To the ones who brighten my days with their comments and engagements on my chapters, you guys fuel me with so much energy you won't even understand just  how much 😩😩😩❤️❤️❤️

~SOPHIA~

"I have a crush on my doctor!"

My sister screamed over the phone, her face coming alive on the screen. Her black skin was glowing and her shiny white teeth was contrasting with her pink lips. There was that glow in her eyes, that smile on her lips and that laughter in her voice.

It was the happiest I've seen her since everything went down.

And also the healthiest. She had recently been placed off chemotherapy. The prospect of getting discharged within a month was high, according to Stephen who had to put school off to stay with her. She was growing back, was steadily adding all the weight she had lost initially.

"Do you know I sometimes fake having minimal pains so he'd come to my room?" She continued with an exaggerated childish excitement, one that made laughter bubble at the pit of my stomach. "Heaven knows how much I want those hands on my body... Fuck those stethoscopes!!"

She completed, her tone set tight with mild annoyance and her face contorting into an angry one. An angry child, that was what she looked like and without meaning to, I burst into laughter, loud one, deep one, rib cracking one.

Was my sister ever going to grow up?

She has a crush on her doctor? Really?

"It's good to hear your laughter again." She said, interrupting me and my laughter trailed off at her tone that sounded so contented, so carefree, so happy. I did not even know whether she was talking about the fact I was finally laughing after everything that had happened to her health this last year or the events of the past weeks.

"So, are you finally going to tell me what happened?" She probed, sitting upright on her bed which caused her phone to shift and the medical machines in the room came on the screen for a second before it was back to her face again.

That brief glimpse of the machines was enough for me to think of the fact that my sister's life had depended on the machines in the last few months and the fact that there would always be that underlying risk for her was enough for my mood to get dampened all over again.

"Eeeh eeeh eeeeh," She got my attention by screaming that and tapping two of her fingers together at the screen. "Don't bring that kind of sad face here, hmm? Don't dampen this mood. Just tell me everything and lemme wave I away with my magic wand." She said dreamily and she even proceeded to demonstrate like she was really waving something away with a magic wand.

I smiled... Just a little.

"So, tell me, is it something about school? About your job? Kunle? Aminah? Or what? She probed further and I sighed before standing up from where I sat on one of the sofas in my room to lie down on my bed because I knew we were going to spend hours on this video call.

I wasn't wrong.

"I don't think humans are capable of that much evil and definitely not someone as young as... You said this whole thing started before she even clocked 16 and personally, I don't believe someone that young can be capable of that much evil unless they're a psychopath."

That was what Stephanie said after I finished narrating everything to her from A to Z without leaving a single thing out. I told her about everything with Kunle, Aminah and Kunmi and how what Aminah did has caused the gang our friendship, our close knitted friendship.

Baby Kay wasn't still talking to anyone. During the weeks we used for our exams and the few days she showed up in school afterwards, she kept to herself, kept disappearing, didn't talk to anyone except on very rare occasions, and the only person she talked to was Ezekiel.

And then, Adam told me she asked for a break. Whatever that was supposed to mean...

And Kunle...

It was the longest I've stayed away from talking to Kunle, the longest we've stayed away from talking to each other. Initially, it had been a combination of beating myself up and blaming myself for allowing things to turn out this way and feeling his pain because he had to find out that his relationship had always been one sided, that it had always been a mirage and missing him, missing his friendship, his company.

But these days, I was only left with wishing he'd be fine, that he'd outgrow everything. I guessed that much would be okay.

"I mean... Is she a psychopath or a sociopath because I don't understand how someone that young can be able capable of doing things like that... It's unbelievable... Makes me feel like there's a missing puzzle here because... Because everything you just said..."

She trailed off again and I knew she was thinking of everything I just told her, about the whole horrible stuffs Aminah wrote about Kunmi, about how she manipulated Kunle into dating her just to get back at me.

God!

I legit got chills just thinking about about everything again.

How could she smile that much? Laugh that much? Be happy that much when thoughts like were going through her head? How? Just how?

