𝑺𝑶𝑵𝑰𝑨 𝑼𝑫𝑼𝑨𝑲-𝑨𝑩𝑨𝑺𝑰 𝑼𝑩𝑶𝑵𝑮
——— ☆ • ♧ • ♤ • ♧ • ☆ ———

Moving my body to the beat of the music playing from the speaker I felt like I was in another world.

Dancing has always been a therapy for me as a girl dealing with social anxiety.
I always had a nostalgic feeling when I dance and move my body to the beat of the music.

Dancing was always something I'd do for fun in the past but now I take dancing as a means of escaping reality.
Things were never like this I was never like this.

I used to be that one girl who vibes with everyone and talks with everyone but now I'm that girl who doesn't want to talk to people anymore and also that same girl who doesn't trust people with her deepest and darkest secrets because someone is always willing to stab you in the back and make your life miserable for no reason.

It all started like this...

ღ____________________________ღ

3 years ago

It all started when a new girl joined our class, she looked so unkept and I needed no soothsayer to tell me that she was probably here on scholarship and not from a rich home like some of us here.

You could hear whispers from all corners of the classroom, one thing about Bluestone College students is they never miss an opportunity to be judgemental.

"Eww, that sweater is so two years ago"

"Did she get her bag from the dumpster?"

"Look at her shoes"

"She's so ugly"

Hearing all those side comments from my classmates irritated me to the core, so what if she doesn't wear the latest clothes, shoes and designer bags she still has sense than all of you combined and least she used her brain to enter this school unlike some of you here who just come to school to flaunt your riches and not learn anything.

"That's enough!" Mrs Ebube our English and form teacher commanded and that was enough for the noise to eventually degrade.

"Sweetheart why don't you introduce yourself" Mrs Ebube said.

The girl looked nervous and also looked like the ground should swallow her. After much reluctance she eventually gave in.

"Err...hi my name is Eleanor Chisom Funsho, I'm twelve years old I hope we become good friends."

"Who is the 'we' biko."

I almost hissed at loud at the person who said that.

"What do your parents do for a living?"
I rolled my eyes when Jessica a very spoilt and stupid bimbo asked.

"My dad is a gateman at a very fancy hotel and my mum sells tomatoes in the market."

At that moment everyone started laughing hysterically. I was confused cause I didn't understand what was so funny even my best friend Amaka was also laughing so I tapped her to ask what was funny.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"She said...her...mum sells...tomatoes." she said in between laughter before she burst into another hysterical laughter."

"Her mum sells tomatoes so what?" I asked myself.

"At least her dad even works at a fancy hotel."

"So she gets her clothes from the market place."

"Abeg make she no near me before I get infections."

I looked over to where Eleanor was and she looked like she was going to cry any minute from now. I felt so sorry for her and at the same time I was so angry at my classmates for being so senseless and stupid.

"Can you guys shut the hell up!" The class was as quiet as a graveyard as soon as the person said that. And the person was none other than me.

"Thank you Miss Ubong," Mrs Ebube said. "Eleanor why don't you go sit with Sonia."

At that moment everybody had their eyes on me as she made her way to sit beside me.

She looked so uncomfortable and nervous as she sat beside me so I decided to break the ice.

"Hi." I greeted her and she looked at me with dead eyes, eyes with no light in them she looked into my eyes as if she could see right through me, after sometime she faced her desk and started bringing out her books and other materials she needed for the class and completely ignored my greeting and existence.

Rude

"What is this one now feeling like because they even managed to acknowledge your poor presence." Amaka said behind me followed my a long hiss.

"Amaka na."

"Abeg leave me alone does she think that if she were to sit with any other person in this class that they'll even want to be in the same presence with her now someone wants to be friendly with her you are doing like what I don't know." She hissed again before going back to do the exercise our Maths teacher gave us.

I took a look at Eleanor and she just looked like someone unbothered about everything Amaka said.

The bell rang signalling it was time for break. Amaka literally came to my seat and started complaining about how she's hungry and how I should hurry up so that she can eat.

Amaka and food is like 5&6. Even with all the food she eats she's still has this delicate model like body and she's extremely beautiful with a very beautiful dark complexion and pink lips that even make the Ss3 boys ogle at her she was that beautiful.

As we entered the building of the cafeteria people threw greetings at us from all corners of the cafeteria and me being the friendly and lively person I was reciprocated their greetings while Amaka gave some of them the stink eyes.

This girl ehn

You could hear people sitting in chairs laughing, talking and the sound of trays hitting the table.

I ordered Plantain chips, donut and fanta while Amaka ordered Jollof rice, fish pie, oreo biscuits, meatpie, buns and coke.

Like I said Amaka and food 5&6.

After we finished ordering our food we were looking for a place to sit down but all the chairs where occupied except one of them. It looked like a girl was reading I couldn't see her cause her head was bowed.

