Playing House

TWELVE

"I don't like talking about it"

"I understand" Toyin could see why. Her bringing it up here knocked the air out of his lungs.

"It's just stuff I've buried. You know, so I can move on." The latter sentence sounded like a question. Like he wasn't confident in his own coping mechanism.

They both fell into silence for a moment again. He was staring into space again. The pre-boarding announcement for his flight finally broke the silence; the announcer was using an inexplicable fone voice as usual, she couldn't understand shit but she heard Toronto and 6:45Pm sha. It was still past four, there was time to talk to him. "Seyi said you're leaving because he has found a buyer for the house?"

He looked like he about to curse Seyi at first for being a complete amebo, but then brushed it aside and sighed. "Not exactly, I'd say his selling the house kind of put an end to my procrastination. I have to go back and clean up this mess completely, not hide here"

"I don't know, It looks like you're giving up, to me" She didn't even think before saying it. She was worried about her remark possibly being insensitive considering the fact that this was a touchy subject for him, but he cackled lightly.

"Toyin, there's nothing left to GIVE UP here, it's over already" He started eating the chips again. He must have found her remark genuinely funny because it lifted his mood. She was at least glad his lighthearted side was making a gradual comeback.

"The fact is the concept of NaijaPod was way ahead of its time, streaming movies and music was not part of naija internet culture back then, mobile data was expensive, internet penetration was relatively low, and to be honest we made a lot dumb decisions. I don't think I'm good at being an entrepreneur." He sounded like he truly believed the last part.

Maybe it was part of his coping mechanism, to set that notion in his subconscious so it can help him move on without looking back. However, it's a poor coping mechanism, he should only learn and grow from the mistakes not berate himself like this. She knew this more than anyone, she will never forget how she wrote JAMB 3 times before she got admission for the course she wanted. Back then she kept failing physics but she was determined so she self-studied over and over again until she was able to score over 50 in physics.

"People fail all the time, especially entrepreneurs. The Owner of the Company Sofi works for said he formed eight companies and failed consecutively before he found success with his ninth venture. Also look at Linda Ikeji, she tried a lot things-"

"That's totally different she didn't need a lot capital, plus she had first-mover advantage" He laughed.

Aha so he is one of the people that downplay Linda's success. "But there were other bloggers and websites then, there was bellanaija, nairaland, notjustokay.com" She defended her heroine.

"Hmmm in other words you're Aunty Linda FC?" He teased.

"Yes naw! don't say shit about her here o, I will fight you."

"I hope you are not one of those mentally deranged commenters that live on blog?" He feigned fear.

She bursted into laughter. "No naw, those ones are just trolls." She smiled at him as she sipped her coke again after a long time. She liked how he always had a way of turning their gloomy conversations into playful ones. He was broken inside but still managed to radiate infectious positive energy on the outside and she respected that.

"My point is, try something else, come up with a new idea, Nigeria is huge emerging market for tech, there are so many opportunities. Take the mistakes you made with the streaming company and learn from them." She knew he had made up his mind already about leaving the country but she didn't want him to think so low of himself.