✉L e t t e r s T o J o h n n y✉

CHAPTER 2

I don't have data or credit. I went to Obinna's house for a party. I'd be sleeping over. There's soup in the fridge for you to heat. Don't miss me too much.

Grudgingly writing my name even though you know it's me,
Ifehchukwu.

I chuckled at the letter Ifeh had left on the bed for me. It wasn't hard to miss. I brought up the idea of leaving notes or letters behind when we didn't have data or credit to text or call each other when something came up.

On some days when I had both, I still wrote. I just loved writing to someone. Thoughts of writing to Johnny had crossed my mind too many times but I've never acted on it. He may think it's childish and that I still behaved like I was in secondary school.

So far, I only wrote to Ifeh and two of my other friends and my parents. I usually wrote to them and sent the letter through a cousin, an aunt or uncle. They'd write back and send to me too. It's refreshing to have people in my life who didn't think it was awkward writing letters when there're lots of phones and apps and emails for that.

I'd just gotten back from the market. I dropped the bags I was carrying on the floor before I picked Ifeh's letter. It's six thirty p.m. She must've left early to help get things ready for the party or she just wanted to be there to flirt with Obinna before it started. I was going to go with the latter.

She's had a thing for him since the beginning of the semester and of course she'd been sending signals that weren't really that hard to miss, his way. Either he couldn't see them, he wasn't interested or he's just downright blind.

At least, she was giving him signs she was into him. I only had to look at Johnny and disappear before he noticed me. Poor me.

I looked around the room, trying to spot where Ifeh must have left the key to the cupboard before she went out. My eyes raked over the table and chair at the wall adjacent to the door, the pile of books on the floor at the left side of the bed, Ifeh's art equipments, the buckets and little drum we had for water and the small sized fridge.

I couldn't see it. I looked at the bed and couldn't find it. Then I thought of searching under the pillows and found it.

I unlocked the cupboard and started to put in the foodstuffs I'd bought from the market. Finishing that, I walked to the bed and sat. I brought out my phone to check my messages.

Nothing.

As always.

I thought about Johnny and hitting him up on Instagram but he had a lot of followers and a handful of girls that I'd no doubt were very much interested in him than I was. I'm sure they chatted him up every day.

Sigh.

I dropped my phone and propped myself up entirely to the bed. Just as I was about to lie down, I heard a knock on the door. I got up to see who it was.

Standing there at the door was Ada. She lived downstairs and was friends with Ifeh.

"Hey, I wanted to borrow brush from Ifeh. I called her earlier and she said she wasn't around, that I should come and ask you for it." The door was just halfway open and I opened it fully to let her inside while I went to the corner where Ifeh had her materials to look for the brush.