The whole thing with her was supposed to give me the creeps.

"That's some crazy shit with that girl." She concluded before visibly shuddering. That meant a lot because Stephanie is someone who was always seeing light and love in people no matter how dark, how horrible they are.

"So, how's Kunmi?"

"I'm not sure," I replied in all honesty because I wasn't sure. "Aminah is... was like her best friend and to know that everything had been a huge and horrible lie, to see her supposedly best friend write things that demeaning and horrible about her. She probably believed everything Aminah wrote about her is true when in reality, she's a far cry from all of that."

"I feel so sorry for her." She replied, her face scrunching up. "I don't think anyone deserves this kind of huge betrayal."

No one does.

Does Aminah even deserved to be betrayed like that by Tolase? Even though she's this bad and horrible...

"And Kunle? Have you tried talking to him? You have to be there for him at this..."

"I can only be there for him if he wants me to. He doesn't..." My heart skipped a painful beat when I remembered how our last conversation had gone and then, our subsequent encounters. "He blames me for keeping what I knew about Aminah away from him."

"I don't blame him though. Thinking about it from his own perspective, he's probably thinking I won't be in this shit hole if Sophia had just spoken up once and to even think Aminah got him involved in this whole thing because of you. Come on, just think about how he'd be feeling."

I almost groaned in frustration."That's exactly why I feel so bad about everything. I wanted to tell him back then but again, I didn't want to be the bad friend who didn't want him to be truly happy and besides would he have believed me?"

She shrugged just as she started to slide down on the bed as if to get a better position by lying down on the bed.

"Then at least, you should have allowed him to make that choice. Whether he was going to believe you or not. Who knows, maybe he only needed that one excuse to walk away from her?"

I heaved another sigh, the memories of the past year flashing in my brain. I was already regretting not telling him before now. I'd always partially blame myself for allowing things to drag on for this long.

"And you... How're you? How're you holding up? Are you fine?" She asked, her forehead creasing with worry.

Am I fine?

"I guess I am," I replied, my shoulders shrugging nonchalantly even though I did not mean to. "I'm just waiting for everyone to come around and be fine even though it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon."

"It'll be fine. You guys just have to make efforts. Sitting around and waiting for everything to be fine isn't going to cut it."

I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to make things fine with Kunmi and Kunle feeling that bad and low.

"But again, I'm still not sure how to feel about this whole thing... Why did she have to do things like that? I mean, it can't be normal. She did not gain anything from this. I'm still convinced there's a missing puzzle..." She said, looking as thoughtful as possible.

And there, there it was... Stephanie trying to look for light in the midst of total darkness.

"Do wicked people need reasons to be wicked?"

"You don't have to be so pessimistic." She replied chidingly and I watched as she yawned too, loudly and widely; that was a clear indicator that she was getting tired. "Who knows if you guys would end up being really good friends when this whole issue die down? I think I've told you this..."

"Stephanie!!! And I told you that it's not possible. This is Aminah we're talking about. She messed up with Kunle just to get back at me. I don't think I'm her favourite person."

"Well," That was swiftly punctuated by another yawn, "The more reason why I said there's a missing puzzle here. I mean, looking at this whole thing from the position of a third party, even if she did everything she did just because she's one bad, horrible, self centered manipulative girl, why keep a diary? When document the horrible things she's doing when the diary could have easily found it way out like this?

She must have thought no one would find the diary. I mean, she did a good job keeping it away from us. No one knew she had a diary, not even Kunmi or Kunle. She must have thought she'd be able to keep it away forever.

"Thinking about it, it simply makes no sense. Why keep a diary when the things there are things that'd ruin you?"

"Steph, She must have been so sure that nobody was going to find it out. I don't know what you're thinking but I can tell that you're thinking of logical reasons why she did what did which is not possible. There can't be a logical reason why someone can be that terrible, why someone will do things like that to other people..."

