"Olumide?"

Someone called his name. It sounded so far away. Like the background noise that bled from the radio on the unfortunate mornings spent in his father's office.

He shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand; kissing Romola. She looked up at him with a smile, lifting her lashes in a sultry way. His heart rammed against his chest dangerously but each beat was a soul thriller.

"Olumide!"

Someone shook his shoulders and his eyes flew open. It was all a dream. Romola wasn't his. Yet.

"You're still here?"

He rose at the sound of Romola's voice, his joints cracking as his body stretched after being in one position for hours. His body ached. Leaning against the wall, his eyelids fluttered as the orange hue of dawn gave way to the brighter light of a sunny morning.

"Did you seriously sit here all night?" She asked.

"I meant what I said. I need us to talk." He stared at her. "Romola, please. Even if it's just a few minutes."

Her eyes strayed towards the opening created by the sinking bungalows in the compound. It was mostly empty, except for a motorcycle in front of one the houses.

She sighed, then held the door of her house open.

He hurried in before she could changed her mind. Entering the house was battle won, convincing her that their relationship was something to salvage was another but he was ready to fight till his last breath for that.

He had stormed back to the pediatrician's room when he had discovered Romola was gone and he had demanded that Yetunde tell him where Romola lived. Yetunde refused to. She swore that she had taken a vow of silence and would not speak until he took her back. He'd told her she would die silent. The nurses had given him Romola's address.

With the first reach of daylight, he could see the interior of the small house better. The living room was half the size of his hotel room. There were a couple of worn and patched couches gathered together around a greying old stand that belonged to an inexistent television. There was no light from the right side of the room where he could see a row of doors. The only other source of light, other than the main entryway, was the other half of the living room from which light seeped through worn old dull thin curtains and from which he made out the outline of the window of another house.

Romola's house was cramped and seemed to have a musty smoky smell. Something buzzed past his ear. He tried to smack it and ended up slapping his cheeks. The itch on his right cheek worsened as he scratched it.

Romola smacked his hand. "Don't you know you are not supposed to itch? It'll make it worse."

As she said it, the upper part of his left hand itched. He rubbed it with his right hand.

Romola grabbed his arm and pulled up his shirt. "Olumide, look at your hand."

He didn't need to look down to know that there were red spots on his hand. It was on his foot too and anywhere else that had been exposed to the onslaught of mosquitoes. They had nearly chased him from her door.

"And on your face too?" Romola held his jaw and turned his face left and right inspecting it. "Why didn't you go home?"

"I am not going anywhere till we speak."

She dropped her hand and frowned. "You could have waited in your car."

"It broke down somewhere. But I don't want to talk about my car." He took her hand and sat down on the chair, pulling her closer.

She didn't pull her hand out of his. That was a good sign.

Even dressed in such a simple style of just her natural hair pulled backwards in two simple cornrows and a silk looking buttoned down blouse over her shorts, she still looked as beautiful as that day in glass courts.

She raised a brow. Just the very same way she had done when he had first told her he wanted to discuss something about Yetunde. "I don't think you came here to stare at my face, right?"

"Romola, I'm sorry. I don't know how else to say I'm sorry. All I know is that I was foolish."

She eyed him. "If offering yourself to mosquitoes for dinner is not evidence of foolishness, then I don't know what is. What else?"

Her words cut him but he knew that was her intention and he deserved worse than the words she had used on him.

"I don't know where to begin."

"If you don't know what to say, then leave me."

"Romy-"

She pulled her out of his. "That's Moromola to you."

"Okay, Moromola Grace Ibikunle, I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Not fighting for our love."

"Mide," She raised her hand and stepped back. "There's no us. No our. I was out of my senses when whatever happened between us did."

"No, I felt it. We had a connection before Yetunde poisoned you. Everything I did was out of my love for you."

"There you go again with that word." She stamped her right feet. "I don't want to hear it. You know what, just go back to your fiancee. I'm sure she's not eager about you being here."

"We broke up." Romola turned to him sharply. He did not wait for her brow to rise before he provided the answer. "I ended the engagement. I mean, after all you revealed yesterday-"

"Well, good for you but-"

"I'm not done. I would've broken up with her early yesterday before Modupe's accident. I'd finally figured out how those pictures of you on the beach got out and I confronted her about it."

