No goodbyes

i

The first time Dara thought of eating rat poison, she was watching a movie with Aunty Mariam. It was like every other Nollywood movie. The plot was littered with clichés, and the soundtrack was out of synch with the movie's present mood. The characters said all their lines in a bored monotone, as if even they couldn't bring themselves to believe the unrealistic, histrionic stories they acted out.

It was the same movie as always and yet it was unlike anything Dara had ever seen. She was looking at the movie through fresh, alert eyes, the eyes of someone who wanted to die and was searching for the easiest and fastest way how. When the main character—a girl called Fatima whose father was forcing her into an arranged marriage—ate rat poison and slumped to the floor, a cloud of saliva forming at her mouth, Dara found herself wishing for a death like her own, a swift, quiet and seemingly painless death.

That same day, Dara stole money from Aunty Mariam to buy rat poison. Aunty Mariam always hid her money in the most unsuspecting of places—in her bras, behind the air conditioners, under her wigs— as if she was always prepared for thieves. But her unpredictability had become a certain kind of predictability. Dara did not need to think hard before knowing her Aunty's bundle of five-hundred-naira notes would be hidden in her black boots. She dipped her hand into the depths of the boots, even though she was aware of the implications of stealing from Aunt Mariam. When her last maid, that pimpled house help who curtsied after every sentence, stole from her, Aunty Mariam beat her until putrid-looking bruises appeared all over her body. She would not get the opportunity to do the same to Dara, though, because she'd be dead.

Dara bought the same brand of rat poison as Fatima had. Though, she bought twice as much, because she wasn't certain the dosage Fatima had administered herself would be sufficient. There had been a delicacy about Fatima, a fickle quality that gave Dara the impression that even the most innocuous thing could kill her off. Just as Dara was about to walk out of the grocery store with her rat poison, she bumped into someone, a boy.

He looked about her age, sixteen, but he was taller than any sixteen-year-old she'd ever seen. His face was chiseled, his cheekbones stark. His skin jarred sharply with her own, caramel and dark chocolate. His was a smooth canvas of yellow she itched to swipe her finger across. But it was his eyes, above all, that enthralled her, a dazzling pair of black onyx. As she looked into them, she forgot herself. She forgot her purpose for coming here and her fantasies of suicide. She also forgot that she was holding her nylon of rat poison and let it fall.

Before she could register anything, he had already bent to the floor. "I'll help—what is this?" He dangled one packet of rat poison.

"Nothing." Dara snatched it from him and quickly scooped up the remaining packets into the black nylon.

"Why so much? You breeding rats?"

She giggled. "If I was, would I be trying to kill them?"

"Unless it's not rats you're trying to kill."

She did not like the way he looked at her, his gaze piercing through her consciousness. She felt naked, like a transparent object he could see right through. What exactly he saw, he did not say. He smiled dismissively and told her his name. Brayden. Brayden Olatunji. What was hers? He had a confident air about him. He was so cocksure, a shameless braggart. He talked only about himself. His family once lived in America. His father owned the largest oil company in Nigeria. He was the best basketball player in the federation.

Four months ago, Dara would've rolled her eyes and walked away from him, irked by his arrogance, but she followed him wherever he went, like a doting puppy, rolling in the mud that was his words, nodding in agreement to everything he said. She was desperate for a friend, anyone really, so long as they were garrulous types like him who made her forget all about her existence because they talked so endlessly of their own.

"What about you?"

Dara winced. "What?" They stopped walking for the first time in hours. Dara wondered how she had not noticed that they had walked down the same road twice, or that the sun was especially scorching, or that she had missed curfew. She liked this boy, if only for his ability to make her lose consciousness of herself.

"Why do you do that?"

"What?"

He wiped his perspiring face. "Why do you blank out all of a sudden? What are you always thinking about?"

"Nothing."

Brayden sucked his teeth, making a hissing sound that seemed to mock her entire existence. "If you say so..."

They walked in silence for a while, before Brayden could no longer fight off the compunction to speak. "So, what's the real reason?"

"Reason for what?"

He cleared his throat. "Why you're buying the rat poison? I think I have a clue, but I don't want to jump to conclusions."

"Whatever you're thinking is right."

"Oh," he said, his tone flat. "I understand."

Dara swept her eyes over him and snorted to herself. He thought he understood her, but he did not. He was nothing like her. He looked like a sheltered prince who had never faced adversity before, with his immaculate white shoes, over-gelled air, and his tendency to overestimate himself. Even the way he walked was soft, like there were fat, fluffy pillows placed underneath his feet to cushion his falls. Dara never had such luxury. She'd fallen and she'd come back up with certain parts of herself irrevocably broken

"My dad is in jail," Dara told him when he would not stop pestering her to say something about herself. "He's been there for a year now."

"Oh," he said. "And your mum?"

She clenched her jaw, fighting back the onslaught of tears. "She died three weeks ago. Suicide."

He did not respond. Dara was glad he didn't because if he had, she would've hated him, for having the temerity to think his banal words could lift the crushing weight of grief from her heart. And she did not want to hate him. She did not want the additional burden of hating one more person other than herself.

When he stopped in front of her house, he took her hand and rubbed his thumb over her palm, a gesture she found oddly comforting. "I know we just met, but I care about you. And I'm sure you have other people who care about you too, so—."

Dara pulled her hand from his. "Don't talk shit you don't know about."

She turned to unbolt the gate, but he stepped in her way. "Please, don't do it."

She was moved by his tenderness. She had forgotten how that felt, to be cared for by someone. She almost wanted to hand over the rat poison and throw herself into his arms. But he was just a stranger.

"You don't understand."

He frowned. "I do."

"If you did," she looked right into his eyes, "you would understand why I have to do this."

Then she went into her home and shut him out, without allowing him the last word.

But when she tore open the rat poison, she found that she no longer felt the urge to take it. It was quelled by another urge she had not felt in ages. She tossed the rat poison aside, reached under her bed for her art supplies, and set up a blank canvas. As she dipped her brush into a can of paint, something blossomed inside her, like a flower bursting out of black, parched soils for the first time in centuries. She had not drawn since her mother died. That part of her, like every other part which made life worth living, ceased to exist.

Dara closed her eyes and tried to conjure the image of a flower, but her imagination had other ideas. She let the brush guide her hand to whatever direction it pleased. When she finished her painting, she found herself staring into the handsome, grinning face of Brayden Olatunji, and she wondered how it was possible for someone who she'd not known for more than an hour to take up so much space in her mind.