Rachael took a look at the paper again and a lot of unanswered questions came to her mind.
Maybe Rita and Vincent were right all this while, and she foolishly doubted them.

"This questionnaire was given to us by Diane to fill, so what is it doing with you?" she threw another question at Cyril who just stood there without answering her. He had totally forgotten to put the paper away when she had informed him that she was coming over.

Rachael looked into his eyes closely and saw the quilt written all over. Her sight of the two circled words; spaghetti and guitar - played back in her mind.

"You've definitely been lying to me all this time! You told me your favorite meal was spaghetti and that you also loved playing the guitar too. It was all a lie and I stupidly fell for it!" Rachael let out a pain-filled chuckle in the midst of her tears.

"You're not going to say something? Come on, say something! Is Diane involved with all this?" she shouted at Cyril, something she never thought she could do since she was always keeping her cool around people, but she just couldn't help herself at that moment.

"It's not my fault Rachael. Diane needed my help so urgently, and I decided to help her," Cyril adamantly spoke.

"Why would she need your help in getting close to me?" Rachael asked.

"You would have to find out about that from her okay. You don't expect me to tell you everything," Cyril carelessly said as he took his seat on the bed, palming his face as he did so.

"Rita was so right. I shouldn't have trusted Diane." Rachael shook her head. "Are you even a secondary school student? Because none of these books here on your table looks like textbooks for secondary school students," Rachael asked as she carefully looked at the books on his table.

"Why do you have to ask so many questions? Why don't you just forget about everything and flow with me." Cyril stood up from his bed and started walking closer to Rachael again. He eventually took a hold of her hands. "You need help Rachael. Let me help you."

His words got Rachael infuriated the more, so she forcefully withdrew her hands from him.
"The only one that needs help here is you!" she shouted at him and started finding her way to the door of his room.

"Where are you going to?" Cyril ran over to her and grabbed her hands.

"I swear if you ever lay your filthy hands on me again, I would make sure my dad gets to hear about this and I promise you that you really don't want to know what he is capable of doing to you!" Rachael threatened and Cyril immediately let her hands go.

"I'm sorry okay. You can go but please don't report me to your dad," Cyril pleaded before Rachael finally left his room and then the house. She immediately got into an Uber with no direction in particular, not until the driver asked for her destination.

"Olive estate," Rachael replied him with the name of Vincent's estate. She felt that she owed him an apology, and of course Rita too. 

They had just driven to the outskirts of the estate when Rachael told the driver to stop.

"Are you sure you want to get down here? We have not gotten to the estate yet," the driver said.

"I want to get down here," Rachael confirmed and the driver stopped while she paid for her fare and stepped down from the taxi.

She had decided to take a little walk and have some time to think as she was having a roller coaster of emotions running through her mind. She felt rejected by her mother, used by Diane and Cyril, and also felt stupid for not listening to her friends but shunning them instead. She let the tears run down her face as she started walking on the not-too-busy street where she had been dropped.

After walking for about five minutes, she came across a couple carrying a little child that she had guessed to be around the age of five or six. The father of the child jiggled her while the mother and the little child were full of laughter, and Rachael couldn't help but smile at the sight, but then again she felt a little jealous of the child and wished she was the one in her place. She quickly exchanged a few greetings with them before continuing with walking.

After walking for a little while, she finally got to the mini supermarket of Vincent's mum. She quickly used her palms to wipe away every trace of tears from her face before she opened the glass doors of the shop.

Vincent's mum was the first to see her walk in, since her son was busy with refilling some of the shelves with goods.

"Hi dear. Are you okay? You don't look so fine," Mrs. Jonathan said to Rachael immediately she went to meet her.

"I'm fine ma. Good evening ma," Rachael replied and greeted, since it was already passed four on her wristwatch.

"Good evening dear. How is school and your parents?"

"School is fine, and my parents too," Rachael said, trying to force in a smile so she could appear more convincing to Mrs. Jonathan who was actually not buying her tale of being fine.

"You know you can talk to me if you need anything. You're like a daughter to me and your parents have really been good to me and my husband," she said.

"Yes ma, I know that." Rachael smiled weakly.

"Mum, you need to come and... Rachael?"
Vincent paused when he saw Rachael standing there and still on her school uniform. He had thought that she had gone home after closing time.

Rachael had regrets written all over her expression while Vincent stared at her.

