Gifty
Lagos, Nigeria

The phone conversation with my dad was a therapeutic one and I needed it for sure. Zion wasn't having it easy with me and would not even bother to pretend in front of Mrs. Karen that we were on good terms. He didn't speak to me and honestly, I wished he could go back to the way he was – cold, calculating, and reserved.

I'd learned to live with his silent nature but this type of silence he was giving me wasn't something I could bear at all.

It had made me realize that silence came in different forms. Silence can both be something you desire and it can be something you don't.

But staying around him like my stepfather advised had helped in a way. On a few occasions, we nearly bumped into each other, and sometimes, we just happened to meet coincidentally. When that happened, I would say hi to him sheepishly, he would look at me and walk away without returning my greeting but I took that as progress. It was the least I could get because he normally would not look at me shortly after our huge fight.

We barely saw each other even though we lived together.

Him looking at me was something because, in those cold, emotionless eyes, I could find one thing – need. The need to be needed, loved tenderly, in the way he wanted to be loved; the kind of love our real dad was able to give us.

Zion was depending on me to love him like that although he never communicated it openly to me I owed him the love that only our real dad was able to give. He could understand if I was unable to do it the same way but he wanted me to try. I knew.

I could only hope I was taking the right steps towards trying because Zion deserved it.

The six-year-old Zion I knew was happy and had nothing close as to a storm brewing permanently in his eyes. He never looked angry or about to destroy the world. He was an adequately loved kid but the death of our Dad did him badly and made him who I never thought he would be – subtly bitter, somewhat depressed, and uncomfortably reserved.

I hope I will be able to revive that happy little brother I once knew because he's still very young. Too young to have his youthful years wasted to several thieves of joy.

Today is another good day - a good day if my optimistic side does say so itself. It's a day filled with another tiny dose of hope that Gaius will talk to me today and I don't know what makes me feel this hopeful but ever since Mrs. Karen told me that the only way to make him open up to me is to pester him with the same question over and over again with a few threats added, strangely, I felt it was something I could do well – like the personality of a naggy, clingy girlfriend.

I agreed with Mrs.Karen when she said that someone like Gaius would never open to me even if I decided to wait on him to talk and I knew this was something Gaius could do because, in a way, it always felt like there was something he wasn't telling me even before he started to pull up with this moodiness.

And in a way, it has always felt like something I should know.

Indeed, it's high time I squeezed that information out of his lips.

Once I am set to leave the house, I sling my violin bag over my shoulder and left my room. After ruminating for nearly a dozen times, I conclude that making my presence known to Zion before leaving should not be a hazardous idea. I mean, I have to prove myself to this boy in any way.

After knocking at his door three times and got no response, I turned the doorknob carefully, attempt to walk in but got hit in the chest by my brother or rather, some items he was holding just as we placed our hands on the doorknob at the same time. It didn't seem like he was willing to open the door for me.

The object which happened to be his video game control came crashing down to the floor, breaking into unfixable pieces. Letting out a shriek subconsciously, our eyes met and a cold fire burned in his eyes.

"I-I'm sorry, Zion. I just wanted to say hi to you before leaving for school... I will get you another one."

I explained but his jaw only worked hard against each other, a vengeful promise laying underneath. Seething with more anger, his eyes held mine for a long moment and with fidgeting hands and a racing mind, I ran out of the house, not knowing what else to say with only tears substituting for my speechlessness.

As I ran, I heard him say something about me not caring about him and his voice was so shaky that if it wasn't the Zion I knew, I would have concluded that he was crying.

My heart raced and burned madly, learning that Zion was still not impressed with me despite all of the efforts I had been making to get closer with him. There was nothing I could have done at that point since it was a mistake on my part but if he thinks that I only said I will buy him a new video game control just to make him feel better and leave to see my boyfriend who I truly care about, then I wouldn't know what to do with him because I left due to how my anxiety had decided to manifest itself.

The pressure was too painful for me to bear.

Maybe Zion is going through an emotional breakdown that perhaps goes beyond my 'insensitivity' to his feelings hence why he gets dangerously angry at every single thing because, at this point, I believe he should understand that I wouldn't mean to hurt him.

I hope this will pass away soon enough.

***

I was very enthusiastic to leave violin lessons early today – something that never happens but I couldn't get Gaius out of my mind all through lectures. So many thoughts raced through my mind and often, I felt scared, wondering what the truth might be or whatever it was that he was hiding from me.

Was I truly ready to know what it was? Or would it be better if I didn't bother to know and maybe just end this relationship if he would continue with the attitude? I knew the latter was far fetched and extreme based on my inability to imagine myself ever doing that since I loved Gaius too much but the idea of communicating with someone had never made me feel this much emotions all at once.

Once violin lessons were over, I didn't even wait for our music instructor to end the lessons officially with his usual short reminder talk of the instrumentalist's creed. Quickly, I boarded the first taxi I saw on the road as it drove me to the basketball court premises – our certified meeting point.

