PRUDE WITH PRIDE

Chapter One

I am not going to start this story on a happy note where I have my life all put together because I don't. Because I am wide awake at 5 on a Saturday morning thinking about how my visit to my mom's would go.

I stand up from my bed in the middle of the room and move to the floor to stretch. Hoping it would take the stress away from me. The curtains down and the door locked, I checked twice before I went to bed.

After that, a horrifying event happened to me in school where a perv was watching me sleep. I woke up, looked through the window and I saw a huge head peering at me. Staring, desperate to see what color the pants I was wearing in the dark.

Even now I shudder as I struggle to place my head on my knee. The curtains are protective covering my semi nudity. If my mom saw me in this big shirt and pants she'd shake her head and say she'd say you are just wasting everything God has endowed you with in her thick Nigerian accent.

That's only a fraction of how my mother humiliates me. I switch to meditating. It's a form of relaxation I stumbled upon when I was younger. Although it's really boring and I can't quite feel the air around me like they do in movies and cartoons.

I never get past 15 minutes. Don't know if it helps but I do it anyway. I crawl back into my bed feeling the same. Like crap. I check the time and it's 5:30. I closed my eyes and I drifted away.

For someone who has a lot on her mind, I wake up at 9 the next day. I haven't slept like that in a long time. Quickly, I dash into the bathroom. It's my mother's 60 birthday today and she's celebrating it.

The party is at our home, the home my brothers and I grew up in. My dad died years ago but he lives on in our heart and most especially on my brother's faces. They look alot like him.

I have heard multiple times that I look like my mom. Still don't like it. We are too different and too alike for my liking. I dashout again and put on my clothes and head for the streets of Lagos.

I board a tricycle to where I am going to get a cab to my mother's house. As the keke moves the air brushes past my face making me feel more alive than I did stepping out of my house.

My mind drifts to the number of what the conversation at mum's party would be like today. Would I be the centre of gossip today? It never gets old. And what is her topic of interest, my love life.

I looked into the street filled with people before the keke passed them. Swiftly, I made eye contact with a guy and I immediately thought that he was cute. Suddenly wishing God would save all women, especially women like me, the stress of finding a man. I even recommend the idea of him tattooing the names of our spouses on our forehead.

That way, we save time and energy, including our youths. I reluctantly got down from the keke, paid and moved to enter the bus. Inside the bus are men and women evenly distributed on the seats. Some looked angry, already, this morning I thought.

I gingerly entered the bus, careful not to let my silk purple dress top and black palazzo pants catch on anything. Something told me to look back and I did. A guy was staring at me. I look away at the speed of light. I hated eye contact.

There is something so intimate about looking into a person's eyes that makes me uncomfortable. Throughout the ride, I was careful not to look back again.

I stood in front of my mother's gate and I could already hear the hustling and bustling of what I predict to be my aunties. Probably gossiping and giving orders. I take my time because the moment I step in there I take all the spotlight.

Thankfully, right where I am standing my brother parks his car. He comes down and his wife and kid joins him.

"What are you doing standing there looking like a gatekeeper?" I smile and wrap my arms around him. Then his wife and kid.