Jeremiah.

I could hear him chew his gum so noisily beside me and for most of the time, I was trying to hold back. Trying to pretend like I didn't want to cringe, trying to pretend like I didn't want to slap the gum out of his mouth. Play nice, play friendly.

If I was ever going to carry out my plan I knew I had to at least try to get Charles to be comfortable around me. I didn't have to show him how angry or irritated he made me feel. I just had to ignore everything he did or pretend to be okay with it, even though it meant I had to pretend to like the sound his teeth made whenever it hit the gum in his mouth. That really disgusting sound.

It had been over thirty minutes. The adults had locked themselves up in the room in front of us, the mini room for board meetings in Benoil. They insisted we waited outside while they handled everything. All we did was watch them from the huge glass. My brother, our lawyer, Charles' mother and their lawyer. It was just them and trust me, I couldn't care less whatever it was that they talked about.

I could see how Charles was so busy staring into his phone and laughing under his breath at whatever it was he was looking at. I took a deep breath. I couldn't believe I was about to do what I was about to do but I knew I had to. In any moment, the "adults" were going to be done with the meeting. I knew I had to go ahead with my plan so it didn't get ruined. I slowly reached for the white book I had hid on the chair right beside me, right beside my phone that I had initially put on video record mode. God, I hated this. I couldn't believe that I was about to do it. That I was about to give it to him. I had spent the entire morning convincing myself if it was even necessary, if I was really going to give it up. I had spent three years trying to get this book. Three good years, and now I had to sacrifice it for the greater good.

Just get on with it Jeremiah. I told myself. I didn't have the time to think about it more than I already did. I slowly picked up the book from the chair, cursing myself in my mind and then I exhaled. I threw the book to him.

"Here." I told him, not bothering to turn to him but I watched him with the corner of my eyes. I watched how he paused first to look at what it was and then I watched him slowly pick the book from his legs, a certain confusion on his face.

"It's the first edition and original comic manuscript of the underdone. First to twelfth Volume."

I told him. I had done my research well and just like me and over half of the boys in the world that read comic books, Charles was a great fan of the underdone series. I had seen how he always posted memes and caption lines and also scenes from almost all the volumes of the book all over his Instagram. He was a huge fan and I knew if I wanted to get his attention, that was exactly what I needed to do. I could see how his jaw dropped as he skimmed through the pages of the big book. Yes, just like me, he couldn't believe it. Now I slowly turned to face him.

"It's the only one of its kind," now I had to brag a little. "I spent three years and a lot of money to get that. it even has Author Cheng's signature behind it."

He flipped the book all the way to the back cover to confirm. There it was. The signature at the back. I could see his eyes widen in excitement.

"No kidding." He whispered to himself. It was working. I had managed to excite him. I could see it. He slowly frowned and then eyed me, this was the part where he was going to pretend like he didn't care. This was where he was going to ask me the question I've been waiting for-

"So what?" He asked dropping the book on the table gently. "Why are you giving it to me?" He let his lips curve up in a smile. "Don't tell me you just wanted to brag about it?"

I pouted and then nodded my head.

"That's part of it." I told him. "But the real reason is I wanted to give it to you."

He swallowed hard. I could see his Adam apple jiggle.

"Give it to me? Why would you give me anything? Why would you give me your most priced jewel?"

"Most priced-" I scoffed. "Trust me, I have a lot more where that came from. I've dedicated the past six years of my life to searching for manuscripts like this one. I had an archive in my room filled with them. That's just one of about ten? Twenty?" I pretended to think. "Or was it thirty?" I had actually lost count. He was falling for it. I could see it.

I turned fully to him and then pushed my chair closer to him.

"You can have that one." I told him. "I'm not a big fan anyway. Plus I wanted to give it to you. Consider it an apology for," I pointed at his face. "You know."

He cleared his throat. I intended to make him really embarrassed of himself.

"It really sucks to know that I was taken advantage of just like you were before. I couldn't believe I fell for her lies. I had sometime to think about it after I found out what the truth really was. Sometime to think about how my actions would have affected our future friendship and my family's future ties with yours."

"F-future f-friendship?" He stammered. I nodded.

"It's really hard to find friends nowadays. Everyone is so damn sensitive. No one shares my views you know, everyone in this whole country is so tied to their morals and all of that. We that have spent a lot of time in the diaspora, we know better. Guys from well off families like yours and mine, we know that sometimes, we just have to do what we have to do to get what we want. Morals be damned."

"Wait a minute." He stretched a hand towards me. He chuckled. "Don't tell me you're being this way because you feel that by doing this, you can stop my family from suing yours." He asked me. "Your family is going to compensate mine whether you like it or not."

"Trust me, that's the least of my concerns. I don't give two flying fucks about this meeting. I'm talking about you and me, and what we can achieve if we work together. With my influence and popularity, and your family's ability to cover up our mess, we can be unstoppable. We can do whatever we want. Pay those that have tried to ruin our lives back."