"Of course not, " She was quick to defend her words, "Nothing will ever justify what she did. Absolutely nothing will. I'm just wondering... You know, I just keep feeling there's something missing here. You guys were in a clique for more than a year, surely, you're observant, you must have observed something about her that'd make us understand this thing better."

"Yeah, I did notice something about her, that her smiles and laughter would end up bringing us all to this doom."

"Come on, Baby sis, you don't have to be so sarcastic." She replied in what was supposed to be a chiding tone but I could hear the laughter in it.

"Anyway," She started again, only to be interrupted by something behind her phone. She looked behind it and I watched as her eyes grew overly excited, "God! My doctor is here. Bye bye. Talk to you later." She said hastily and just when I started to say my goodbyes, she just hung up on me.

My sister hung up on me because of her crush. Good!

For the rest of the evening, my brain kept thinking about what Steph said, about the fact that I must have noticed something about her but the only things I remembered noticing about her were her fake smiles, her fake energy, her fake laughter, every single thing about her that had been fake.

There was really nothing more to than than lies and deceits and facades and manipulation.

And even though I was certain that there was really nothing more to remember noticing about her, my brain wouldn't stop fixating on that fact, my brain wouldn't stop trying to remember.

It was infuriating, wanting to not think about something but ending up spending hours thinking about it. Jogging, listening to music, singing along to that music wasn't enough to get my brain to stop thinking about it.

To the point that I couldn't even sleep because my brain had suddenly became overactive by trying to remember what I did not even know in the first place.

Remember. Remember. Remember.

That was what kept ringing in my brain and my thoughts really had to spiral down to remembering the major things that had happened between us this past year.

The thing was, I did not even want to remember, I did not want to think about it but the thought kept coming up. I couldn't help it, couldn't control the thoughts.

It was almost scary to have my thoughts pop up like that without wanting them to.

After staying wide awake and staring at my ceiling, with my thoughts having a mind of their own till I had a nagging headache till 5am the next morning that I was supposed to wake up, I was finally able to drift to sleep just when I thought I remembered something.

Something I had caught Aminah doing.

When I woke up in the morning, I couldn't remember what I remembered.

And no matter how much I reached into the deepest part of my heart to remember, it just kept drifting further away from me.

I wasn't even sure if I remembered anything in the first place.

Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me.

**********
~KUNMI~

My sister was back home and she was everywhere.

That might even be an understatement.

It was her name all around the house. It was Mayowa this, Mayowa that.

I've always been in the background but with Mayowa around, I faded into something lower than the background.

I just faded into nothingness.

Mom and Dad were all smiles, all beams with Mayowa around. Of course it wasn't easy, to have a daughter graduate from World Renowned LIM Fashion School while I was just there, trapped in this body of mine.

There was no getting out.

The weight I've managed to lose since everything happened in school was nothing. I still looked like me.

Fat. Ugly. Ridiculous.

While my sister was still the ever skinny, ever beautiful, ever lovely girl.

I guess some things never change.

The only thing that I was used to now were the degrading voices in my head, voices that I was done fighting, the constant bout and wave of tiredness that I couldn't explain.

I just kept getting unnaturally tired even though I wasn't doing anything stressful.

"I said Mummy is calling you oo."

My brother said again from where he was standing in the doorway of my room. On a normal day, he'd have ran to my room and bounced on my bed to tell me mom was calling but today, he just stood there by the doorway while looking at my room skeptically and suspiciously.

"Tell her I'm coming."

"Hmmm hmmm." He replied before he took to his heels and I could practically hear him flying down the stairs.

Heaven knows I did not want to leave my room, that I did not want to do anything and most of it all, I did not want to bump into Mayowa. She got back two days ago and we've not even seen eye to eye once except during meals time and even during that time, mom and dad were always all over her.

I wasn't ready for the awkwardness of running into her.

We're sisters but I'm sure we both have one major problem with it comes to the other person and that was: What am I going to say to this person?

I dragged myself up from my bed only to be sent back with a strange and overwhelming bout of dizziness.

And tiredness.

