Chapter Fourteen
My red, puffy eyes are low as I walk down theschool hallway. I slept little last night. I watched the sunrise and got dressed before Mom and Esosa woke up. Auntie Sara, also up early, let me into the main house through the kitchen door. She gave me a long hug, then made pancakes—comfort food, I assume. I only ate a little.
The ride to school was unusually quiet, with no excessive talking from Esosa or loud music from Adrian. He drove with caution, staying too long at stop signs while his eyes rose to the rearview mirror to peek at Esosa and me, sitting apart in the back. We haven’t talked about last night. What’s there to say? What’s the magic word that can make everything okay? There isn’t one.
The first bell rings as I open my locker. I should rush at this point—grab my things and race to class before I’m late. But I’m not motivated to do any of that. I stand still and stare into my locker without blinking. Slowly, my vision goes out of focus and blurs.
“Enore?”
I flinch. Davi is beside me, though I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there. I close my locker and force a smile that doesn’t extend far. “Hi.”
“Are you okay?” He squints and searches my eyes, which definitely hold the answer to his question. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not… Nothing.”
“Enore.” He takes my hand in his and grips it gently. “You can talk to me.”
It seemed like I squeezed every single tear out last night, but there’s still more; they fill my eyes just as something heavy settles on my chest and my breaths shorten.
“My dad,” I tell him. “He’s dead.”
The wrongness of those words doesn’t make them any less true. He’s dead. Still, I’m trying to reconcile how someone I saw every day of my life is no longer with me. One moment, everything was perfect, my life shaped by the routine of early morning rooster crows, loud neighbors, a jovial mother, and a playful father. And then in another moment, a somber doctor says all the wrong things and breaks the routine. Now my reality is distorted, the entirety of it reshaped by loss. No matter how much I try to contain my grief, it fights its way out of the box I’ve placed it in. But sometimes it’s more skillful. It slips out of the box and slithers with a slickness that makes it obscure. It leaves its residue everywhere and on everything. It hangs in the air like humidity, and I can’t help but breathe it and push it into myself. It stays with me, luring me to sleep and then shocking me awake. And it’s here again, pressing against my chest as I stand in a hallway full of students who rush to class.
“Enore.” Davi holds me. “I’m so sorry. When…”
“Three months ago.” I cry against his chest, caring very little about the attention we might attract. When the second bell goes off, I pull back and wipe my eyes. “We should go… to class.”
“Hey.” He holds my shoulders and stops me from moving. “Maybe you should take a minute.”
“We’re going to be late.”
“It doesn’t matter.” His hands move along my arms—up and down in a slow motion that relaxes me slightly. “Just take a minute. Okay?”
Briefly, I stop worrying about going to class. I remember my coping technique.
With my eyes shut, I breathe with intention.
In and out.
Slow and steady.
Then I imagine my breaths as a tide of cool blue water flowing through me—dousing the flares of emotions and then soothing the disquiet. When I open my eyes, Davi and I are the only people in the hallway.
“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks.
“Go to class?”
“No. Not class.” He scans the hallway, then looks at me. “Do you want to skip school?”
I frown. “You want to leave school?”
He nods.
“Can we do that—just leave?”
“Well, technically no. But if we run before any teachers see us, we could get away with it.”
“Oh. Um… I don’t know about that.”
“Enore.” Davi lowers his head and meets my stare. “Do you want to be here today?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t.”
“Okay. Then let’s get out of here.” Davi extends his open hand to me.
I look at it, knowing that once I place my hand in his, we’ll race down the empty hallway and toward the doors. I have never skipped school before. Of course, I’ve always wanted to but never had the opportunity. In Nigeria, a tall gate surrounded my school and a no-nonsense security guard tended to the gate. But here, there is no gate or security guard. There’s nothing stopping me.
I breathe in deeply, place my hand in Davi’s, and we run.