the kids are depressed

•JETHRO

"Jethro wakes up with guilt..."

Pushing his eyes open at 7:20 in the morning felt super strange to Jethro. He usually didn't wake until past ten—which was how he earned the nickname, "12 sharp!" by the school's security guard due to Jethro's lack of punctuality which everyone in the class knew was as a result of his main hustle: yahoo yahoo.

As usual, the first thing he did was to check his 'Binance' app—he was indifferent about the result of his earnings and yawned himself up from the bed as he said a little prayer for increase in cryptocurrency. Not peace. Not joy. Not good health (because he suffered from chronic asthma), money; that's the first and only thing he prayed for.

He was still scrolling through Twitter when a message from one of his female friends who'd found his WhatsApp status update hilarious made him smile, so much that he slipped his hands into his boxers and began to itch his pubic hair, smelling his fingers afterward, he paused with the said fingers still on his nose as the memory of his younger brother playfully screaming the words 'Ew, disgusting!' at him made him quiver in a paralyzing kind of fear. He went to the Binance app again—it was his only way of avoiding any thing that triggered the memories of his younger brother. Money.

When he was calm enough, he scrolled through his playlist and clicked on his favorite XXXTENTACION music and bobbed his head to the beat as he started making mental preparations for his day—normally, he wouldn't even be bothered or rather; found dead in a situation like the one he was about to be coerced into for the next 13 hours with kids who still watched Dstv and argued about movie characters, when he could be bombing clients on a steady, but the principal had personally sent for him and threatened to expel him if he missed the exposure exercise and the last thing he wanted was another reminder that he was a failure—he had to complete his studies, at least, do one thing right—plus some of the girls in his class were cute and they liked to keep him company and he sometimes enjoyed their immature conversations although they couldn't be compared with the in-depth conversations he had with some of the bigger girls he rolled with at the club, in fact, to them, he was the immature one clamoring for their knowledge on life.

"Are you sick?" He turned around to find his mother standing in the doorway with a concerned expression plastered on her face.

"Mumsi, Shebi I've been telling you to be knocking before coming in now, what if I was naked?" He murmured before pulling up his rugged Jean trousers which was already halfway down his legs in a style that Nigerian boys surprisingly found "cool", they called it, "sagging".

"I heard you making a sound at 7 in the morning—I thought you were having an attack now, I've never seen you awake this early in the morning before," his mother shrugged in her defense and Jethro just rolled his eyes at her before telling her that he was fine and that he needed privacy to get ready for school.

"Oh, the excursion abi?" He could tell that his mother was lonely and she needed someone to speak to because—wait a minute—because today was the 3rd remembrance of his younger brother's demise.

"Yes, the excursion," he said calmly this time, still avoiding her eyes.

"I'm glad that you're finally talking to people." She sighed and he could just tell what was going through her mind. "I'm glad you're coming back," she added.

"Yes, mum." He grunted and threw her a side glance. She was gazing at the photograph of him, his elder brother, his elder sister and their baby brother with a sad look on her face that made his heart break into a million pieces.

"I miss him," she whispered and he pretended to be struggling with his belt. That was the only way he could control the anxiety that was beginning to gather around his chest.

"I'm sorry he...I'm so sorry that he..." he stuttered whiled struggling with his belt and his mother's face fell.

"I've told you to stop blaming yourself, Jethro—if anyone is to be blamed then it's me and your father, you were only a child yourself," she tried to comfort him but it only added to his guilt as the memories of his....

"I've to have my bath mum, the school bus will soon arrive—I don't want to delay them," he grabbed his inhaler and a towel and dragged himself out of the room, leaving his mother still standing in the doorway.

Jethro's mum watched her son walk into his bathroom and for the first time in a long time, stepped into the room he used to share with his younger brother, Emmanuel. She walked up to the photograph of the both of them smiling happily in their traditional outfit and ran her fingers through the frame of the picture as he fought the tears that were slowly beginning to gather around her eyes.

Jethro's phone made a silent notification noise and his mother turned to the device on the bed and smiled not at the message that read, HEY JETTY, HAVE YOU GOTTEN INTO THE BUS? GUY RESPOND ASAP.from a person called, Temi—she smiled at her son's wallpaper. It was a selfie of him kissing the cheeks of his baby brother when he'd newly been born. She ran her hands through the phone and smiled in silence.

Jethro remembered that he needed music to function in the bathroom and as soon as he pushed the door of his bathroom open, he saw his mother smiling at his phone, completely unaware of his presence, at least that was worth he thought until she looked up and said, "I know he loves you as much as you love him and I know he's looking down at us," with a single tear drop running down her eyes—he didn't need music anymore, he needed to be distracted from his guilt by vain high-school girls.

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