Richview College: The Demons We Hid.

~23~

Harmony.

Sleeping was peaceful.

I could feel the cold in my body even before I sniffed and felt cattarh in my nose. I was sure that Damini would have loved to drop me but his mom had been really impatient and an heavy rain and beaten me to the core on my way. Thank God mother and father had been asleep because if they hadn't it would be really chaotic.

I opened one eye because the silence was becoming unnerving now. On a normal day, Mother would have busted into the room, shouting about how lazy I was and how there was many house work meant to be done before I went to school but for some reason the boy was very quiet.

I stood up, hurriedly brushed my teeth and took my bath. It would be smart to use this opportunity to dress up before mother could distribute bouts of work to me.

With my school uniform already on and my hair in a bun, I walked downstairs slowly, tired and thick mucus blocking my nose. I hated catching a cold.

When I got to the dining, I was surprised by what I saw. Instead of Mother sitting down next to Chidubem, my Father was there... reading a newspaper that was one year old.

"Good morning sir." I mumbled as loudly as I could as the shock electrified my body. Father was never around for breakfast.

"How are you?" He asked not taking his eyes off his newspaper.

"Harmony!" Chidubem screamed drowning out my answer to my dad. He had a toasted sandwich in his hands and I asked,"Who made you breakfast?"

"Daddy did!" He piqued up.

My face shot to my father's and I almost rolled my eyes at the look of satisfaction on his face. He smiled at me and looked back at his newspaper.

"What about mother?" I asked Chidubem another question.

"She just left. She said she had to be somewhere or something like that."

I looked at Father again and he just shrugged and continued to read his newspaper. I heard the honk of Chidubem's school bus outside. I picked up my bag and turned to my dad. "Is it alright if I leave now? I just don't want to be late."

My dad nodded and waved me off but as I was about to walk outside I heard him say, "Harmony wait!"

I turned back around but he was already behind me as he placed a clean thousand naira note in my palm, bolting back to his seat as though he had done nothing.

Talk about surprises!

When I saw that Chidubem was safely inside the bus, I begun my somewhat long walk to school.

When I got to school, assembly had not started and I was a bit surprised because I was never early to school. I was always coming during first period or maybe break time.. except that time that I met Damini at school. I didn't really come early because of Caitlin the witch and of course, mother.

I thought back to our first kiss and I felt my cheeks go warm and I giggled. Idly, I wondered if Omotayo and Simone were dating because they seemed really cozy that time we were trapped.

To think that Simone was that nice. She always seemed so...proud and popular-ish. To think that I had hated her so much but she was going through that much.