She Is Blind

Chapter Twenty-Three: Friends

Amina’s chauffeur took us to the junction that connected the roads that led to our respective homes, and she surprised the both of us by giving us some food she had secretly packed up for us, because she wanted us to enjoy her cooking. I was flattered when she threw her arms around my neck for an embrace and ignored Peter, saying he was going to be rigid and shy.

I felt a kind of regret as the red lights at the back of the jeep slowly disappeared, the same way I felt when Gift left Nigeria, and I knew that Amina had become a friend, and not just a friend but even more than just a friend. I was too lost in my thoughts to even remember Peter, and when I turned to him I noticed his eyes were fixed on me with a kind of unscrutable expression, one that made him look lost in his own head.

I waved my hands before I realized he was not looking at me at all, and waved them again before his attention came back to me.

“What’s on your mind bro?” I asked him.

“Man she’s just the kindest soul on earth. It is way beyond her food and riches, but I feel so possessive towards her, like… She is now so dear to me.”

“Do you love her?” I asked him.

“Hell no. No way. I am just saying that she is more like a tight friend to me now.”

I nodded, praying and hoping silently that she would not take Blessing’s place in my heart as my best friend.

We separated, and by the time I was back home, Peter called to inform me that his roommates had already downed his food, and I laughed at him, advising him to marry Amina if he wanted more. At home I found a worried Ayo waiting for me, saying he had tried to reach me but to no avail, and had been too worried to go for a party. I apologized to him and he cooled down, but he got more pacified when I showed him the food. I narrated everything that happened to him and we burst into laughter at the funniest parts of the story as he ate part of the food.

“How I wish say I get that kind magnanimous friend when I dey school. I for no too suffer like that.” he said dreamily after he had finished eating and was using a toothpick to clean his teeth.

I nodded my head in agreement, and partly because I was sleepy. He noticed it and asked me to go and sleep in the room, and no sooner than I had fallen on the bed before I fell asleep, forgetting the test I had to read for, my dreams filled with images of all that happened that day.

Amina, Peter and I grew closer by the day. Although she was in a different and far away faculty, we somehow still managed to spend as much time as we could with her, and always called her anytime we did not see her after we were done with our own lectures. For the rest of the test we read our mutual courses together, and shared so many experiences we had before university.

We had also gotten to meet her brother Amin too, some guy who reeked of the smell of money, and lots of it at that. He was not like Amina who believed in humility, and was even honest enough to tell us that it was his hard earned money, and not flaunting it would be a waste. He also warned us to take care of his sister, trusting her decision to make us her friends, because she had never ever made a wrong decision before, and we felt determined to prove it.

We helped Amina pack up when she moved to the hostel and laughed when she lamented that she would not be using her car to cruise around with us anymore. By the time she had spent a week in the hostel her roommates had already dubbed us as the ‘Trinity’ because of how we always seemed to be together. When our test results were released, I did not do too well in the tests, and I started reading at night in the University classrooms, much to Ayo’s delight, claiming he no longer had to fear bringing his girlfriend around anymore, but I was happy when he took his statement back. He had gotten so used to my company that he felt lonely when I was not there, and I was also no longer there to help him get some bath water and make breakfast too.