God! I felt so tired, so dizzy that even standing up from the bed was almost an herculean task.

And the short walk from my room to mom's? It made me feel like I had climbed Mount Everest that I was practically panting and breathing heavily when I got to her door.

I nearly collapsed onto her door and I just stayed there, my whole body pressed against the door while I tried to regulate my breathing.

I was so tired... Only God knows why...

"Come here," Mom said the minute I entered her room. She was sitting on her bed dressed in one of those free gowns she always wore whenever she was at home.

I hesitated.

"Come here," She said again, patting the space beside her on the bed and that made my stomach to churn in nervous worry. I couldn't even tell anything from her tone. She just sounded... She sounded so neutral.

I don't think mom has ever been this cordial with me.

"Come," She repeated and involuntarily, I started walking closer to the bed that I was sitting down on it but not without making sure to put ample space between us.

Mom moved closer immediately. She moved so close that our sides were touching.

"Oko mi, Arike," That was how mom started and it just made my stomach churn even more. Mom never called me by my oriki except on extremely rare occasions.

And this, I could already tell was going to be an extremely rare occasion.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" She asked, enunciating the words as if that would make me understand her question better and also, I did not miss the silent, almost desperate plea in her voice.

What's going on?

"There's..." I choked, "There's nothing Ma."

"Oluwabukunmi," She called out again, sending another warning to my brain because she just called my name in full. "I'm your mom, you know you can always tell me anything, right?"

I resisted the urge to laugh.

And to cry.

If mom was really someone I could tell everything, then when did I not seek her out when the bullying at Royal High worsened, when I had to hide in the toilet to eat my lunch because I couldn't bear to eat in front of everybody, because I feared they would judge me for even eating at all, when I saw my best friend in the pool of her own blood, when I had to remain silent afterwards, when Aminah did what she did.

Why did I not even for once think I could actually go to mom, that I could tell her everything?

Because she never for once made me feel that way.... Because she never for once made me think I could tell her anything not to talk of everything.

And now, she was telling me 'I'm your mom, you know you can always tell me anything, right?'

I suddenly wanted to leave but I forced myself to stay, forced myself to force the tears back, forced myself to open my mouth and reply her.

"There's nothing Ma." I repeated while trying so hard to keep the quiver in my voice down.

She said nothing for a while but I could tell that she was staring keenly at me even though I was keeping my eyes down, even though I was keeping my eyes on my clasped hands.

After a while, she sighed and looked away from me. She reached for the other side of the bed and she picked what turned out to be her phone.

"Your results came in today." She announced and my heart picked up pace.

Was this it? Did I failed my exams that woefully that it even made mom that worried to the point that she had to talk to me in that kind of subdued tone?

"Your results," She thrusted the phone into my hands, "has never been this bad, has never been anywhere close to being this bad so you really can't tell me that there's nothing wrong with you."

For minutes, I couldn't answer her. I just kept staring at the phone's screen, at my result in less blue and more red, with my test score even way better than my exams.

It was horrible, horrible to look at.

I couldn't even get an average in my exams with less than three months to finals.

Can I even do anything properly?

"Oluwabukunmi, you have to tell me..." She shifted even closer to me, "If there's anything going on in school, you have to tell me."

Everything is going wrong. Everything has been going on all these while.

"Is there anyone..." She trailed off and I could almost hear her swallow a lump as if she couldn't bring herself to utter the word she was about to say. "Are you... Are you being bullied?"

I could feel it, hear it, the terror, the fear in her voice as if she was really afraid that I was being bullied.

It suddenly made me want to burst into tears and to tell her everything.

It was also the first time that mom wasn't flaring up, that she wasn't going ballistic that I wasn't doing something right. The mom I knew wouldn't even have been interested in why? She would have been particular about the result.

"Tell me if the kids in school are..."

"No, they're not." I interrupted, feeling suddenly and strangely irritated by this conversation. She never cared to know why so what changed? Was this single act going to erase how she had treated me all these while? How she had made me feel? How she had killed my self esteem long before I knew what the word meant?

