ANGEL

This Sunday morning, you wake up to a riot. Your red eyes had barely managed to fall asleep with the lights on, an hour or two ago. You use your hands to clutch your ears, then your pillow, in a desperate attempt to muffle your parents' microphone voices.

Their emotion-fuelled shouts are coming from your brother's room. Your mom had been sleeping there every day since the first package arrived. The bed sheets had remained the same Ben 10 and Megas XLR sheets your brother liked, your mom even buys new ones to replace the worn ones that she never throws away. Although it had been eight years since he slept in that room.

You remember the advice your mom's friends always give her, "Patience, you know I'll only tell you the truth, a girl is only a temporary guest in her father's house. My dear, try and have another son, or you'll be alone when you grow old".

The tears always start pouring whenever you think of that. As if you'll ever abandon them. "Angel! You're the one that ruined their lives", Guilt says comforting you. "So you'll have to stay here forever to replace your brother and sister", Guilt says smiling sadly at you and you nod.

"I'm never getting married, I can't ever leave them", you tell Guilt as it wipes your tears.

"No way! Angel is not going to school today", your dad yells. "She's never returning to that God-forsaken place. Patience for goodness' sake did you forget, her rapist whoever it is is in that school".

"Godwin I've told you, she's not changing school again in the third term, that was why she had to repeat JSS3 because the syllabus was so different", your mom yells back. "We promised her that this was her last school change. I intend to keep that promise!"

"Then let her resume next week or the week after", your dad says trying to compromise.

"No, now she needs to act like everything is normal or else rumours will start, what if the rapist starts to think that he impregnated her?" your mom says, "I won't let gossip ruin our daughter after she has already been raped."

Shame lies on your bed laughing, "Wait did you think anybody would willingly marry you, Angel you are filled with bad luck", Shame says. "You unfortunate thing! Forget the money, forget about the big house, the drivers, the security team and maids" Shame says using its fingers to squeeze your face towards it. "Your ruined and you ruin everybody's life! No one will ever want you", Shame tells you matter-of-factly as it flings your face away.

"Patience, this isn't the time to save face. It's not too late, we can still use the police to handle it. They'll find the monster that ruined our daughter and justice will be served", your dad says, and you hear your mom catch her laughter with a snarkle.

"See your mouth like 'and justice will be served'", your mom mocks him. "Justice Godwin Osita is not your fault", your mom says. "No one will blame you, how will they? Your just a man, they'll say it was your wife's job to raise the children and she failed shamelessly at that. One daughter raped and two", your mom starts crying "And two-" your mom repeats.

"Patience please we promised not to talk about them!" your dad says also crying.

Your tears are free pouring as Guilt tries to wipe them, "I know, I know it's all your fault, this is probably your karma for what you did", you sniffle trying to swallow your tears as you touch the scar on your shoulder, the visual reminder of the day your bad luck began.

"Godwin", your mom says still sounding tear shaken, "No one would blame you. They'll blame me!" your mom says as he hugs her. "That is why", your mom smiles an exaggerated smile, "We have to take her back to school today."

You also begin smiling, "I am happy", you tell yourself leaving Shame on your bed as Guilt helps you start packing up for school.

At church, you smile, sing and dance your way through Sunday service along with your real-life co-actress your mom, Patience. While your dad silently cries in the back seat of his Jeep as his driver takes him to the airport. You and your mom are the best at pretending to be happy. After church you chat with your church friends, laughing and smiling because the two of you will only accept one kind of pity in your lives, self-pity.

It is when you get to school that your pretending starts to glitch. At B. I. college, you are still the new kid, you are still yet to find your crew. You're a floater which means your friends are all very temporary, all very new. You smile sitting in the waiting room of the principal's office, on the third floor of your school building. Your mom had brought you there to keep watch so no one would hear what they're not supposed to hear.

Your mom told you a lie to tell anyone that comes in search of the principal, while she whispers the details of your predicament to the school Principal and head nurse. Whenever someone comes in to see the principal, they would ask "Is the principal around?" not necessarily those exact words but you'll respond, "She went to the hostel with my mom, I've been waiting for them for over thirty minutes, don't bother waiting she's not coming back anytime soon."

If you specify whether the Principal was in the Boys' or Girls' hostel and the person returned before your mom had finished, they might catch your lie, but your mom is wise, she knows that no one could hold you accountable for an uncertain reply. So you repeat what she told you to say, loudly and at that moment the principal's office will go silent.

Your mom had begun her conversation by declaring that she'll hold the school accountable for her daughter's predicament, she promised to do more than sue if they didn't cooperate in a clandestine investigation.

