The Rise of Damola

Chapter 19-Positive

⚠️Disclaimer ⚠️
This chapter contains drug use and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

~Present~

"Did I hear correctly?!," Habiba asked while heading towards the dresser to drop Bunmi's goodies.

"Yes you did. This girl is spying on us," Bunmi stated before plopping down on the bed.

"She said it was her mother," Habiba recalled as she followed suit with the envelope at hand.

"Babe you have more FBI potential than I do but even 'I' know that all that crying and begging was just an act. Mummy my foot! That was not her mother!"

"Do you really think it was a news outlet?"

"Most likely now! Maybe they paid her chicken change to give insight on what's going on in the Akanbi household. You know since I quit Instagram they've not heard anything from us."

"Of course! Maybe they got desperate. Ah! This is outrageous and I know how you hate it when people are all up in your business."

"It's so infuriating! I leave IG for them and they still have the audacity to follow me into my house. What sort of nonsense?!"

"I know babe. Trust me when I say this, we'll sort out her problem soon but right now. The most pressing issue is right here," Habiba said motioning at the envelope.

Bunmi's heart suddenly started beating faster and louder as though she was face to face with her worst nightmare. She collected the envelope and cautiously opened it only to be met with a smaller envelope.

"An envelope inside amother envelope?, Perfect! These people want me to die of anxiety first," she thought.

At that very moment, she was prepared to rip the second envelope harshly when she noticed something. The smaller envelope looked like it had been opened unlike the first one that was sealed completely.

"Maybe that was why they put it in another envelope. But they should have just changed the first one," she pondered.

Bunmi proceeded to bring out what looked like three pieces of A4 paper stapled together at the top right edge. She carelessly skimmed through the first one and discerned that it was just English, basically a summary of the steps for the test. Hesitantly, she turned the page only to be met with sentences which she saw as petty attempts to block her from knowing the truth. Failing to find what she was looking for there, she flipped the page one last time and there it was looking at her in bright red letters, POSITIVE

In an instant, her breath hitched. It was as though time had stopped and the room had suddenly become hotter to the point that she felt suffocated. The paper itself was mocking her, the walls were closing in on her and she could here the laughter bouncing from one wall to another. She tried to talk but the words refused to come out of her mouth.

Looking up and seeing Habiba's face with her eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and a flash of pity that left almost as soon at it came.

"Pity?," she questioned in her head.
"It was as if Habiba knew the contents of the envelope even before coming," she mused.

Bunmi never thought that just one word could destroy her life. Eight letters; four consonants and four vowels. Meaningless if they were apart but together had the power to crumble anything and everything.

She wanted to cry but no tears were coming out. If only she could channel what she was feeling into a piece of ceramic and smash it against the wall, maybe that would reduce the intensity of the pain that was surging through her that very moment. Unfortunately, she could not move nor utter a word. She just sat there, acknowledging all the emotions that were running through her body.