone against the wall, when common sense told her not to. Hesitantly, she lowered her hand and opened the message.

‘Hi, big sis. Noah here. Again. But this time, imagine me inches taller than the last time I sent you a picture.’

Emily laughed in spite of herself.

‘Remember Kira? The girl I told you I had a crush on. Yeah, that one. Turns out she's as boring as Craig predicted. Totally dumped her. I think now I want to be more focused on school. Love's just not for your kid bro.’

A smile. A sincere one that made tears slip easily from Emily's eyelids.

 A large space followed before the next message.

‘Mom misses you. So does dad.’

She sniffed, brushing the tears from her eye.

‘We all miss you. When will you come home?’

“Home,” she muttered.

Lightning flashed in the dark sky, and thunder clapped, carrying with it a terrifying rumble. And just then, the first rain in months finally hit the ground.