Olumide narrated the whole thing to her, including the part about Micheal Ajayi and then Yetunde kissing him. She hung on to his every word and prompted him when she was not clear.

At the end of it all, tears ran down her face. "Oh God, I wish I'd never met Yetunde."

He rose and hugged her. "Me too but if not, we wouldn't have met each other."

She pushed him away, punching his chest with feeble hands, her voice rising higher than the whispers that had characterised their conversation so far. "And so, that didn't stop you from asking her to marry you. Do you know what it was like to be standing there hoping you would come to me? And after the engagement, she humiliated me. I almost lost my job, Olumide. Everything I worked for. My.. my sister..."

Romola's voice cracked on the last word.

Olumide hung his head. "I'm really sorry. If I could have done something-"

"Nothing, Mide. There is nothing you could have done. I keep thinking of what I had to do. What I could have done."

It hurt him to see her in so much sorrow. So much grief. If he hadn't wasted so much time with Yetunde perhaps, he could have helped her. In a lot of ways, he saw himself in her. He saw the wreck that he had been after Muyiwa died. He saw the sorrow that would drown her. At least she had her mother and brother. He had no one, except Dami whom he didn't even let get close enough till he was almost out of his psyche.

"Romola, what happened was not your fault. He would've killed someone yesterday. If not your sister, it could have been you."

"Why not me then?"

"Don't talk like that."

She scrubbed the tears from her face and focused on him with renewed energy. "I'm sorry Mide, I'm not looking for love right now."

"Then let me be your friend."

If he had to start over again from the friend zone, he would. No matter how long it took.

"We already tried that and see where it got us."

"No. I didn't get a chance to try that with the real Romola. I got the one who was always hiding and pretending. I want the real Romola. The one who lives in a musty house and wears dull slacking clothes but who would fight tooth and nail for the truth and who would be mad at me but still make sure that I'm not hurt first. I want the Romola that I saw through the cracks when I spoke about Yetunde. I want the Romola that I saw at the hospital yesterday."

"I'm afraid she doesn't exist."

"Try me."

"You want me, right?" With a harsh voice, she pushed him in the chest and he fell back into the chair.

She stood over him, pointing with her fingers as she eyed him. "You want the true Romola right. Here she is. I work as a shop assistant in a custom jewellery shop. My nudes are all over the internet. I dropped out from Uni because of that and I'm flunking a professional course that I invested all my savings in. I'm very sure you would be happy to tell your friends all about this, right?"

"It's not a problem. We can fix it."

"Bob the builder, I'm a falling wreck. When I had the chance to work at Pilliard, I ran like a chicken. I used to be a party dancer and I almost slept with several professors. I'm not the kind of woman your parents want. I'm the kind they warn you to stay away from. I pushed a girl into a shelf and probably broke her head and I'll do it again if I had the chance. If you also give me a chance, walai tallai, I will chop all your money without mercy and then I will leave you. I'm not even a virgin-"

"Ehen ehn?" The voice came from one of the rooms behind them.

Olumide turned. The door opened wider and Romola's mother emerged with wild round eyes, red around the corners. No doubt she had been listening to their conversation.

"Maami, I was just-"

"Stay behind me." Olumide rose and stood in front of Romola.

He had failed to protect her when her mother came to his house warming. He would not make the same mistake now. He turned his back to her and faced her mother.

"Olumide, what are you doing?" She placed her hands on his shoulder.

He put his hand out at his back to make a sort of barrier on either side of her. "She's not going to hit you."

Her mother's eyes widened again with a sort of amusement. She folded her arms, staring at them.

"Ma, don't touch her. I know she has done somethings you may not like-"

Romola's mother shook her head, her lips trembling. "The same thing. I keep trying to tell her and Sunbo."

"Mide, you don't need to stand between me and my mom." Romola tapped his back. "I can handle it."

"But-"

"She's my mother. I can handle her." Romola spoke with the same voice of finality that she had in the hospital. With a tone that told him to proceed at the risk of inescapable danger.

"Handle me? Or I will handle you?" Her mother said.

"Please, just leave. You being here complicates things." She said.

Olumide sighed, his shoulders falling as he took a few steps towards the door. Then, he turned and came back to Romola, leaning towards her and whispering in her ears.

"I'm only leaving because you asked me to but I'll be back and I'm going to fix us."