NO! IT WASN'T!

"Bukunmi, I'm your mom, if you don't tell me the things that are happening with you, then who do you want to..."

"NO-ONE!" I interrupted, fuelled my the energy I did not know I have, the energy that propelled me up to my feet while mom looked as shocked and stunned as possible. "No-one mom, no-one. Because you've made me believe, because you've ingrained it in my brains that I'm deserving of no one. I'm sorry I messed my results up. I know that at least I should have good grades to make up for being the fat daughter!"

Mom honestly looked so surprised at my outburst. She looked like she had never thought there'd be a day I'd talk back to her like this.

"Bukunmi, what..." She ended up trailing off without saying a coherent sentence and before she could even think to say another thing, I was already out of the door and racing down the hallway to my room until I collided into something.

Someone.

Mayowa.

My sister.

"Bukunmi..." She called out at the same time the papers she was holding came tumbling down and for the briefest moment, I caught sight of what looked like sketches of fat, plump bodies on the papers.

What in...

"Bukunmi," She paused to take a closer look at my face, "What's going on?"

I sidestepped her and walked to my room.

*************

I missed dinner on purpose.

When one of the maids came to tell me that dinner was ready and that mom was requesting my presence downstairs, I ignored her by pretending to be asleep while in reality, I was just trying to ignore the worms in my stomach.

I was trying to ignore the hunger gnawing at my stomach.

I was trying to forget everything, to push the darkest of the thought into the farthest part of my mind.

I tried to ignore the incessant laughter that kept drifting into my room from the downstairs, tried to overlook the fact that they were talking excitedly and laughing that happily without me.

Not like I'd have contributed if I was there.

I could hear my sister in her clear and almost perfect English saying things about stores and fashion designing and feasibility study. She was talking with the clear and perfect tone of someone that was already actualizing their dreams.

She was barely even 19 and she already graduated from fashion school, she already seemed to have so much going on for her.

Compared to me.

I ignored that one too. Tried to focus on any positive thing and my brain couldn't stop thinking about the good old days. The days filled with laughter and happiness and good memories.

And Adam.

And Sophia.

And... Aminah.

There was nothing left now, except hollowness and bitterness.

This is what you get for overstepping your boundaries.

Someone knocked on my door, shattering the abyss I was just about to start falling too. I ignored the knock, knowing fully well that whoever it was on the other side would leave if I did not answer them.

The knocking persisted.

"Kunmi," I visibly tensed. It was Mayowa and I just had to tense because she had no business coming to my room. "I know you're awake and I'm about to enter."

I started to hurriedly cover my whole body with my duvet when she stepped in with a tray that was promptly accompanied with the aroma of freshly cooked food, one I couldn't decipher which one exactly.

Was she here to tell me to eat? If she really was, then she should just turn back and go away with the food because I wasn't interested in eating.

My stomach growled.

Mayowa just crossed over to my reading desk, gently placed the tray on the desk before turning.

I thought she was going to walk to the door and walk out of the room until she started walking towards me on the bed, until she sat down beside me on the bed so she could see my face.

I frowned.

What's this about?

For a while, she said nothing, she just kept staring at me, at my face, at my body on the bed. She was staring keenly at my body as if she was trying to access me.

It was just as uncomfortable as it was annoying.

"What do you want?" I asked her, not meaning for my voice to sound as cold, as distanced, as detached as it sounded and her face, her black, pretty, flawless, glowing face contorted into a frown.

She seemed to catch herself because she leaned back, leaned away from me.

"Mom is very worried about you..."

And?

"She said you've been acting aloof and down for more than a month now. She said you've been..." She paused, then swallowed really hard as if whatever she was about to say next was causing her some sort of pain, "She said you've been skipping meals and eating in extremely bizarre small amounts so she's worried that you're losing unhealthy weight. Even I can see that."

My heart leapt for so much joy that I couldn't explain it. There was the pounding in my chest, the excited pounding of my heart. There was also this strange ecstasy taking all over my body.

