Late Eighteen

24| Chapter twenty four

I rubbed my hands over my temples as I conversed with my mum over the phone. Zion and Zoe are sitted across the couch from me— Zoe on her phone, waiting for her turn to greet our parents and Zion just brooding all alone.

I must have a talk with him today. He keeps acting weird everyday, it's as if he's going through a difficult phase.

He barely talks to us any longer— and that's strange because Zion speaks a lot, especially when important— and he stays indoors all day listening to music as if that is supposed to magically solve all his problems.

"How are all of you doing over there?" Mum shrieked over the phone, and then a little bit of shuffling followed. "I hope Mrs. Henshaw's treating all of you well."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes mum, she treats us well. She brings us food and takes you to school, but we go home ourselves." I said, even though she barely comes around to check up on us.

She's always busy doing her business, but that's understandable since we hardly even want to see her too. It's good having a sense of freedom for once, even though it's being jeopardized because our parents thought we would need a nanny moreso.

Is it bad leaving eighteen and sixteen-year olds alone without any guardian, even if it's just for a short time?

I heard mum release a short breath. "That's good, that's good. I hope you're reading for your exams, because I don't want to hear stories that touch when I come back, you hear?"

"When are you coming back anyway?" I asked as I rolled my eyes. Honestly, I've been slacking a lot this days on my reading schedule. Anytime I try to read, something ends up distracting me and I close the book before even registering two words in my head.

Zeke gets me distracted.

And that's ironic since my exam is just about three weeks from now, and I can attest to the fact that I'm not even seventy percent ready.

"We're done with business in Abuja, and we're already packing our things. We have a morning flight to Ondo tomorrow to see how things are going over there. We should be back by the end of the week, latest Sunday."

Well, that gives us enough time to attend the Friday party Zoe was talking about.

I puked up my orange juice and gulped half of the content down my throat. Call me a fish, but a girl's thirsty and has to be hydrated.

I quirked my eyebrows at her statement. "Should be back or will be back?"

"Will be back by God's grace dear, you miss us that much?"

I rolled my eyes, muttering under my breath. "You wish."

I had intended for my words to be quiet and only meant for my ears, but she heard me and judging by her voice, she wasn't impressed about it. "What did you just say Ruth?" I heard her ask.

I chocked on my glass of juice and quickly passed the phone to Zoe. "Nothing mum, I think Zoe wants to talk to you."

As if on cue, Zoe snatched the house phone out of my hands and began to converse with mum, Zion by her side. That went on for a few minutes before I decided that I had to go upstairs and hopefully get some studying in.

I closed my room door behind me and plopped down on my bed, snatching my phone from my bed and immediately going on WhatsApp, with the thought of maybe chatting a little before I start reading.

That thought flew out of mind immediately a message came through from Zeke whose name I saved as 'Z' with a thousand love emojis in case my mum decided to go through my phone.