Beyond Hate

Sixteen

The field as usual was noisy, it was the evening after sports activities and prefects were to coordinate the students to pick the debris. I walked behind a set of J.S.S 3 girls and watched them pick.

"hey, Hulda! Pick that nylon paper behind you. " I'd say when they passed a dirt.  My mind was however far away. The days that had gone by had me feeling weird, like everything was changing and I wasn't. I had finally succeeded in getting Jerome and Betty to talk, asking Afam about Karen but my failure was finding out why Jacqueline behaved weird all of a sudden. Besides me, walking on the same lame as I was but not doing the same thing was Jerome, Betty, Lanre and Mona. Jerome had his hands shoved in the pocket of his plain black sports shorts. His white chase deer shirt was stained at the hem. Everything he wore was not of the school. I watched him laugh heartily at what Betty had said and then she hit his chest lightly, shaking her head. I looked away, feeling alone. I turned to my other side, Mona and Lanre were of similar height. Lanre was fair skinned, average heightened and Lanky. He had a smile I often thought was weird. He'd smile slowly then in a nanosecond he'd wipe it off. The hell was that? He smirked this time and Mona smirked too. In their relationship, I saw Mona as the bold one. She was too bold in fact and most times it seemed like she wasn't shy or fearful. I watched her poke her cheek and look away. Lanre groaned lowly then chuckled and eventually,he leaned in to kiss her cheek. She however did not let him do that. She shifted her cheek and let his lips kiss hers and just as he leaned in to intensify it, she big his chest and moved away.
"dude it's the field, we could get caught." she smirked.

I shook my head and looked away. Mona was a case. I felt a hand grip my shoulder. Karen.

"hey, you're just watching all these girls walk past dirt. I watched from the other end." she smiled.

These days, talking to Karen was weird. I always imagined she against the wall kissing Blacky fiercely.  I had always seen Karen as one of those girls who said 'I can't date till twenty, I want to face my education and blah.' but in the state I saw her in yesterday, I just kept imagining her all unruly. Karen was prim, proper and strict. She had often warded off boys, didn't like vulgar languages used in her presence and simply shoved her head in her book when mature things were being discussed and to top it all, she was the head girl. One of the most brilliant girls on school, chosen to lead us for all her worthiness. Now it all seemed weird and although I didn't want to judge her, it felt surreal. She was one of the holiest girls in our set!

That night,after night prep while we were washing in the borehole in front of the senior hostel, I brought up Karen.  Because somehow, I just needed to talk about it. It seemed weird and we'd all never really talked about it.

Ene smirked. "Zee wants to gossip. That's never a thing."

"I'm being serious. "

"I think he's just using her." Jacqueline shrugged, rubbing her hands together on the collar of her shirt.

We all turned to her. "why do you think Afam is using her. He's not that type of person. He'd never do that. " Mona defended. "if anything, I think he likes her."

Grace raised a brow. The lather had began to dry on her arm as she stood, staring at Mona. "you think he likes her?!  Are you for real? Afam is like a... I don't know how to put it. He's so world apart from Karen. They don't have any reason to cross paths. So how could he possibly fall for her. I think it's a bet situation and he's apparently winning."

"haba. Afam might actually like her. I mean he's not a Casanova. He doesn't have such history of playing girls. And Karen doesn't have such bad character that boys would actually think of plotting against her. She's cool headed and nice. And people respect her. So the whole bet thing is out of it."