Different Worlds

Chapter Thirty-seven

I'm not even going to say much, other than get your tear buckets ready.
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Noah's POV

The entire living room was decorated with colourful banners, ribbons and balloons. The sofas were pushed to the wall and little chairs were arranged in fours around small circular tables, leaving a little space ahead as a dance floor. Every table and chair was covered with fancy lilac table and chair covers.

A larger table that held assorted snacks was placed at one side of the room, gift packs with Zozo's face printed on them were placed beside the table on the floor. Medium-sized speakers were placed at strategic points in and outside the house, playing both children and Nigerian hit songs.

You guessed it, today was Chizolum aka Zozo's birthday. I decided to go all out on her birthday party despite Ijeoma's protests. The first two birthdays Zozo had- to put it nicely- were not it and I wanted this one to be a very memorable one, to make up for the other birthdays.

Children from Zozo's class loitered around the premises, parents of the children stood at corners discussing amongst their selves. We had a face painter outside creating different beautiful designs on the face of some of the children, a large bouncing castle on the lawn with kids lined up to go in and an MC hosting a dance competition between two little girls.

The party was in full blast and Zozo was having the time of her life, dressed in an adorable light purple princess gown with big flower patterns and a little tiara balanced on her head. It was almost time to cut the cakes and I was searching for Ijeoma around the house.

I walked into the kitchen to find Ijeoma mindlessly staring outside the window. She was spotting an unexplainable sad look on her face and for someone who was hosting a birthday party for her daughter, she didn't quite look elated.

As I approached her, I look outside the window to see if I could find what seemed to be upsetting her but I was met with a view of the pool.

"Hey" I said gently placing a hand on her shoulder

She slightly jerked at my touch. "Oh hey"

"Are you okay? You don't look particularly happy" I inquired worriedly.

She immediately faked a smile. "No, I'm fine"

"Are you sure?" I said not convinced

"Yeah" she widened her fake smile.

I lowered my voice and moved closer to her. "Is this about our conversation the other day?"

"What?" Her eyebrows furrowed in genuine confusion before relaxing with realization. "Oh, no. I'm good"

She tapped my shoulder as some form of assurance that I didn't buy at all. She walked over to one of the drawers and picked up a cake knife.

"I'll just take this out" she raised the knife to me before walking out of the kitchen.

My eyes turned to slits as I watched her walk out of the kitchen.

Why would she lie about what was making her upset?

Was I missing something here?

It was definitely not the discussion we had the other day because she clearly didn't have it on her mind. I could still remember every bit of the conversation and I was completely sure it wasn't it.

I had just walked into the house after long, tiring hours of work at the hospital. It was a couple of minutes after 10 pm and all I wanted to do was have a little dinner that would keep me from getting up at early hours in the morning hungry and head off to bed.