Playing House

TWENTY SEVEN

Toyin was back on the rig for the final round of the pre-production tests and inspections before commercial oil production.

Gbenga started calling her again and they started talking frequently. He was a proper Naija bred; he only left the country for University and stayed back in the US for his work.

He said his parents would be thrilled if they know he is toasting a Nigerian girl and Yoruba for that matter. She mentioned she was only half Yoruba and watched him freak out a little over her being Igbo. However, he moved passed it quickly and focused on her.

He made it clear he was looking for a wife not just girlfriend-boyfriend; he said he did not understand why people even date for any other reason. He kept hinting at marriage, he knew what he wanted.

He asked her questions like what dishes she was good at cooking, how many kids she wanted, her dream country etc. Her only issue with him is, he kind of implied that he would want his future wife to be a stay at home. Lol she has no plans of being a housewife, she loves her job but she brushed it aside they could work on that he seemed like an understanding guy. In addition, she did not expect him to be perfect, when a guy is too good to be true she gets suspicious.

He was also on a rig offshore Qatar so they shared their experiences and compared the engineering and tech of both companies, occasionally dissing the other's company. The whole long distance thing was not bad after all.

He was a good match for her; she wondered why she was even dragging leg with him, village people at work.

He said he was going to come see her in Lagos before going to Houston after his rig schedule and he even booked the flight and sent her proof to show he was serious.

In the final week she was conditioning her hair in the bathroom after showering, she accidentally dropped her toothbrush in the shared bathroom sink so she had to dispose it. She couldn't put that thing in her mouth again with all the people she shared that bathroom with so she went to the storage room where she kept her box to get an extra toothbrush. She always packed at least an extra toothbrush, sponge etc. for all her offshore trips.

As she went through her stuff, she found her two packs of Pad and Tampons. "mtswww Why did I even bring so much of these its taking up unnecessary space" She muttered as she pushed the toiletries aside.

Then it suddenly dawned on her that she did not bring too much it, the problem was she had not used any since she came to the rig.

Because she has not had her period yet.

She quickly opened her phone to check her period calendar app, maybe it's coming anytime soon perhaps she should take out one pack to her locker? When she opened the app, she saw that her period was 7 days late. That's almost a week! This has never happened. her period was always on schedule. Did she not record the last one?

But she did, in fact she logged it that very day it started. She logged it at the time she went to the frozen yoghurt place with Osaze she recorded it while she was waiting for him to bring her tray. Because she also entered what she ate that day and the medication she took for the cramps.

This has never happened. She started panicking but tried to calm herself.

She told herself it could be because of the trip or seasickness since this was a floating rig. She went on the internet and started searching up on why period could be delayed. She read how it was totally normal, how it could be stress or weight loss. Yeah! she has been stressed in this particular trip. They were working under pressure to round up all the preproduction assessments. Production was already behind schedule and there was pressure from HQ plus they've been clashing with the drilling contractor on a lot of issues.