Un-Clinically Diagnosed (Adeyemi Is Mad)

4

Ilo Crystal was her across-the-street neighbor and the Akwa-Ibom beauty was braiding her hair into two neat cornrows as her friend explained what happened to her, sitting cross legged on her bed.

"Grace abi I told you he was mad, you didn't listen. Now he's making you perform with him."

"He's not making me do anything," Amaka snapped at her.

"How do you even know him in the first place?" Crystal asked and Amaka shrugged.

"I bumped into him on Monday when I was coming for biology class and he escorted me to the clinic."

"Oh so that's why you were absent," Crystal laughed. "What happens from here onwards is not my business. I even tried to help you by telling him to leave you alone and you still went."

"Why are you now saying it like I'm dying?" Amaka asked irritated.

"Might as well be," Crystal shrugged and Amaka hit her across the face with her pillow. "One thing about Adeyemi is that he doesn't hear no."

"You're just making matters worse," Amaka fell backwards on the bed and covered her face. "I feel like such a terrible person Crystal for saying some of that stuff to him.

Crystal rolled her eyes, "Don't, he deserves it for being a such a manipulator."

Does he, really? Amaka thought but she didn't voice her question out loud. It would just make she and Crystal have another directionless conversation.

~

Amaka thought she was doing a splendid job of avoiding Adeyemi until he walked into her class during breaktime and specifically called her out. Even though it was unlike people to whisper, that was something they all chose it indulge in as soon as he called her name.

Somebody even shouted, "Grace kwa? Are you sure?"

It was either Adeyemi had hyper selective hearing or he was just so good at ignoring people because he didn't even have a muscle reaction towards peoples comments. Amaka on the other hand, felt like doing the greatest faceplam in the entire world, crawling under her table and permanently passing out.

Another thing that wasn't helping was the way he was staring so pointedly at her. Somehow, during her walk out the door, or perhaps due to the multiple eyes she thought was watching her, Amaka forgot the basic locomotive movement of walking.

She now had to physically force herself to move forward the rest of the way.

Adeyemi kept a responsible distance away from her as they began to walk, "Did you think about what I said?" He questioned.

"Yes and my answer remains the same," She said assiduously, her mouth set in a determined straight lined, hoping it would relay just how distastefuI his offer sounded to her. If Crystal wasn't over exaggerating and Adeyemi truly didn't know now to take a no as a no then Amaka was in very big trouble.

"Why?" He asked simply.

"Because I don't want to perform in front of the whole school; number one." She counted off on her finger. "Number two... where are we even going?" She asked once they were out by the school building and unto the pathway next to the now stubble-like grass.

"To the canteen," He answered simply.

"But why? It's still school hours. Break is in the next thirty minutes. Don't tell me you're taking me there in hopes of bribing me," It was such a farfetched thing to say but knowing Adeyemi (however short it had been the duration of time they had spent together) she wouldn't put it past him to use it to coax her.

"No." He answered plainly with no further intent of elaborating when a metaphorical lightbulb went off in his head. "But would that make you change your mind," he turned and stared intently at her.

"Nothing is making me change my mind, I can not dance and I sure as hell can't rehearse with someone I'm not comfortable with."

"So that's the problem?" He asked perplexed. "Discomfort? "

"Well, part of it. But yes. Listen, Adeyemi, I said some nasty stuff to you last week and..."

He cut her off, "So if I make you comfortable in my presence you'll agree?" His question sounded like he was just coming to a great realization of something.

"We'll I don't know."

"That's a yes then."

~

Adeyemi heard the handle of his door click downwards before it slid open on its hinges to reveal Zina holding a plate of popcorn in one hand and her phone in another.

Then again, it could've also been Oma, but he didn't look up long enough to check who it was. The two had a habit of looking eerily similar with the only major differentiation in their voices, which wasn't all that major, if you really thought about it.

"Fucking knock before you enter," he drawled and copied what was written on his computer unto his journal. The journal was to be submitted to his therapist monthly but it just so happened to be the nearest book he could get his hands on.

"I'll tell mummy you swore at me," Zina said (he confirmed it was her just as she began talking.) She made space on his bed and set her bowl down neatly.

"Go on then." He told her, his eyes scanning through the new page he pulled up.

Zina rolled her eyes at his lack of a substantial reaction and tried to peep over his shoulder at what he was doing. Just then the sound of glass hitting a wall reverberated through the house.

I wonder who threw that, Adeyemi genuinely thought to himself.

"How many times must I tell you to close the door," Adeyemi asked and got up to do it himself, when he returned Zina was watching a show on his TV. He wondered why she couldn't just stay in her room, it had its own television like the rest of the rooms in the house did and a large enough bed in case she wanted Oma with her. She didn't have any reason to keep coming to his and keep messing up his living patterns.

"Do you think they'll get divorced?" She asked suddenly while Adeyemi got back to what he was doing.

"I hope they do. They are so noisy," he threw, offhandedly and Zina laughed.

"If daddy goes to live in Texas I'm going with him," she announced.

"Good for you then."

"What are you writing sef," she questioned and looked around his shoulders and down at his notes. She mumbled some of the words he wrote and broke out into laughter. "Did a girl reject you?"

"No."

"Then why are you googling "how to make people comfortable around you?" " Zina asked smugly. Adeyemi slammed his laptop shut and got off his seat. He walked around his room in a disoriented manner before kicking his feet to regain blood flow in then and arching till his back popped.

"Personal reasons," he answered simply again and grabbed his journal reading through what he had written so far.

"Don't trust everything you see on the internet," Zina warned. "Dudu most of these would make you come across as a creep."

"Better that than being narcissistic, self-conceited, violent and an asshole," he shrugged. "But you're just in jss3 anyway, what do you know."

"On the basis of processing emotions, a lot," she gloated, Yemi muttered low blow under his breath. "Let me help you a little, since you are still my brother. First, you see that thing you always say when you want someone to come to you."

"What?" He asked puzzled. "Come here?"

"Yes exactly that. Don't," she deadpanned. "And also. . ." She then started to list off some more do and dont's.

Adeyemi was only half-listening, he wasn't going to let a fourteen year old tell him what to do.