Preordained #ProjectNigeria

42- A Bold Step

C.

Maduka's POV~

A savage jab wakes me up abruptly. Pain blooms in my chest and I roll off the bed, disoriented in the darkness. Reaching out for the switch beside my bed, I partially illuminate the room in two seconds max.

What I see nearly breaks my heart.

Nwanyieze is furiously kicking no one in particular. Her eyes are still closed. She murmurs an angry "No" and kicks out again and again, before curling herself back into a ball and saying, "Please" in a small voice. The sheets are bunched up at the lower corners of the bed. I notice that the shirt clings to her back, glued by sweat and the hem has hiked up, revealing black cotton panties. My shoelace, the one she had used to secure her puff, is nowhere to be found.

She is reliving those horrible moments with her adoptive father.

Slowly, I move back onto the bed and hold her close with my good arm. She struggles against me, murmuring "No". She is so tense, her muscles so stiff that they vibrate.

"Nwanyieze, it's just a bad dream," I whisper into her ear. "Wake up."

"Don't take them off. You're hurting me. I hate you."

"Wake up, baby girl. Wake up. It's Maduka."

"Maduka," she sighs before slowly relaxing, her shoulders lowering.

"I'm here. I'll always be here."

"Always...be...here?"

"Always."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

She immediately falls back into a deep sleep, and I doubt she will remember ever speaking to me. I get up and turn on the air conditioner. By the time I return to the bed, she is spread-eagled on it and I don't want to disturb her. After spreading a spare sheet on the floor and removing a pillow from the bed, I settle on the floor.

Sleep eludes me, and in its place are memories. When it eventually comes, it is fitful and sparse. Day breaks almost too soon and I lie on my belly, watching Nwanyieze sleep. She has rolled over to the edge, towards where I lie and is also on her belly. Her hand is off the edge and on the floor, a few inches from mine.

Still fast asleep, her hair standing up in dark tufts, lips parted, and her skin illuminated by a slice of the morning sunshine, she is a beautiful sight. I lie still, watching, taking in the details, not wanting to move for fear that even the disturbance of the dust motes in the air between us will awaken her.

I remember watching her sleep the next few months after Sister Benedicta had placed us in the orphanage, standing over her cot and just staring, because she was a miracle, and she had fascinated me, and I couldn't understand how she could not have been able to fascinate her parents. Coming from a loving family, the concept of babies without parents was a new thing to me.

She had led me to a new family, had paved the way for me to become who I am today. It feels like I owe her, like I have to set things straight not just for myself but for her, too. For me to tell her everything about myself and our first meeting, I have to first take a bold step towards my redemption.

Her eyelids flutter, then they rise. She blinks a few times and squints in the light before focusing on me.

"Good morning," I greet her. I want nothing more than to wake up beside her everyday. I want those lovely eyes to look at me first before anything else in the light of each sunrise.

Nwanyieze smiles and croaks a good morning, then sits up and rubs her eyes. After a few seconds of stretching, she realises that the hem of my shirt is high up at her waist, which means that her thighs and a part of her rounded bum are exposed. I notice some stretch marks, beautiful as the stripes on a tigeress, lighter than the chocolate of her skin. I had wanted to remark on them that day at the beach with Somto's children, but I'd thought against it. She quickly tries to cover up, embarrassment written all over her face.

"Don't."

She freezes, her eyes on me.

"They're beautiful. I mean it."

She sits still as I move towards the bed, her hands still holding on to the hem of the shirt. She seems to have no idea how beautiful she is, sitting underneath the rays of sunlight in my shirt and giving me an amused smile, hair uncombed, skin glowing. I add this scene to my list of wants, my endless list of wants where she is concerned.

"What are you doing?" She questions with a laugh even as I kiss her leg. But her toes curl, her head tilts back a bit, and she makes a small sound that does who-knows-what to my brain.

"Adoring you."

"Maduka-"

"I won't do what you don't want me to do." A flick of my tongue on the back of her knee, a gasp from her. "Did you like that?"

She nods, lower lip between her teeth. My baby girl is quite the kitten, although she doesn't show it. I flip her over, and she looks at me over her shoulder, puzzled. The stretch marks are in full view.

"I saw you trying to hide your stretch marks."

"I've always been shy about them," she confesses. "At the beach with the children... I temporarily forgot about them."

"I love everything about you. Those things you're shy about, they make you you. Physically, mentally, emotionally. There is no other Nwanyieze like you."

"Only you would say that."

"Maybe because there is no other Maduka like me," I chuckle.

"He's about to be cheesy again," she jokes.

Lowering my head, I kiss the sides of her bum, where the stretch marks lie. A tigress, that's what she is. Fierce and passionate, beautifully marked with what she thinks are flaws, but all I see is perfection.

"I'd have farted, if I had the chance," Nwanyieze tells me.

"You just like to ruin moments."

"That's what I live for." She turns onto her back and pulls me down, onto herself, hands on both sides of my face. That sad look is back again, and the feeling that something isn't right creeps back into my heart.

It's going to be difficult. Leaving you.

For the life of me, I have no idea why she would say that to me. I don't want to hear anything pessimistic about us, and so I tell her what I have thought about, what I have stayed up all night turning over in my mind.

"I'm going home, Nwanyieze. I'm going to my ancestral home."