I was losing weight?? They were noticing... They noticed that I was losing weight!??

"And," She continued, her voice taking on this sombre tone, "And mom is of this opinion that since I'm back, you'll confide in me." She scoffed, she actually scoffed. "I don't know just how long mom is going to act blind to the fact that we basically don't have a relationship between us."

I wasn't even paying attention to what she was saying. The fact that I was losing weight, that I was losing noticeable weight was what kept repeating itself in my brain, feeling me with so much joy, so much ecstasy that it was unexplainable.

"And besides, I've been wondering, I've been thinking about the reason why we've drifted so far apart. We used to be so close as kids."

The joy and ecstasy suddenly wiped themselves away as if they were never there. What's this? Was she here to play sister now? Well, it's too late.

"But..."

"And why are you here?" I interrupted, suddenly feeling angry, suddenly hating her presence. I couldn't even comprehend why she was here. I just wanted her to leave.

"I just..." She swallowed, "I'm here because I'm worried about you."

Ohhhh. Paint me surprise.

I did not even realise I was laughing out loud until she leaned back and a skeptical look crossed her face.

"You're worried about me!? Why does that statement have unbelievable written all over it!?"

She frowned, "I'm your... Your... I'm your sister. What's so unbelievable about the fact that I'm worried about you?"

"You just said it minutes ago that we don't even share a sibling's relationship."

"That doesn't... That doesn't..." She sounded so obviously exasperated before she heaved a sigh, "That doesn't mean I've never been worried about you."

"Of course, you've been. You just have a really weird way of showing it."

"Kunmi..."

"Mayowa!" I pushed myself to a sitting position on the bed, "I'm already feeling as bad and terrible as possible. I'd very much like it if you can just leave me alone like you've been doing all these while instead of compounding my problems."

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry," She raised her hands briefly in mock surrender, "I'm sorry I haven't been that much of a sister to you but I can't leave you alone when I know you're trying to lose weight by starving yourself and inducing vomiting anytime you are forced to eat."

She knows...

"I can't leave you alone. Do you even have an idea what kind of harm you're doing to your body by starving?"

"And how would you know exactly what kind of harm? You've always had this beautiful, flawless," I gestured to her body, my tone becoming more hardened with jealousy and bitterness as I said the adjectives, "Perfect slim body so how woulg you know what harm... How would you know anything at all when you've never had to worry about anything: about how you look, your grades, gain admission into prestigious schools, have good friends, have anything you want for that matter! You never cared about your younger sister and now you're here to feed me the crap of I'm worried about you!"

My outburst startled her into a standing position. She was just standing, hovering over me, face ashen with shock and disbelief.

I did not even know whether to believe she was shocked that I could have an outburst or she was shocked at my outburst.

She just kept standing there, looking genuinely shocked out of her mind.

I got back to my initial body on the bed with my back to her. I wasn't going to say any other thing to her. If she was interested in having a conversation, I was just going to allow her to have one.

All by herself.

For minutes, we remained in that position, my back to her and she standing over me without saying a word.

For minutes, for a very long one.

I started to turn back, convinced that something must be going on with her for her to remain that still behind me when she cleared her throat.

I maintained my position.

"You know, whenever you hit rock bottom, it's always up to you to decide whether you're going to stay right there or you're going to stand up and get on your feet again."

Oshey, Motivational Speaker.

She said nothing afterwards and finally she started to walk away. I heaved a sigh of relief when I heard her open the door only for her to speak again.

I groaned.

"I'm planning on opening my fashion house soon and..."

And please get out.

"And well, you inspired me a lot for it, for the theme and everything."

With that, She stepped out of the room.

I did not even ponder on what she said.

Okayyyy!

Looks like Mayowa is back and a quick question, what do you think she means by saying Bukunmi inspired her for her fashion house? What? What? What? Surprise me please.

What do you think Sophia remembered about Aminah??

And why do you think Aminah kept a diary? I mean, why document all the horrible things she's doing? Why??

See you guys soon ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️