Tseju's Bayo

Chapter Thirty One - What can a woman give a man outside sex 2.

It seemed like the room had become even more quiet than it had been before she'd said the words. It felt like even the candles were shocked into stillness by her quiet confession. She looked at Bayo. He was staring at her, his face was scrunched as several emotions raced through his eyes. His eyes searched her face for God knows what. But at least disgust wasn't written on his face and he was still sitting there, his hands still held her and she took it as an encouragement to continue.

"It was our graduation party. The after after party. I had just one bottle," She raised her index finger, "Just one bottle of SmirnOff Ice, one bottle but it was opened when it was handed to me. I thought nothing of it, I didn't expect to be drugged in my own graduation party, surrounded by the same people I'd spent six years slugging the Nigerian tertiary educational system with. Just one bottle." She blew air out.

Bayo wanted to stop her. He didn't want her to relive the ugly memory, but he couldn't. He was stunned in place and all he could do was sit and listen.

"I don't remember how i got to the room, all I remember is a hand covering my mouth while they took turns, allfour of them." She shivered at the ugly memory. "I don't even remember their faces. Till today," She turned to look at the man who held her, "I don't even know who they were. They could have been anybody. It could have been any body..." Her voice broke, but she cleared her throat and continued. "Till today, I don't speak to anyone from my secondary school. I cut every single one of them off. God forbid I'd be laughing with my rapists and not know it."

Bayo looked like he wanted to hit something. Hit it until it exploded.

"I don't know how i got home either. All I remember is sending Ada the scariest message telling her that I was done with this world. Back then, we had this big cup of paracetamol and i just kept chewing and chewing and chewing..."

"Oh My God." Bayo gasped softly. His hold around her tightened out of reflex. The image hit him like a truck. A Mac truck. A heavy Mac truck.He wrestled with the fleeting image of Tseju as a bag of bones, six feet under sand and dirt instead of being here, with him, in his arms. He shivered as his system revoked the imagery. He held her even tighter.

Tseju gave a wry laugh, shaking his hold loose a little. "When I got tired of chewing because the drugs seemed to be taking their time to kick in, I remembered the one time the yellow bread knife in the kitchen slit my palm and I just got up." She held up her wrists up to the light. "You should have seen my wrists. I wanted to die. I needed to die, because surely, this world didn't want me in it. That's why it took my dad away from me. Took my mom away from me and now, took my innocence away from me, so brutally. So brutally stripped away from me. I wanted to leave, but Ada found me on time. I woke up to my mom and my aunt crying and praying over my bed."

Bayo was exhaled. He didn't even realize that he'd been holding his breath. The vivid imagery tormented him as she spoke.

"But that's not even it. That wasn't what even pushed me over the edge. Noo. My mom and aunt Jumi made sure of that. I went through so much therapy... that's why my mom wanted to send me out of the country to school. She wanted me to go away from it all, but I'm not a coward. I wasn't going to leave and let them win. No, that wasn't what broke me." She turned to look at Bayo again and this time, her eyes screamed pain. "What four horny secondary school boys couldn't do, one devil in an angels suit did."

Bayo couldn't feel the pain, he couldn't because he'd never experienced or been close to something like this, but he could see it. He could see the pain in her eyes and he felt powerless. All he could think about, for some irrational reason, was that he hadn't been there to protect her. He swore to himself that she would never go through that degree of pain ever again in her life.