She Is Blind

Chapter Nineteen: New Beginning

I knew deep inside me, that saying I did not miss Gift would be self-deception. Several times I wanted to talk to her, and tell her how much I missed her, and how my experience coming to Lagos had been, and how much I missed the feeling of having her in my arms again, and above all, how truly sorry I was for my impudent outburst about her condition, and how much I wanted to do anything to get her to tell me she loved me again, but ego, and to a bigger extent, shame, kept me from doing so.

Ever since I reached Lagos, I wanted to call her and tell her I still loved her, and promise her I would never hurt her feelings again, but I dreaded what she would say in reply. Even more times, I often stared at her phone number, and her photos in my phone too, staring until the stinging sensation that signalled tears in my eyes came.

But no reminder hit harder than the locket she had given me. I had intended to leave it at home, and still yet, the day after I had come to Lagos, while unpacking my clothes to hang them on one of the nails in the wall that Ayo had helped me to knock in the wall, the locket fell out of one of my shirts. I was mystified, wondering how it had ever gotten into my bag, and still glad that it was there. I kissed it, and hung it on my neck, and once again feeling it against my chest, I had been reminded of the day she had given it to me, and what she had done after giving it.

'There was no way she would love anyone else but me, if she could give that sacrifice just for me'

And sitting there, on the floor in Ayo's house in Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, I had come to the grim realization one more time that I had killed about the only true love that I could find with my two hands, one hand was my insecurities and the other hand, my ego.

The day that the Orientation ceremony was held for the new students in the University of Lagos, was a day to remember for me. It was slated to begin by 10AM, but Ayo had woken me up by 5AM and ensured we had left the house by 6:30AM, and that was the beginning of my many regrets. I was horrified, when Ayo got involved in a banter with a bus conductor, surprised at how they were arguing loudly and shouting, and impressed with how he was using his plump body to intimidate the bus conductor.

Entering the bus was another drama, as I had never seen so many people struggle to get into one vehicle before and it left me so stunned that I did not understand what was happening till I felt someone pull me in, and I had only realized it was Ayo when I was inside the bus. Throughout the journey, he started a long lecture of being street smart in Lagos and later showed me landmarks I would use to get home when I was done with the orientation since he had somewhere to go that morning. And even though it was a short distance, I felt as though I had relived my Abuja to Lagos journey once again, and also felt a bit devastated when Ayo left me at the school gates, because I kept wondering how I would undertake the perilous journey on my own.

I had never been to the university before, and somehow, the massive and almost endless expanse of land that it was situated on did not cease to marvel me. I had never really been in a university before, and the size was so big that I wondered how I would be able to find my way around. Another thing was the large number of students that had been admitted into 100 level at the same time as me, and I wondered if I would still remember Gift with all the millions of girls around. Several of them were so beautiful that I drew my breath in when they passed, but I kept a cool head and did not talk to any one of them because of the painful discovery that among the students here, were the rich and the poor, the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, and so I avoided being acquainted with any of them, before I attached myself to a girl who was likely to be richer than my entire family combined, or a witch from the depths of Hell itself.

I had also found out, that no matter the deplorable condition that the country was in, there were people with money, and lots of it at that. My surprise at the cars some students in 100 level just like me were driving was one to leave my eyes wide open, cars I knew I could only drive if I worked very hard. I had never really felt degraded before, but the clothes some students were wearing made mine feel like rags, and even my trusty phone felt like a calculator when I looked at the phones some students had. I took solace in the fact that there were students who I was better than too.