6|ℐᏉᎯℕ

   WHY IS SHE UPSET?

   "Okay, first thing tomorrow, I'm coming over." I text her. "A problem shared is a problem solved." I type and erase it. She is probably not in the mood, and besides I already said I was going to see her first thing this morning.

   I really wanted to tell her about the tour.

   Turns out, Father sat at the helm of his multi-million dollar enterprise, Gunnivan Group. Investing in virtually everything: Import of petroleum products, real estate, automobiles, construction, finance, transport, and agriculture in many cities around the world.

   When I got to the HQ, the acting CEO, Mrs. Ogunlede, couldn't stop telling, and showing me pictures of her daughter, Modupe, who is studying medicine in Canada.

   After successfully gloating for the first few minutes, she showed me round the office, which was now bigger and glassier than it was when I visited as a little boy.

   I met the staff, the board of directors and shareholders, after which we had a long boring video conferencing with all the branches in London, New-York, Lagos, Cairo, Abuja, Kano, Dubai, Calabar and Johannesburg. I sat in Father's chair the whole time, soaking up as much of his presence as I could.

   The only thing I took away from the meeting is that they have all planned out a whole future for me that I don't know if I want for myself.

   The tour turned business meeting rounded up at 9pm with a lot of handshakes, pats on the back, and pictures.

   One of the shareholders, a wise looking old man said, and I took to heart, "Kola, baba rẹ yoo gberaga." Kola, your father would be proud.

   I know Father would be proud, I perfected everything he would have wanted. I graduated high school last year at the top of my class, bringing home the best WAEC results in Oyo State, featuring poster worthy 'A' grades in all 11 subjects I sat for. But unlike every other person, I know Father would have been able to tell how much of a stranger I feel like living this life.

   I toss my phone to the drawer and pick up my tablet. Turning on the blue light filter, I view the portrait of Boma I sketched when we moved back here. That evening, her mother invited us over for dinner.

   Of course, Mother was too busy, so I had to go with Sua and the entourage. While Sua and I went in, I asked the security to remain outside because Boma doesn't yet know how suffocating and overwhelming my life turned out to be after we left, and it wasn't exactly the best of choices to storm her house with a bunch of armed men.

  When she came out, my heart stopped. She had turned into a tall glass of champagne, and her smile, it was like I could see my future clearly and I'm not exaggerating.

   At first, she behaved like she was more excited to see Sua and I was getting quite jealous, but after dinner, she took me outside and we walked round their small compound, picking flowers, laughing and reminiscing our fondest childhood adventures. She told me how she found out she had sickle cell disease and it scared me to be honest, because everyone knows sickle cell has an unpredictable outcome.

   But after we settled on her mother's car and watched the sunset, she loves that; I've grown to love it too. I decided that having a genetic disorder made no difference in who she was and I didn't matter how we continued together. So I told her she looked picture perfect only not for a camera and she didn't believe that beyond my obvious charm, was an artist who knew his stylus.

   I didn't mean to brag but I had to deliver. When I was done adding the colours, making sure to highlight her frost blue eyes and natural pink lips worth fantasizing about, accentuating her reddish-blonde hair, even the rogue curl that escaped the bun, her jutting straight nose and her soft straight face; every detail was perfect and I remember it like it happens every day.

   I feel my stomach grumble against my pyjamas. I didn't have dinner last night as Sua was already asleep when I came home.

Bread, maybe juice, that should keep me good till breakfast.

   I get off my bed, slip my feet into my waiting leather slides and walk out of the room. The doorway is dimly lit as always, and I can smell Mother's rose candles from down the hall. I make my way to the stairs.

   It's so quiet.

   On this floor, the third floor, is Tosin's, Mother's, and my room, the last floor above is another sitting room for Mother and her guests. The second floor below is for the soldiers and the domestic staff. The first floor is the common room, the game room, the library, the kitchen and the dinning-hall. At the back of the house is a lawn which doubles for tennis and basketball, over the little black fence is my favourite spot, the swimming pool. I take laps there, every Saturday night.

   My steps echo as I walk into Mother's huge kitchen. The dim golden light from the chandelier shoot towards the white polished limestone walls, landing in the centre of the kitchen, on the gargantuan platform shaped like two swans cradling a white marble platter.

   I can see that the domestic staff have already arranged for breakfast. From the finely layered slices of white Portobello mushrooms, it looks like breakfast is going to be mother's Italian favourite, Mushroom Risotto.

   I have no business eating food that contains mushrooms so I move possibly fifty steps to the fridge. In the left compartment, Mother has a lot of sangria's and iced teas in crystal jugs, there's a decorated fruit bowl in the corner, a tray of moist chocolate cake has taken centre stage.

   I pull out my bread, Willy's White Bread, Sua picks it up whenever she goes grocery shopping, it's the only bread I eat. In the second compartment, Tosin has stocked up on energy drinks, a subtle reminder that the asshole is back and I'm stuck with him the rest of summer. My last box of orange juice is still in the isolated corner I kept it. I pull it out and grab a tumbler, emptying the contents of the juice box.

   "Girl problems!"

   I spill cold juice on my pyjamas and growl underneath my breath.

   "Has to be." Tosin says out of the dark. From the way his voice has turned hoarse and scratchy, I don't need a drug test to tell me he's been doing drugs in Norway. "Precisely, Boma problems."

   "Don't say her name, you make it sound weird, and it's pissing me off." I say.

   "BOMA. Piss. Off." He increases the brightness of the chandelier with an annoying smirk on his face. I would walk over and give him a black eye, but I learned not to fight the hard way, and besides that, I'm too irritated by the unruly beards he has nurtured and the mane he's made out of his hair.

   He walks over to the fridge, sniffing past me to pick up a can of bullet. He gulps it down and grabs another. To that he adds a wedge of cake, recklessly dipping his hands into the fruit bowl like a mad man.

   The entire time, I'm staring at him, disgusted. He turns the light down and the kitchen is dim again, but I can still make out his eyes; they're still glaring at me and now he's grinning too.

   "When she's done with your sorry ass, can you tell her I'm available? White chicks can't get enough of this," he gestures at his groin. I gag into my throat.

   "I'll take that as a yes," he smirks and walks out of the kitchen.

   Oluwatosin Adebayo: stupidly nicknamed toastysin is the only child of Father's only brother. So he is my cousin, one out of the many I have from Father's numerous sisters who live in Lagos. Tosin doesn't have a middle name anybody knows of, he's always been called Tosin. My parents adopted him when he was two years old, after his parents died in a house fire and I was born two years later. So typically we are supposed to be brothers and we were, but at some point, especially after Tosin turned twelve, we became improper fractions.

   There is no bigger ass than Tosin. Not even Gbenga Omoloye, the biggest ass of all the asses in all the seven secondary schools I attended, and the reason I learnt not to fight the hard way.

   The last time I did, Gbenga had to go into surgery to fix his eyes, and Mother transferred me to another fancy boarding school. As I watch him disappear into the still dark, I know all too well that he was right. I'm having girl problems.

   After Father died and we moved to Lagos, Mother took charge and my whole life became simple, three things: Go to school. Get good grades. Go to school

   Imagine being in a bubble that never popped on its way up, that's how trapped I was every single day until we moved back.

   Boma reminds me of the happiness I had when Father was alive and now, we're still friends, operating within the confines of the rules, her rules: No kissing, no weird compliments, no sexy names, no midnight calls, no dates, and no sex till we're both eighteen. Actually, the sex part was till marriage and emphasized on by her mother

   It's against Mother's rules to eat in the rooms but I take my bread and juice to my room.

   I cannot wait to see her.