"I heard you finally dumped that girl." He told me. "Kora."

I scoffed.

"I had to." I told him. She couldn't give me what I wanted in the end anyway."

"What you wanted?"

I nodded.

"I know it didn't look like it but I never really liked Kora." I leaned closer to him. "I'm just going to confide and tell you this now since we are now getting along."

He looked at me with all of his attention. He was dying to know.

"I was just pretending to like her, Kora. My friends and I made a bet, I told them I was going to make her let me hit, they thought I couldn't and it deflated my ego. I mean look at me. I'm Jeremiah, any girl would die to sleep with me, how dare they question my ability to get someone like Kora? She's not even old money or new young money. Someone like her isn't even up to par compared to me. I wanted the challenge and so I took it. I had to make her trust me. Anything to win the bet isn't it? But in the end, I'm kind of disappointed. She's so uptight. I guess I'd never know what she really tastes like, feels like, you know? Right now, you might be the only one that knows how good she is." I chuckled hard. I could see how he was shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

"I know how hard it must have been, running away back then and leaving your family behind but I admire your family a lot. I can't imagine the kind of effort it must have taken to make everything go away without the whole world knowing. Even my family can't make things go away that fast. You guys must have a lot of connections."

He smiled.

"It's nothing." He told me. He was starting to smile now. "Making things go away has never been a problem for my family. You have no idea the kinds of trouble I've found myself in and my mother always found a way to get me out of them in a couple of hours. Consider Kora's case a piece of cake."

A frown was starting to force its way to my lips. I could feel wrinkles trying to cloud my forehead but I just knew I had to keep up the act. He was beginning to open up to me, I just needed to push him a little more.

"Really?" I asked him. "So I was right then? You're the only one that knows. What it's like to sleep with her? Is she good? Like really good?"

He scoffed.

"I don't think I'm the only one." He told me. "I'm sure she slept with a few other people after that time."

I inhaled sharply.

"I don't think she did. She only dated like one person all her life and I'm sure she never let him hit too. You're pretty much just the only one."

He scoffed.

"Really?" He was getting red. "I didn't think I was ever going to be the only one." He smiled to himself. "I guess old habits really die hard doesn't it? She was always like this even in secondary school. Always so uptight and high on her morals. She made us all challenge ourselves. She made us really curious."

"Us?" I asked him.

"The boys of Saint Dominic high. My secondary school." He explained.

I hesitated for a while.

"Ohhh," I pretended to be surprised. "Your school."

He nodded.

"But I'm sure it wasn't that hard for you in the end. You didn't have to wait long. She let you in in the end. You got what you wanted like always."

He frowned for a second and then looked at me. He was trying to examine me, I knew it. He was trying to read me. To see if he could really trust me. I didn't expect him not to and I was sure not going to give him reason to not.

"Come on man," I told him. "It's just us. You can tell me anything. I'm not going to tell anyone. Plus, I'm dying to know since I didn't get the chance to. I've always been dying to know."

He exhaled and then pulled himself closer to me.

"Well, since we are friends now, and since you trusted me with this special gift," he hit the book twice. "And your little secret, since we both share the same goals, I think it's okay for me to trust you."

Please do. Please give me a chance to actually ruin your life.

"Damn that Kora." He started. "I mean how can a girl who is so good, so sweet in the middle deny every guy an opportunity to experience how it feels to be inside of her. For someone that has nothing, not a single connection, she thinks so highly of herself."

"My point exactly."

He sat straight.

"I mean, if she had just done what I had asked. If she had just gone out with me and not be so stubborn about it, it wouldn't have made me so hungry for her and so upset. I was ready to wait for her, to wait till she was ready but she kept looking down on me. Do you know what she said? She said I wasn't her type. I mean look at me," he gestured to himself. "I'm everyone type. How dare she make fun of me like that in front of the whole school? It killed my ego. I had just had to show her that I was a man. That I was a man that could get anything he wanted. I had to show her that I was more than her type. She didn't want to give it to me and so I took it in the best and only way I knew how to. I took it by force."

That was it, that was his confession. I could feel my muscles tense. My fingers were slowly curving into a fist. I could feel anger swim through my veins. I exhaled.

"Y-you raped her?"

"Raped her?" He asked me. "Why does everyone keep saying that? She wanted it. She wanted me. If she didn't, she wouldn't have trusted me and come to the back of the school to meet me on her own. She pretended like she didn't in front of everyone but she did."

"She told you she wanted it?"

"She didn't say she didn't." He cut me off. "She didn't even fight it. Rape? I did her a favor. If I hadn't, she'd have probably died a virgin. I gave her the best sex she could have ever gotten in her entire life. I made her cry again and again. It was so good. She was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted my whole life. Still is. I even cried too. I'm sure she enjoyed it. I mean why else would she refuse to sleep with anyone else after me? I gave her a whole lot of confidence. She didn't use to be so brave before."