We moved towards the direction of the empty chairs and took our seats. As I sat down I could now get a better view of the girls face and I was a little bit surprised to see that it was Eleanor.

At that moment she looked up at the both of us and as if the chair was on fire she stood up with a speed that shocked me.

"Where are you going?" Amaka asked which surprised me cause she was the same person who was laughing and saying some mean things to her.

I thought she was gonna snub her like she did with me this morning but to my surprise she opened her mouth to speak up.

"I was just leaving because almost all the students in our class claimed a table to be theirs and I thought this might be you guys table too so I'm taking my leave." She was about to walk out when I reached out for her hand to stop her.

"You can sit with us we don't mind right Amaka." She gave me a look before nodding her head slowly.

Eleanor looked hesitant but she sat down eventually.

"Aren't you eating?" Amaka asked out of the blues.

"I don't have money to buy lunch." She said her voice barely audible but we could still hear her due to our closeness.

"You can have some of mine." Amaka said stretching some of the snacks she bought towards her.

Ehn!

Amaka sharing her food since when?

She looked hesitant at first then took it from her.

"Thanks." she said.

I reached out to grab my food when something caught my attention it was a book but not just any ordinary book it was my favourite book. 'After by Anna Todd'.

"You read romance too." I asked her.

"I'm a sucker for romance novels and fictional men."

"Finally you've found your match." Amaka said beside me with a teasing smile on her lips.

"Abeg shift joor." I said attempting to push her but I heavily missed that made the two of us burst into laughter with Eleanor letting out a smile directed to two of us.

"You guys are crazy," she said.

"We were never normal before o." Amaka said while munching her meatpie.

"You guys aren't that bad though, at least you guys are the only ones who haven't called me market woman or chased me out of their chairs."

"See leave all these useless people their own is just to bringing other people down because they think with their parents money they have gone somewhere in life." Amaka said while giving not so subtle glares to Jessica and her gang.

Jessica has always been a bully right when we where in primary school, she always does the meanest things like stealing people's note, forcing people to do her homework, threatening people who don't allow her to copy from their works and saying the meanest things to people but never gets caught.

And one of the reasons she never gets caught or never serves any punishment is cause her dad owns half the city and pretty much the much the entire school too. And thinking about it now Eleanor might be a easy target for Jessica considering her status so I decided to be her friend at get close to her cause Jessica won't dare cross paths with me.

"Why don't you hang out with us after school today?" she didn't say anything just stared at me so I continued. "You know to show you the hangout spots and maybe a tour of the school since you're new."

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea." Amaka said sipping from her coke.

"Yeah that sounds like a great idea."

After that day me, Amaka and Eleanor always spent time together, go shopping together and spending time in my room during sleepovers.

But little did I know...

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

It was officially third term that means we had to be preparing for our our Junior NECO and WAEC.

My driver dropped me off in school this morning and the first person I saw was Amaka running towards me and I know what that meant.

"Sonyyyyy!!!" Amaka shrieked and literally jumped on me all in the name of a hug.

"Amaka its okay abeg." I said trying to push her off me but she still won't let me go.

After five minutes she pulled me away

Thank God I can finally breathe.

"How was your holiday?" I asked her.

"It was fine oh, but did you hear from Eleanor she has been unreachable since the holiday started."

Truth be told I didn't hear from Eleanor during the holidays, her line wasn't even going through.

"I didn't here from her oh." I told her sincerely.

At that moment a very expensive car entered through the school gate with its flashy lights and I needed absolutely nobody to tell me the owner of that car.

"See how this one just come and be doing as if she is the queen of England."
Amaka said beside me."

So there you have it Jessica came out of the car in all her 'mighty glory' I thought she was the only one who was in the car but to my surprise another girl came out who I couldn't see clearly cause of the other car parked beside them. Eventually Jessica was coming directly to the school block so I could see the girl properly, and when I saw the girl to say I was shock was an understatement I was petrified.

Eleanor was walking behind Jessica like a slave carrying her bag and books in her hands.

Sensing someone might be watching her she turned towards our direction and her eyes went wide with shock but was replaced with a rather nonchalant expression as she passed us without saying anything.

"What just happened?" I asked no one in particular.

"Abi we are dreaming or did Eleanor just come out of Jessica's car."

After much thought and we couldn't still figure out the reason why Eleanor did what we did we decided to go to class.

╸╸╸╸╸╸
It has been over one and a half month since we started our Junior Neco and today is our last paper on Waec which is Mathematics. Maths has never been a problem to me which is why I think I'll ace it.

After our paper Amaka came crying to me and complaining how Mathematics was hard and how she thinks she'll fail.

I only laughed at her antics and wasn't looking at were I was going cause at that moment I bumped into someone which led her to fall flat on her butt.

"I'm so sorry about that let me help..." the words died down in my throat when I saw who it was.

