Broken | ✓

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN: STAGGER

                                 Jide

The mighty ones fall too. Chief Femi Oluitan fell. He was having a heart attack when he battled with me. Luckily for him, when he collapsed, Dunnie walked in and was able to give him CPR before the ambulance arrived as none of us present could do it. Aunty Taiye was fidgeting thinking I killed him while Ay was still in processing mode. I didn’t voice it out loud but I wanted to watch life slip out of him the way he watched life slipped out of my mother.

The doctor let us know that his heart was in bad condition and from the tests, it seemed like he had been neglecting it. Since I was in the hospital, Aunty Taiye made the nurses clean my cuts that were reopened because of the squabble and also tend to the bruises I refused the last nurse touching.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ay asked.

“What would you have done if I had said something?”

“Something, anything for God’s sake” he scratched his head.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Chief has connections everywhere and Nigerians are very greedy people. A thousand box would have made it all go away” I replied. Everybody knows the one with the money has the power and power equals influence.

“I can’t believe he killed your mother. I knew he was horrible but not this horrible” Aunty Taiye interjected.

“Would you have believed me if I had told you?” I looked up at Ay.

“Of course, I would have, what do you mean?” he asked, puzzled.

“Well for a long time you refused to believe the man intentionally hurts me, I’m not sure if you believe me now” I spoke from a place of hurt.

“Jide…”

“Do you believe he hates me?” I asked.

“I believe he is too hard on you but he doesn’t hate you” he answered.

“Why isn’t he hard on you then? I wasn’t a bad kid till he killed my mother”

“You at least had all of mum’s love” he muttered.

“You think mum was partial? Mum loved you and I equally, if it ever seemed like she loved me more, it was because she was filling in for a nonexistent parent” I yelled. A wound itches a little, next thing you are scratching and bleeding out.

“Jide, calm down” Aunty Taiye patted my shoulder.

“You had life easy. You had the love and admiration of both parents. I had only one and your old man took her” A tear escaped my eye.

I was four years old when I first realized my father didn’t like me much. He would give Ay piggy rides and when I asked for one, he would send me away. I met my mother one afternoon and told her “Daddy doesn’t like to play with me”. Something clouded her face, something I now know as heartache. So, she decided to give me piggy rides. Later on, I went from daddy doesn’t like to play with me to why does daddy like Ay more to daddy doesn’t like me and the final step the man hates me. Each time those statements hit her ears; she tucked her tears in the same way she tucked me to bed every night.

My mother looked at Ay the same way she glanced at me; eyes full of so much love but my father glared at me while he glanced at Ay lovingly. I use to follow Ay everywhere he went when I was little because I wanted to be like him. In my childlike mind, I thought if I was more like Ay then maybe my father would love me too. Ay was the best elder brother anyone could ask for, he was always there but he pretended not to know my father despised me, so he sugarcoated it with words like “hard”

“She was the only one who loved me and he took her away from me” When my mother died, it felt like I was stripped naked because she was my covering. She was so much more, she was like God to me.

“He took her away from me” I repeated and broke down. They tell you that after a while you learn to live without the lost person but a decade had passed and it still felt like the day, I held her bloodied body in my hands never gave tomorrow a chance.

“She died because I was born. If I was never born then maybe he would have trusted her and she would still be living. I am a disaster” I cried.

“Shhh, don’t say that Jide. You are not a disaster, if anything you are a beautiful soul” Aunty Taiye embraced me. If only she knew.

I freed myself from Aunty Taiye’s arms and stood up.

“Where are you going to?” she asked.

“Anywhere but here” I walked off.

Is life worth living if all you do is stagger through each day?

I wanted to continue writing but it felt right to stop here. This chapter sha made me want to cry majorly cos I'm a cry baby 😩😩 but but this Jide's life is sha hard. I'm feeling a bit sick. Cold and I don't mix well and Ilorin is coldddd. Anyways the usual, votes and comments.  Thanks again for sticking with me . love y'all