"Talk to your friend. Something seems off about her look today," Vincent's mum whispered to him as she got closer to where he was, before leaving the both of them.

"What's wrong with you Rachael? Why are you still on your uniform?" Vincent asked with concern as he moved closer to Rachael.

"Have you been crying?" he asked when he noticed the dried tear lines on her face.

"I'm sorry Vincent, you deserve to be angry with me right now," Rachael said with remorse, not looking at him as she talked.

Vincent went over to hug her shortly as he noticed her pain. "Come with me please. We need to talk," he said, and then walked her into the store room.

Vincent made sure she was comfortably seated on the small bench inside the store room before sitting next to her. They were both silent for a minute before he decided to break the silence.

"Are you okay? Please talk to me," he asked again.

"I'm sorry for not believing you and Rita when you both warned me about Cyril. I don't know what came over me but I actually went over to his place after school," Rachael started and was soon interrupted by Vincent.

"Hope he didn't hurt you. Is he the reason why you were crying?" Vincent asked with a lace of anger.

Rachael took in a deep breath. "He tried to take advantage of me but I didn't let him get far."

"What! Rachael you need to report him to the authorities!" Vincent said in anger. He was already on his feet.

"Calm down Vincent. He didn't get the chance to do anything serious. I don't want to get the authorities involved. I just want to forget about it all and move on," Rachael said as she tried to calm him down. Vincent took his seat once again before she continued.

"I saw this in his room." Rachael brought out the piece of paper which had been in the pocket of her skirt.

"Is this not the questionnaire that Diane had asked us to fill the other day?" Vincent observed the paper closely.

"It is. He said Diane had given it to him. He was only trying to get closer to me because of Diane, but for a reason I don't know up till now."

"You didn't ask him why?" Vincent asked.

"I did, but he told me to find out myself," Rachael replied with a shrug.

"I've never trusted Diane, and when her so called cousin Cyril showed up, I knew he shouldn't be trusted too. What Rita's brother said only confirmed my worries," Vincent added.

"Jude was right and I totally didn't see it. I didn't even believe Rita when she told me about Cyril. I was so stupid," Rachael held her head with her two hands and looked down as she spoke.

"Hey, it's okay now. You've found out the truth for yourself. Don't spend all your time trying to blame yourself. You only wanted to have new friends and there is nothing bad in doing that. Cyril and Diane should be the ones sorry for throwing out such a beautiful opportunity to get to know you," Vincent said with much calmness, and it made Rachael feel better.

"Thank you so much Vincent, you're so kind," Rachael said as she moved closer to hug him.

"I'm always here for you," Vincent said amidst their hug. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes before they broke apart as Rachael's phone began to ring. She noticed that it was already five in the evening before picking up the call from her dad.

"Hello dad, good evening," Rachael answered her call.

"Good evening. Where are you? Ebuka said you had told him not to bother with picking you up."

"Dad, please I won't be coming back home today. I'm staying over at Vincent's place," she said as she looked over to Vincent, trying to break the news to him too, and he nodded in reply.

"Oh, alright. That's okay with me. Just make sure to take good care of yourself," her dad replied from the other end while she smiled at his reply.

"Thanks dad, bye. I would see you tomorrow," Rachael said to her dad before ending the call.

"I'm staying over," she said to Vincent after the call.

"I would really love that and I'm sure my mum would too, the last time we had a sleep over at my place was when we were in SS 1," Vincent happily said as he remembered the day.

Both Rachael and Rita had come over to his place on a Friday evening and they had so much fun spending time together, eating and chatting away.

"How about your dad?" Rachael asked.

"My dad actually traveled to Abuja this morning for a teacher's conference. He would be back by Friday," Vincent replied.

"Okay, that's nice," Rachael said before feeling an urge to pee.

"I need to use the toilet," she told Vincent.

"Come with me," Vincent said and walked her down the hallway, and pointed to a small door at the end of the hallway.

"The toilet is over there," he urged on.

"Okay thanks," Rachael replied.

"I would go and tell mum that you are staying over. You can meet me when you are done, okay," Vincent said.

"Alright, I will thanks," Rachael said before walking over to the small door that opened into the toilet. The toilet room was pretty small but was very neat when she walked in.

She pulled her undies down and did her business. She was just about pulling them up again after she was done, when she noticed the red spot on them.

"Shit! I totally forgot that I was due today," she lamented to herself as the realization dawned on her that she had forgotten that she was expecting her period that day.

                              ~•~