P for Perfect

Chapter 18- Osas

I just don't trust people– Osas

   It's 7:30 when we all make our way outside after the credits. Although I'm positively freezing, I still have my frozen parfait in my hand, ready to be devoured.

"Do we part ways here? Or get a taxi?" Faith asks. We're standing by the roadside, shivering and happy. Yet we pose a great danger to ourselves by this time, a group of young and obviously rich kids on the road are a great sight to all these agberos.

"Faith and I can take a taxi straight home," Travis offers, looking at Faith. She shrugs in acceptance. Jibril's house is in a totally different direction than all of our houses so he's just going to get his driver to take him home. Luckily, the man is fast so he'll be here in a minute.

"Esss!" Travis calls out hysterically to the nearest keke.

"I thought you said a taxi," Faith gapes as the Keke driver turns around to face us.

"Be waiting for taxi o, when these guys jump on you your eye will clear," Travis eyes her. Faith snickers in reply and I roll my eyes, wahala for who dey drive that keke.

"Are we stuck in a taxi together?" Yamíl asks me as we wave goodbye to Faith and Travis.

"No," I reply before I can process the question. But when Jibril's Jeep pulls over and we say our goodbyes I realize that we are.

I cannot explain the total shock I had when I arrived here today and found Yamíl with them as well. I felt so weird and stupid for assuming that he meant a movie for us two alone. But in his defense he's been quite nice to me today. All the times we were forced to be alone, I thought we'd argue, but we had perfectly normal conversations.

Or rather, semi-normal conversations.

"Here's our Uber," Yamíl says, waving the car to us. He lets me enter first before entering. I study the face of the driver very well and after being satisfied with his expressions I sit back down and open my phone.

"Are you still upset over that phone call?" Yamíl asks me, although he isn't facing me. He means Winnie. She'd called me when we were getting the popcorn. I liked hearing her voice, but as usual she called to talk about mummy. To tell me to calm down, to tell me to be obedient, to endure. When she packed her bags the first chance she could get. I didn't hang up on her this time, I just made it clear to her that she should tell mummy to go back to wherever she was coming from. Of course, she didn't understand my point of view.

Naturally, I came back with a huge frown that even Yamíl couldn't ignore.

"I'm fine," I lie. In truth, I'm already feeling dreadful just at the thought of going back home.

"Did you enjoy the movie?" He asks again, this time turning to face me.

"Yes, I'm not much of a Marvel fan but it was okay."

"Me neither, I prefer DC."

I pause. "You don't have to make small talk you know?"

"I'm not trying to make small talk," he disagrees.

"But you are," I insist. His face scrunches up and his left brow flies up in confusion. "I mean, why do you suddenly care so much about my opinions of stuff?"

"I don't care, I'm just... curious."

I roll my eyes at him and continue scrolling through insta. The car's a bit warmer than outside so my goosebumps have drastically reduced and my hands can move freely now.

"So what do you think I'm doing? Trying to get Intel that I can send to my bosses in Russia?" He asks sarcastically.

"My point is, if you don't have a reason you shouldn't engage others in wasteful conversations."

"You're way too opinionated, earlier you wouldn't agree that those contact lenses weren't silver."

"That's a totally different situation. The color of the lense is objective and it clearly was silver. The problem there was that you have a terrible eyesight–"

"Oh do I?"

"Yes you do," I humph. Yamil's face is blank as he looks away and studies his Samsung. I do the same and go back to my insta page, I quickly reply Ara's message and anticipate her reply since she's online but she doesn't reply. She's probably too busy watching TikToks.

The traffic is long but thankfully our bus stop is just a couple of blocks away. Then we can go our separate ways. Some part of me wants to humor Yamíl's efforts. Even if he doesn't want us to become best of friends, even if he's just doing it to make himself feel more comfortable.

Like I said before, he's been very nice to me and I can admit that it felt nice to not argue at every turn. But it feels too fake, for what reason would he suddenly be open to speaking to me? Was it because I asked for help? Well I thought I projected how I felt, that it didn't mean we were good friends now. Or that I wanted us to be.

  The Uber stops in front of our bus stop and both Yamíl and I start fishing our wallets for cash. When I stretch my hand out to pay, Yamíl slowly draws my hand back.

"I'll pay–"

"We'll split the bill okay?" He offers calmly. I withdraw my hand and hand him 2k from the money in my hand. He adds it to his money and gives the driver. We get down and immediately the cool breeze hits my skinny body. I'm starting to regret giving Travis my hoodie.

"Here," Yamíl offers, coming to stand next to me. He's offering me his black hoodie. It's his favorite because it supposedly was signed on by Devin Booker himself. I know this because even though I haven't been his friend, I have friends who have.

"There's no need, I'm almost home," I decline. I look ahead at the alley that leads to my house. As usual, it's dark and lonely. Yamíl follows my eyes and coughs when he figures out where I'm looking at.

"Osas, you can't pass there," he wisely advises me.

"It's the shortest route. The other will take me extra 10 minutes, and it's dark everywhere."

"I'll go with you," he stubbornly announces, practically shoving his hoodie into my hands.

"There's really no need. I'll pass the alley, you just go home," I shove the hoodie back at him.

"We live like two streets apart Osas," he insists, shoving the hoodie back at me.

"We do?" I'm honestly surprised, I never knew this.

"Come on let's go."

"I'll pass the other route if that's what you want but there's no need to follow me. I'm fine," I declare. I accept the hoodie just to let him rest and immediately jumpstart my long walk with a quick sprint, ignoring his yells behind me.