I took a deep breath, still trying to keep my cool even though my head and body didn't want to. I wanted to jump him so badly.

"And then what happened after that? Did you take her home."

"Why would I take I home?" He asked me.

"I mean, I just figured you'd at least give her a ride home after that, seeing it was late."

"Of course I didn't. I had about three friends that wanted to hitch a ride with me back home. There was no space in my car for a forth wheel besides, my mother had zero tolerance for women in her car. I don't know what happened. I figured her driver was going to come get her after the party so I left."

"You left her there?" My voice was shaking now. I wasn't sure I was going to last long under pretense.

"They found her anyways didn't they?" He asked me. "And can you imagine what she told her mother after that? She started to tell people I had raped her. I almost lost my scholarship because of her. It made my father so mad. We even offered to settle them for what happened. My mother wrote them a cheque of six million but they refused to take it. I mean, it was just sex. It's never that deep. Who on earth would turn down six million for nothing?"

"You tried to bribe them? With six million?"

"I mean, I couldn't lose my scholarship. And they kept making so much fuss about it. They weren't going to give in. They threatened to sue us. Kora's step father then was my father's best friend and business partner. They legit thought he was going to take their side and turn my father in. They really thought they stood a chance against us. My mother made sure that case never saw the light of day in court. It was dismissed before they even knew it." He chuckled.

"Those filthy free loaders still don't now their place. They don't know there are some bridges you just can't cross. They should have just taken the money and disappeared when we asked them to, when we begged them to. I thought the court case must have thought them a lesson, a few months later, we heard they were trying to get the case to court again. Apparently, Kora was pregnant and she claimed it was mine. Mine?" He scoffed. "I have sex all the time without protection, I've never gotten a girl pregnant in my life before because I have an excellent pullout game. How on earth could I have gotten her pregnant? It could have been anyone. I mean she and her mother were hell bent on destroying my life anyway. They could have done anything to achieve that at that moment."

"And so what did you do about it? How were you able to get past that?"

He shrugged his shoulder-

"I don't know. My mum just told me she handled it. I had to leave the country immediately after that. I had to give it some time. I had to take care of my reputation. A blow like that could have ruined my life forever. All I know is after a while, I heard she had lost the baby and they had moved. I didn't hear anything about them until a few weeks ago, after I saw you two on TV, at your father's gala."

He chuckled and then leaned closer to me.

"You should have just told me you didn't like her from the start." He smiled at me. "We didn't have to hurt each other like this just so you could stand a chance with her. I would have understood and stood out of your way."

I didn't need a mirror to see that all my smile had already gone. I just looked him in his eyes. How could he smile like that? How could he still smile after everything he said? After everything he did? What kind of a person was he? What kind of a monster was he?

Hold it in Jeremiah, hold it in.

God I was trying to, it was so hard. I just wanted to throw a punch at him. At that point, I wasn't sure I could take it anymore. I wasn't sure I could go on with the plan. I was sick. I was sick to my stomach. I shut her eyes for a second. I needed to breathe.

My phone started to ring.

Thank God.
That was the distraction I needed. Hearing my phone ring for that second took my mind away from wanting to hit him. I slowly turned to my phone just as he turned back to the book.

"I can't believe I finally got this." He said to himself, flipping the pages again. I took one last look at him before I reached for my phone. It was Kingsley calling.

I took a deep breath and then cleared my throat before I picked up the call.

"Hey man." I spoke into my phone.

"Jer, thank God. You would not believe what just happened in school today."

I could sense the fear in his voice.

"The entire NAUN is kind of in a little shock."

"Why?" I scratched my brows reluctantly. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"It's Kora." He said. I paused. "She was arrested by the Feds this afternoon, shortly after you left. Some hard drugs were found in her room, someone apparently tipped the school about it."

"What?!" I sat up straight. What on earth was he talking about? Kora didn't do no hard drugs. "D-drugs?" I asked him.

"Cocaine and nicotine, in big quantities. I'm talking about supplier kind of quantity."

"T-That's not possible. Kora doesn't do drugs."

"I thought so too. I think someone is trying to frame her. Someone that wants her gone."

I slowly turned to Charles. He still had his eyes glued to the book. I didn't understand. Was it him? Was he the one trying to frame Kora? I didn't even know what to think or what to believe. I was beginning to get so confused.

"Do you know who did it?" I asked him. "Do you know who is trying to frame her?"

"No." Kingsley said. "But I did hear that the school was trying to sort it out with Kora's mother without involving the NDLEA. But somehow, the NDLEA found out about it." He exhaled. "You wouldn't believe who made the call, you wouldn't believe who told the Feds."

I swallowed hard, my face slowly turning to the glass where I could see my brother from inside.

"What?"