Gifty
Lagos, Nigeria

Gaius had never honored my invitation so swiftly before. Not as if he was a tardy man by nature but seeing his car parked at the very entrance of my school just showed a different level of determination and eagerness.

He was eager. Eager to pay for his atrocities, to rectify his mistakes amidst anything that would serve as a potential barrier. Perhaps, even if that barrier was me.

The three days in between the revelation of the painful truth and now were torturously hellish. The worst part was when my mother called. I was supposed to be happy to talk to her after such a long while but I was trembling, sobbing even.

I just couldn't handle the horror of what I knew. How it was going to be like if she eventually found out because I had nothing to hide. At least I have to. She was going to know and it hurt me badly. The pressure was on me and I had no idea how to deal with it. It made me a mess.

Nevertheless, I had hope in the conversation I was to have with Gaius. I believed that we could perhaps, reach a compromise.

A compromise. I couldn't believe I was about to do that. I couldn't believe that hesitation and selfishness would be a driving force for my intentions but I wasn't in the very least, ashamed.

I swallowed hard and wiped the remaining tears that lingered on my swollen eyes. I went down the stairs till I reached his car. I saw him seated at the driver's seat, far too sunken to utter a word, talk more of a greeting. What was the need for pleasantries after all? It was a delicate matter at hand.

So I held my breath when he alighted from the car to open the door for me as a mere act of courtesy. I entered into the right seat and closed the door.

He avoided my eyes. I swallowed again.

He stretched his hands for the radio button and nervously, I reached for the air conditioner instead only to realize that that was the button he had wanted to press. I wanted to stop from him turning on the radio. I was dumb enough to think he would want to entertain some entertainment when there was trouble.

"I should—"

"As should I."

I let go of his hand quickly to let him turn on the air conditioning. The awkwardness was so vivid, it felt as though, it sat majestically between us amongst ten other intensifying, anonymous, atmospheres.

I took a deep breath.

"My aunt was the twelve-year-old girl you raped thirteen years ago."

I went straight to the point as a tear streamed down my eye. It hurt to shed them.

His breathing hitched. His jaw tensed, so, very rigidly. He looked at me with an alarming sense of urgency and guilt in his eyes. His gaze occasionally shifted from side to side, perhaps gathering the momentum that was needed to have tears fall down his eyes. When he succeeded, he fixed his gaze on me and cried.

He wept with painful remorse that tore my heart apart.

"I...I'm so sorry, Gifty. I'm so sorry. Shit!" he dug his hands in his hair in an attempt to wring it all out. His arms covered his face as he wept some more. He even whimpered. "What the hell have I done for heaven's sake?!" he groaned.

From then on, he couldn't bring himself to look at my face. He lowered his head and rested it on the steering wheel, nearly causing it to honk loudly then I remembered the honk had a fault and he needed to repair it. So I let him be to lament for a moment as I cried with a burn in my heart.

I reached for him with extremely shaky hands and patted his shoulders as they rose and fell in a sorrowful movement.

"P-please don't leave me, " I begged.

I couldn't believe myself. That was certain but it was what my bleeding heart desired and I would do anything to stop it from shedding more blood because I couldn't bear to deal with the excruciating pain from leaving it to bleed.

My plea made him raise his head to look at me and he did it as though I was mad. His face was red and moist.

"Why would you make such a request? I should be the one saying that. I knew I was going to cause you a deal of pain in the future but I never speculated that it would be this great. I can't even look you in the eye. I hurt and traumatized you, your family, your aunt especially. Why would you want to keep an animal like me?"

I lost my hold on him and broke fully into a crying session. My heart ached beyond my control. It palpitated. It was getting harder by the minute to do what I planned on doing. But resilience found its way to my broken heart, just in time. I wiped some of my tears away and tried again. I was going to compromise.

"Don't turn yourself in, " I sniffed in and said what my heart deeply desired. If I paid any attention to my brain or my mind, I would have been grossly ashamed of myself for being such a disgrace and a waste of time to all of my mother's efforts and my aunt's years of pain.

And that was exactly why I stuck with my heart because I didn't need to feel that. I was already desperate and shattered enough. "My mother is a lawyer. She's that lawyer who is looking for you."

