Beautiful Ruins

0 》 Prologue.

"Are you sure you aren't already in love with this boy, you talk about him all the time!"

With brute force, I snapped my head towards my Mother once those words left her mouth, resulting in a slight whiplash. The pace of my heart quickened and I was certain that my cheeks were already swamped with deep flushes.

"Mum! How can you say that?" I asked with a tight frown. She spared me a glance and a chuckle erupted from her lips before her eyes focused on the road once more.

"It's barely a crush and here you are talking about love." I folded my hands across my chest and thrusted out my lower lip, "What next, marriage?"

I watched her pause for a while, brows knotted together as if in thought before she spoke again. "Well, it can be arranged."

I was taken aback, staring at her with eyes wide like saucers. Was she serious?

"Mummy naw, I'm serious!" I continued whining like the child that I was, and my mother burst into laughter, hands still on the steering wheel. I noticed her knuckles turning pale from how much she was gripping it in order to contain her amusement.

Her shoulders were quaking violently and her straight nose was becoming a bright red as she continued to laugh.

Every sense organ in the body has a weird way of responding to stimulus, either the widening of the eyes, the perking up of the ears or the eruption of goosebumps from the skin and many more and for my Mother, it was the reddening of her nose, usually propelled by joy which meant she was really enjoying the teasing she was giving me.

I stared at her lividly and waited for her laughter to die down. It eventually did after an unexpectedly long period of time but there was still a small, very small smirk lingering at the corner of her round lips.

"Can we not talk about him again?" I asked, the pout on my face not faltering for a second, in a bid to show that I was serious now.

"Ah ahn, but you are the one with an unhealthy obsession for him," Seeing how right she was, I opened my mouth to protest but she shut me up. "but no problem, we won't discuss about him again."

I was relieved. "Thank—"

"—Plus, it's still kind of weird seeing Marceline's daughter as red as a bloated tomato all the time so why not?" It wasn't even up to a second after she finished speaking that the car was filled with another round of her overly loud titters.

Oh God, I don't deserve this.

Instantly, I turned away from her and slapped my hands over my face in embarrassment, heat crawling up my neck. "Marceline, stop bullying me!" I cried, my voice a bit muffled.

My mother and I played a bit too much unlike your regular Nigerian mother and child. Sometimes, we would act like teenage girls, have facials in a spa and share gossip with each other. And we also had this lame thing where I would call her 'Marceline' which was her actual name and guess what she would call me, 'Marceline's daughter!'

See, I told you it was lame but it didn't matter as long as we were lame together. She was my best friend and I was her's.

"Or what?" She managed in between bursts of titters, "you'll report me to Somadina Alfred, your knight in shining armor?"

I couldn't help but blush, and with my hands shielding my face from her gaze, my smile only grew wider and wider until my face started hurting.

Before I could come up with a comeback of my own, our car came to a halt. I peeled my hands off my face and turned to face Mum again, with a quirked brow.