Tough Skinned

PART IV

Oluoma

    “Oh my God” I huffed as I lay on my bed. Its like 7:56pm and I feel soo drained. After school, my Mum decided to go back to her office and work some more leaving my brother and I to feed on a can of malt. You're wondering ‘Oh her Mum owns her office surely there has to be a café there’ well you're right but by the time we reached her office, the café had closed and the only thing edible my mum had was a can of malt I had to give to Chiemezie because he loves malt and he needs it more than I do.

  “Oluoma come and eat your food is ready ” Ijeoma the nanny called as she popped her head through my door.

“What's it?” I asked propping myself on my elbows. I am really craving fried rice and salad with her famous hot chicken.

“Its fried rice. Better come and collect it before Mummy comes and puts her and Daddy's portion”

“Okay I'm coming ”

    Standing up from my bed; I groggily rubbed my eyes kai  Im experiencing chronic fatigue and its only my first day.

  “God would make a way. When there seems to be no way” I began singing in my most raspy voice as I made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. I'm craving mango juice I just pray Ijeoma stocked the freezer during the day. My Dad, like most African Parents don't believe in all these Western behaviors like actually having Icecream or filling the pantry with snacks but because we have visitors on a regular, my parents are forced to stock the house with food,snacks,you name it. Whenever I tell my friends about how we always have food in our house well mostly snacks, I always get comments like ‘Omg you're so lucky’ or ‘You're living the American dream’ and I hate hearing those comments but I'm too much of a wuss to actually tell them how I feel so I just fake a smile and nod my head. Story of my life.

  Taking my plate of steamy fried rice upstairs, I suddenly lost appetite and I contemplated going black down to return it but I know how Ijeoma went the extra mile to make this for me so I took a sip of my chilled mango juice straight from the party sized bottle. Yes I'm a little extra when it comes to mango but you know the saying go big or go home.

  Reaching my room, the telecom rang from the left side of my bed. Dropping my food on my dresser, I went straight to pick it up “Hello?” I called out to the person on the other line “Yes Dumebi bia” I heard my Dads' gruff voice before he quickly cut the call. I really just wanted to eat and sleep today but this man doesn't think about how tired I'm feeling right now; I sent a silent prayer to God to cover my food for me till I get back because I didn't bring extra plate with me. What?!  I'm religious bite me.

   “Yes Daddy” I said as I entered he and my mums room
“kedu ka ị mere?”  He asked
“adị m mma” I replied. I don't know if you already get the gist that my Dad is a serious Igbo man and one of his highest if that's a word well one of his highest achievements is the fact that all his children hear and speak Igbo. I mean I don't have a problem learning my native tongue because I feel it makes me more African then again, I don't have a problem with people that don't know their language it's their choice and I really don't care if they can or can't speak their language.

“How was school today?”. Is that the reason why this man called me? He came back before me and he can not even give me my space to sleep or rest. “It was fine” this is how our ‘conversations’ be most of the time. Him trying to look for ways to insult me while I try my best to keep the conversation dying.

“But this your school skirt is short. Why didn't you ask for a longer one?” My Dad questioned me giving my uniform skirt a glare that could send a demon back to hell.
“this is the standard length of the skirt and if I had gotten one that was long on me, it would be for those who are bigger than me but when they wear it, the length is the same” I spoke audibly because he likes it when we raise our voice something about confidence I don't know. I space out when he talks to us.
“But why couldn't you have worn pop socks?? This is what you like. Short things later when they rape you it would be like as if I didn't talk. I don't want to see you wearing this skirt without pop socks please ” he warned me well sort of barked at me. My eyes were starting to water so I just nodded my head and walked out of the room.

  “Thats Daddy for you don't worry okay??? Just ignore what he says. Thank God you're starting boarding next week. Ollie just came down don't cry its not worth it. I have to go now say hi to Mezie for me” Ifechukwu, the third born spoke from the other line as I told her about what happened with Daddy.

When I came back, stray tears were on my face and I lost my appetite so I just returned my food back to the kitchen and drank water. I wasn't going to shed tears for these people anymore. I can't believe he said Rape is the fault of the victim. Igbo men  I thought as I lay down on my bed I don't want to marry a man like my father.

Checking the clock, it was already 9:45pm and I needed to wake up early for my morning exercise with ChiChi. I hope my new school is going to be different from Lake City. Oluoma please don't mess anything up. I thought before I said my night prayer and slipped into my dream world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bia- come
Kedu ka ị mere- How are you?
Adị m mma- I'm fine

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Hi guys 😊
Sorry for the late update. Lately I've just been everywhere and they've been redecorating my house so nowhere to sleep and my glasses need some fixing so I'm having migraines but.. WE MOVE!!
I hope you like this chapter

Byeeeee ♥♥