Last year at Saint Patrick's

Secondary school love

It's not like you don't know what you're doing is wrong. Your mind would be singing that tune, it is your mother's voice with that sarcastic comment about plucking out your eyes if you get pregnant at an early age but you will ignore the secret siren in your head. Your hormones have become complicated and you can't control it anymore because it is what you think you want at the moment; being controlled by your own body.

It didn't feel like a surprise to anyone when you started dating that dark skinned boy from Abeokuta, Olayinka was his name, you two were inseparable and thick as thieves. You've always had eyes for him but he was dating a bisexual girl then. You hated this girl a lot not because of the gap in her teeth or her light skinned complexion but because you felt he deserved more than a girl who sent her dried blood to him on a cotton wool each time she cut herself. Wherever he was you were there after all you were class mates. Because of the craziness in your head no girl dared to be caught talking to him for more than five minutes.

They didn't want you to cause a scene where you would shake your big breast, tap your feet on the ground and eye them with disgust like Caro in the Fuji house of commotion sitcom you watched as a child. You didn't want to share him anyone so became possessive—he was the oldest in the class and you didn't care because you loved the way he made you feel every time those notes reached your hand. The ones he would write all about what the taste of your lip felt like, the urge to knead your breast and kiss you more. You know that you would get into so much trouble if those notes fell in the wrong hands so you always tore them into many tiny pieces but there was one you tore into five pieces and left on the floor in the chapel where you sat. The chapel prefect gathered the pieces and arranged them to form the original shape of the note and discovered what happened every night behind the place of her duty. You wouldn't know because she kept it as her own secret and she didn't tell a soul.
One day the priest in charge caught both of you rocking to Wizkid's samba komaro in the class.

Your classmates were supposed to prepare for the social night presentation when the social prefect rolled in the speaker that caused walls and the doors to vibrate. The sound of music drew the attention of students running around and they remained there to watch; that was what got him very agitated, that both of you were teaching the junior ones how to rock themselves. You didn't look afraid but your heart pounded against your chest like a wrestlers' fists against a punching bag.
The thin branches of dongoyaro Festus and Tunji stacked and dumped before you sent that 'e don finish' feeling to consume you and goosebumps creeped over your skin still you didn't regret your actions and you didn't renounce your senseless love for Micheal even as the continuous flogging left ugly bruises on your fine skin. Your scream from pain was heard from the priest's lounge, it filled the dormitories and hushed every person that was still awake during siesta chatting and soaking.
He stopped the flogging when he was satisfied with the bruises on your body. It was enough warning for lovers who were yet to be caught. With your crocodile tears he sent you away from his presence and you went away, cried yourself to sleep and ditched evening prayers and the social night so you could hear his cry and feel pity for him since everyone had gone to the chapel.

Despite everything that happened you still sent one trusted and sensible junior to give him a note that you wrote, telling him how sorry you were for causing him pain. You didn't need a response from him because the next day you both got suspended. You didn't know this and no one told you but I watched that priest cry the day you both went home. I watched him closely when he massaged his temple with one hand and the other wiping off the uncontrollable tears of his eyes and his words that dropped was Micheal was supposed to be my head boy. I expected him to call you a stupid girl but his mouth remained sealed for the one hour I sat there with the intention of trying to put a call through my parents. I fixed my attention to the programme on the television while I waited for my turn to get the phone.

I thought so little of him that moment and wondered why he would cry over someone he had badly bruised by flogging; perhaps he had expected so much from him and began to hate himself for the disappointment—the path he chose just for the sake of discipline but it didn't mean that he hated you. All he wanted to do was to make you see that no one ever married the persons they fell in love with in secondary school. Even if it did, it was once in a blue moon and once in a blue moon was one percent chance out of a hundred possibility. Still you wouldn't listen. And this time he wouldn't flog you wet dongoyaro branches or punish you for long hours. He will leave you to see life for yourself and learn from mistakes; that's if you are able to learn from it without getting beaten up by regret.

At the end of the day, you too will boast that you did things in school. But what did it cost you?