That Lonely Black Boi

[4] Auld Nemesis Rekindled

|Imran Adebayo Ibrahim|

Survival of the dopest; that's what it's all about in Midtown High School. I wasn't dope, yet I survived History class — I learned a lot and I was right, Martin Luther King was the topic of the day. As I walked to the school's cafeteria to eat my lunch, I could see kids in rappers outfits; they looked cool and dope, doper than me. Since I was just wearing my mediocre hoodie and my black jeans.

Another thing I observed was the fact that the cooler your outfit, the higher your chances of sitting with the school's hot guys. Zayd was also sitting with the cool kids, they were snickering and even playing disgusting pranks on each other.

I sat quietly and sip my apple juice, trying to figure out my class schedule before my next class.

"Can I sit with you?" Someone asked me, I turned to look at that person and it was the girl I sat with during history class; Ella.

"Yeah." I said, trying not to choke on my juice.

Ella sat with me and she quietly ate her breakfast. The atmosphere between us was quiet like she was waiting for me to start a conversation with her. If she was then she'll just leave, 'cause I sucked in conversation not to talk of starting one.

She cleared her throat awkwardly, "so anything interesting about you?" She asked.

I raised my head and my eyes met hers, there was nothing interesting about me, so I kept shut and just averted my gaze before it got weird. "Huh?" I muttered.

"What's interesting in Nigeria?" She asked again.

"The—" I finally wanted to answer Ella, but someone cut me short from behind.

"The scam." That scumbag said, I seethed from my seat and turned to look at the idiot. From his appearance he looked a lot like a cool kid who belongs at the hot guys table. Yet again, his face looked very familiar, like I'd seen him before. "The scam's the most interesting thing in Nigeria, shawty." He added again, facing Ella.

At Last I remembered who he was. It's Chris Okafor — he was the son of a wealthy business man in Nigeria, we went to the same primary school together back in Nigeria before his dad had to relocate them here for business purposes. His father was a shareholder in the Atlantan Coca-Cola company.

"Christopher?" I called, recalling his face vividly. He had changed a lot, his skin was lighter than when he was in Nigeria.

Chris gave me a snare, "it's Chris, fool." He insulted, verifying what people says: old habits die hard.

You see me and Christopher who goes by Chris now had a bad history together. We both were vying for first place in school, and that led to him bullying me just because I was a smaller lad than he was. Right from age twelve he was three-times bigger than me and he even started getting homage from puberty — from the moustache at age fourteen to the genitalia hairs at fifteen. And yes, he bragged about it to everyone in class. In summary, Chris was my bully in Nigeria and I wish he wasn't one here again.

"Okay Chris, how've you been?" I said, gathering all the words I had in store for the whole week and saying them at once. My aim was to rekindle our not-so-toxic yet toxic relationship we had at primary school. We had this repartee; I'll take first place and he'll take second place — I'll take second place and he'll take first place — then he wasn't as scary as this. "How's your dad?" I pushed my luck even harder.

Unexpectedly, Chris' hand was around my shoulder, "Ella." He sucked on his teeth. "You don't need to talk to this loser for him to do our assignments, he'll do them for sure — he is my boi back in Nigeria."