"Umm..." he raised a brow and wiped off a tear, perplexed. "You do know that the reason I came here today was that you said you had a safer way planned out for me to turn myself in..." he laughed for a concise moment. It was a peal of confused laughter. That of someone who was trying to make sense out of what looked like arrant nonsense.  It was wry. "Or...is the plan you speak of to tell your mother about it first before she finds out by herself? That is it right? If that is it, then I concur. I will wait for you."

His brow rose further up the ladder on his face. With hope, the need to hold on to that premises as the only correct one. That had to be it but my sober, reluctant demeanor begged to differ, and that caused his jaw to drop as he scoffed in pure disbelief.

"Gift, are you out of your mind?!"

"I—"

"You what? What are you even thinking? Do you really not place your family of any value at all? This happened thirteen years ago, Gifty. Imagine the agony, the trauma, the nightmares your aunt must have been subject to as an edifice of torment. Your mother too who must have been livid to see her sister in a pool of her blood and must have sworn with a vengeance to kill the bastards who dared to defile her sister so brutally. Imagine that kind of anger she has had to operate in for thirteen years. Do you want her to stay unhappy forever? Because you want to protect me? Come on!" he laughed again, his disbelief heightened. "Leave me be to die the death I deserve, Gifty. I beg you."

"How eloquent!" I laughed too. "So you expect me to let you die? To let you go? Do you even care about...about...how I feel?" I said, hysterically.

"This isn't about you, Gifty!" he grunted, slamming his palm on the steering wheel. "Goodness, gracious! Have you gone mad?!"

"You are all that I have, Gaius! Are you aware of how determined I am to help my mother find the culprits? I as well could not stand to see her so absorbed and furious about the whole case because it stole her from me. I couldn't have a good glimpse of my mother; her time, attention, or even affection! We couldn't build a healthy relationship. It was as though she loved her siblings than her children and I wanted for that to cease so I hoped I would be able to help. Then you came, Gaius. You came. You stood by me more than my mother ever had. You were there for me during the days when I had to deal with the stigma that comes with having a syndrome and you expect me to allow you to die?"

"But you were the same person who appraised your mother to me occasionally. She was the one who stayed with you in Vienna throughout the surgical process when your late father was too busy to travel. She was the only person present to cheer you on for that beauty contest when everyone else thought you a monster. Are you so quick to forget? All I did was accept you and love you just as you are but your mother was the one who. walked. through. the. pain. with. You! She is a lawyer for God's sake! Are you expecting your aunt to fight for herself when she has a sister like your mum?"

"Gaius—"

"Please, stop. I beg you. You will only cause me more pain and give me more reasons to loathe myself than I already do if you utter another word. I knew I was bad news right from the day you won my heart. Heck, I even tried to tell you but you never gave me room for that so I tried pushing you away but you just gave me more reasons to stay, to want to protect you, make you feel loved, and to adorn what you regarded as your deepest insecurity. Now, I've put you in this position, this pain and you still want me to stay. That's selfish and pathetic. Stop it."

I swallowed bitterly. My heart churned. He was going to turn himself in, it was sure.

"I will grant you the grace to chose your family over me as you should. You have until the eighth of July being your birthday to inform your mother. I expect you to have reported me before then. Which means you have less than two weeks, I suppose. Otherwise, off to the police station am I headed for the conclusion of the act I've already started."

Another tear came down.

"You've made up your mind, have you not?"

"Of course, I freaking have. Even my Dad couldn't stop me. What gives you the delusion that you could have won? I hate to say this but I'm so disappointed in you. If I had known that you were this insecure and emotionally unintelligent, then I wouldn't have let you come close because now, it just feels like I took advantage of you."

The hurt that made me feel was inexplicable and the silence in between aggravated matters. It soaked in the gravity of those words. I couldn't handle it.

"Now, you sound just like my brother, saying such hurtful words."

"Certainly because they are the bloody truth?"

I glared at him regardless of the cloudiness that my tears provided. Angrily, I stepped out of his car and slammed the door shut in his face as I stormed off to the junction.

"JULY EIGHT! DO NOT FORGET. EVERY SINGLE THING IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU NOW!"

I heard him yell as I continue to walk with a sober heart. Every single thing. That stayed in my mind even if I wished it wouldn't.