Eleanor

Amaka hissed beside me and grabbed my hand. "Lets go abeg." She said.

As we made our way towards the hallway people were looking at us weirdly or rather looking at me weirdly and some pointing at me.

"I always knew she wasn't that perfect."

"After she'll be doing holy Mary when she's living her life like this."

"You can imagine."

"Its good her father was arrested sef."

Ehn.

That last statement got to me what do they mean that my father is being arrested. I quickly looked at Amaka who was looking at her phone with a confused and shocked expression on her face.

"Amaka what's going on?" I asked her and at the same time she looked up at me with an expression on her face that I couldn't decipher.

"Give me the phone." I told her but she nodded her head in disagreement.

"I don't think that's a good..." I didn't let her finish her sentence before I forcefully yanked her phone from her and I wish I didn't cause I wasn't prepared for what I saw next.

It was a video of my dad being arrested and journalists surrounding him.

"Mr Ubong what do you have to say about scamming Nigerians of their hard earned money."

"Is it true about hundred percent of the rich Nigerians you scam everyday become poor cause of your antics."

And under the video was an article that read...

Mr Charles Ubong has been been found guilty of scamming Nigerians of their hard earned money for over two years now and uses the money for developing his company.

I just couldn't believe what I have read, I felt numb like heavens and earth where crashing down on me this had to be a dream right because my dad who is the most awesome and amazing dad in the world won't scam others when we had money ourselves right.

"Excuse me everyone I have an announcement to make." I turned around to the familiar voice only to see Eleanor at the middle of the hallway looking at me with a deadly glare.

"So as all of you might know I'm the poor girl whose mum sells tomatoes and my dad is a gateman but before they took on those professions they were wealthy people who made their own money. My dad owned a hotel which is still the same hotel he gate keeps while my mum owned a fancy restaurant. They were both doing well until they were scammed all their money and savings by this girls father."

She pointed at me and looked at me with so much venom and hatred in her eyes and if looks could kill I would have been six feet under by now.

"Her father came and ruined my life and that of my parents, because of her father we had to sleep under the bridge and beg for food and you were in your Princess headquarters sleeping peacefully while me at the age of eight I had to hawk on the streets, you got to eat three square meals a day while sometimes I don't eat for two fucking days."

She screamed and was on the verge of tears while I stay rooted on the spot looking at her.

"And now," she continued, "You will see what it feels like to have an experience of what I suffered and went through."

I just didn't know what to do anymore so I ran and ran and never looked back and I found myself in an abandoned classroom, I picked my phone from my bag and called the driver to pick me up.

When I went home the first person I saw was my mum crying. I didn't know what else to do so I bent to her level and wiped her tears.

"Its okay" I whispered to her. "Everything will be fine." I told her when I didn't believe it myself.

After two weeks of the incident that happened I refused to go anywhere not even my graduation, I switched off my phone and broke my sim card but I still saved Amaka's number just in case cause I'll talk to her sooner or later.

My mum later got a well paying job and suggested moving to Abuja to start afresh again and was I to complain being in Lagos was really toxic and the news wasn't going to die anytime soon so I agreed.

Today was the day I was leaving Lagos for good and one thing I was going to do when I get to Abuja is to never socialize cause being social caused all this mess if maybe I hadn't become friends with Eleanor all these wouldn't have happened.

And as for my dad I left without saying a good bye to him even if my mum insisted that I do, but I just couldn't face him or look at him in the eye. But maybe one day I will.

New life here I come...

♥︎__________________________♥︎

Present day

A knock on the door suddenly stopped me from dancing, I made my way to pause the music playing from the speaker. I opened the door only to see my mum standing there and smiling at me.

"Hi sweetheart," My mum entered my dancing studio smiling at me. "How are you." She asked sitting on one of the couches in the studio.

"My day was so boring just staying here and dancing till I get tired." I told her going to my mini fridge to get some water.

"That's why you need to make friends here." My mum said looking at me. "You need to have friends other than Amaka that you text and video chat with everyday who is in Lagos, you also need to have friends here in Abuja."

"Mum." I whined "You know I have difficulty making friends." I told her.

"You just have to try darling cause you need to learn when you go to your new school." I turned to her so quickly I thought that my neck would snap.

New wetin

"Mum I thought we agreed on this what happened to home schooling." I asked her.

"Sonia baby you know your going to be writing your Senior Waec and Neco this year and I personally think that going to a school will help you more and I also think you should make some friends."

"But mum...". I wanted to say but she interrupted me.

"My decision is final I've already bought your uniform and other materials you'll need for school while we can go shopping for other things tomorrow."

With that she left the room.

A/N
What do you guys think of this chapter rate it from a scale of 0-10 and feel free to correct me if I made any errors😊.

Word count: 3299 words🙂

See you when I see you

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