Walking slowly into the premises, my heart accelerated in its motions with each step I took. I looked around me and there was nothing strange – just the usual sight of lanky, sweaty men in jerseys making squeaky noises with their sport boots due to incessant running, dribbling to have the ball fall into the net as expected.

I didn't see Gaius around, especially in the court where his colleagues were so I just assumed that he was in the dressing room to get changed – either for the reason of starting or finishing his game so I sat on the bench close to the oak tree, as usual, tapping my feet against the ground and biting my lower lip at intervals, rehearsing how I was going to go about asking him the question.

Should I start by saying, "Gaius, If you don't tell me what has been on your mind, I will castrate you?" or "Gaius, If you don't open up to me and tell me why you've chosen to wallow in pain, I will kill myself?"

The latter question seemed much better and it sounded like a line I could use and it would have an effect on him because if I decided to threaten him to end our relationship, I might get the biggest shock of my life if he gives in to it because I had the feeling that he would rather have me leave him than open up to me but I knew Gaius won't want to lose me to death so... Suicidal threats it is.

But before I was able to come up with that line before my brain was able to transit from the lameness in the first question to the applicability in the second question, a thousand other thoughts had raced through my mind that took a good amount of time and when I took a moment to step out of my realm of buzzing thoughts, I realized that a whole hour had passed. Yes, I know I'm quite the slow and analytical thinker if at all I ever did some deep thinking.

But a full hour had passed and I'd not seen Gaius.

I looked into the basketball court again to see if he was there, playing with his peers, and maybe I was the absent-minded one who didn't notice him pass by but I didn't see him in there. How delusional of me.

Now, it seemed like the game was coming to an end as the players were slowing down with their movements, some doing the extremely gross act of taking off their jerseys and using it to wipe off their sweat and the likes.

Quickly, I rose and rushed towards one of the players who was downing a bottle of water and didn't reek too much of sweat like the others. A kind of sweating that made them look somewhat dangerous even.

"Hey...umm. Did Gaius come around for basketball today at all?"

"No. He was absent today." he gulped down on the liquid, then gave me a look of concern.

I swallowed thickly.

"When last did you see him? Did he tell you he was going to be absent on any day? And did he state where he would be?" I fired the questions all at once.

The player blinked as though he was taking each question in at a time. He'd told me to take it easy without having to use his lips.

It's high time I got some tranquilizers for prescriptions because I tend to act out of control these days.

"He came around briefly yesterday but didn't play the game with us. Looks like he came to pack his stuff or something but he didn't say much. He ignored us when we tried to ask him where he was off to and why he didn't come to play basketball. I think he decided to go on a break."

"Oh...okay...thanks."  I took the information slowly.

I felt the urge to wait for a little while or look around but I knew it was completely pointless. I knew his phone number would be out of reach if I tried calling him since he knows I'm going to do that but I decided to give it a try anyway.

I was so heartbroken and disappointed not to meet Gaius today because I was hoping for a change. It was starting to annoy me so much to see that he was avoiding me and it was making me have second thoughts about our relationship.

Gaius is someone whom I've loved, trusted, and never doubted, and even though we never met in any other place asides from the basketball court, we made our relationship work against all the bizarre odds, unsolicited opinions from people, and even societal norms.

I never really knew Gaius' life in Nigeria asides from the basketball court. I knew his family lived in Australia but I'd never met them neither did I know who he lived with here in Nigeria but I trusted him.

Now, I was starting to look like a fool for doing so because I may never see him again, after all, I don't know much about his family and his background.

I wanted to cry bitterly because I could not believe that he could ghost on me like this or even end our relationship like this but I didn't have the time to ponder further or cry over it because my phone was vibrating.

When I checked the caller ID, hoping it would start with a G, my heart fell and my hopes were dashed when I saw that it was my friend, Kosi calling.

"Hello?"

"Guy! How come you left lessons today and I didn't see you leave? Why did you leave before the music instructor—"

"I had somewhere to go so I was in a hurry, " I interrupted her just because I couldn't bear to have her scream another word. Why was she always so lousy on the phone?

"Anyway, the music instructor had something important to tell us. There is a competition of instrumentalists coming up soon and it's a worldwide affair. Different groups of instrumentalists would be posted to different countries to represent our school for the competition. You are one of the best violinists, Gifty and there's no disputing the fact that you are going to participate so you had better start practicing!"

"Hmm...umm...have the locations been allocated?"

"Not yet but he said something about a certain set of instrumentalists being posted to Germany or Venezuela but I don't know which category that is yet."

If Germany was one of the locations and it turns out to be the location of the violinists, then that means I'll be going to stay with my parents for only God knows how long and...

And...

I would never get to see Gaius again. For real.

Generally, even if I'm not posted to Germany, it doesn't even change the fact that I will now have to focus on my journey as a violinist more than ever before.

So...was this... The end??

Just like that?