C'est la vie!

Chapter 1🥀

 Let's give it up for the most hackneyed statement of the universe; " I could remember everything like it was just yesterday", with a little sobbing here and some pity thrown at you there.

I should've began recounting my life in that sort. Yet, if we went down memory lane, the prints would be illegible.

That day, I had no premonition whatsoever. It seemed like the perfect day- with my parents and younger brother away.

I imagined they would return home and life would carry on- with my mum yelling "nobody helps me with anything in this house", while my brother and Dad team up against me in video games, and we play unsympathetically.

Instead, my elder brother was the one that walked through that door. And that moment, I had my premonition, because the last time Max stepped in this house was a year ago, and he had sworn to never return.

He delivered the dreadful. And slowly, I saw my world fall like an edifice to the ground.

I thought about their passing away till it made sense. Till I blamed myself for it. I thought about how maybe if I had closed my eyes every day during morning devotions, maybe God would've spared them away from death.

And now here I was, in the second stage of grief, anger, about to face the news of my external suspension because I had been disdainful to a Mrs. Dadzie.

Since the force of gravity of the Earth is 9.81, I would say, the gravity of my situation was more of a 13.81.

I was still in my room. I was alone. Scratch that, I was alone with a boy!

I jolted out of bed to face Derrick- the health prefect- sitting at the edge of my bed and looking straight at me.

Since WHEN were boys allowed into the girls dorms?

"Your dormmates said you weren't feeling so well?" He must've read my mind. "Are you sick?" he probed.

I sat up well, covertly trying to adjust the school pencil skirt so it was resting only a few inches above my thigh. "I guess I'm just pretending?"

"So, your body temperature is pretending to be very warm, and your appetite is pretending to have lost itself?"

It took us a fleeting second before we chuckled simultaneously.

"I have to get to the school grounds. If you've heard, I'm in big trouble, I wouldn't want anyone thinking that I'm trying to feign my way out of it."

"Oh, yeah. I've heard." He has? "I heard you hit Mrs. Dadzie, gave her the middle finger and broke her classroom door. That's... that's bold."

I gaped at him, my jaw probably about to hit the floor right now.

This was a lie. My girls and I had been in a game of spit-balling when Mrs. Dadzie caught us. She caught ME actually. And her comeback was- and I quote- "just because you're still mourning doesn't mean you have the freedom to misbehave."

So yes, I might've told her that her teaching certificate was a bigger fraud than her French accent, and maybe banged the door while storming out.

I sighed, feeling my head begin to spin again.

"So," Derrick stood up, "we get what we want if we cooperate. I bring the food, you eat, get to the school grounds on time and my job here is done. deal?"

Did I even have a choice? Plus, who wouldn't want to be alone in a room with Derrick?

Ever since he had become prefect, I had tried getting his attention. There were times I would greet him, hoping a conversation could come off it but his responses were always only nods.