But that isn't when the glitch happened. It happened after your mom left. When the school principal called you to check up on you. You could feel Pity's overwhelming presence in her office as you return and she asks you, "Angel are you okay?" and offers you Capri-sun and biscuits.

Pity stares at you as you suck on the straw of the Capri-sun, "You poor thing", Pity says. "First your brother and sister and now this, oh!" Pity says side hugging you as you sit down.

"I'm fine," you say and that was your last response to the principal. She might have said other things while you sit there smiling, eating Parle-G biscuits with your Capri-sun but all you hear are Pity's words.

"I know, I know you have to be strong for your family, God will surely punish that monster that did that to you", Pity says trying to lean your head against its shoulder. "I feel so sorry for you", Pity says feigning tears. "Sweetheart everything is going to be okay", Pity adds and your smile becomes a ticking time bomb that could turn into tears at any moment.

"Thank you ma", you say getting up to go to somewhere you could safely explode into tears. Your school building is a square O-shaped hollowed four-story building with a courtyard for assembly in the centre, that is shielded from the rain by a glass roof.

You didn't want the principal to see you run to the bathroom, you didn't want her to bring Pity along with her to see if you are really okay. So, you go to the toilet on the second floor, on the side that was directly below the Principal's office.

As you lock yourself in the toilet cubicle, numbness overtakes you and stops the tears from coming out. You just sit on the toilet seat as if the door had put you in a trance. No more tear-jerked breathing or swallowing, just you sitting there frozen in time as the day withers away.

Did you fall asleep at some point? Because you didn't get back your bearings until almost midnight. You didn't even remember feeling your eyes open.

"Can someone turn on the light?" your voice echoes and it dawns on you that the only sound you could hear is yours and the water droplets from the sink.

You reach forward and touch the toilet cubicle door and fumble around for the latch till it unlocks. You get up to leave and immediately fall on the floor. You could feel their hands on your body stripping you naked and you begin to hyperventilate and cry silently.

"Please! Stop!" you cry.

Fear comes forward and yells at Flashback, "What are you doing can't you see she's afraid?"

You could feel their bodies on you and you start silently screaming and crying. "I can't control it, the darkness triggers it", Flashback says, "It started to happen last night, I thought it was a one-off thing but-".

Last night, like almost every night your mom had wailed herself to sleep. She didn't hear you crying "Please! Stop", you didn't even remember because your mom never seems to run out of tears at night, you thought you were crying for her. She reminds you of that bible story of the shepherd with the missing sheep but in her case, she lost two of the three sheep she had.

"Angel! You can run, this isn't like that day", Fear says. "Your limbs work. Run!", Fears pulls you up and you stagger out of the toilet running.

"You don't deserve to run", Guilt says grabbing you as you try to escape its grip. "They loved you and you killed them", you stop and listen to Guilt. "And you've been lying to everyone, the Ego awards was your punishment", Guilt says, "You can't run from it."

"You have no friends! You ruined your family! Angel your damaged goods the only thing that'll save you is a rebirth", Shame says taking one hand while Guilt takes the other. Shame wipes your tears, "Don't worry we'll take it all away. I'll take your shame", Shame says and nods at Guilt, "And I'll take your guilt and you'll be free".

You didn't know when you appeared at the pool or even notice you had been drowning. You regain yourself as he pulls you out of the water. "He's stopping us", Shame and Guilt say from inside the pool where they were holding you down. You begin to fight your way out of his grip. "Are you mad?" he yells at you the moment you escape and run towards the water.

Then he comes from behind and wraps one hand around your waist and the other around the back of your knees. "He is carrying me", you tell yourself and Fear appears, "Why is he carrying you? What if he wants to-" Fear starts and it holds your breath as he puts you down on the pool chair.

Flashback starts converting the scene into a blurry room, it isn't pitch black this time you can see his face hovering over you. "He was there", Fear says, and all you can do is cry "Stop".

You and him sit there for hours smoking, staring at each other and doing small talk but you are engrossed in your thoughts. "Was he at the Ego awards?", "How else would he know you won?", "What if it was him?" you ask yourself while looking at him. "He doesn't seem like a bad guy", you tell yourself but Fear still hovers behind you.

"Can you tell me a story?" you ask trying to change the topic. Your brother always told you stories to calm you whenever you were overtaken by emotions. You remember, he also liked myths.

He starts the story after using a deep breath to end the thought-filled silence he had been creating, "Centuries ago, in a land very far away", he says smiling, "AKA Japan", he adds.

"Lol, I thought you were going to say Greece", you say, and he smiles.

"Angel, I'm a well-travelled myth reader", he says smiling. "There was a goddess and-"

"Let me guess she was pretty and all the Gods wanted her", you interrupt and he makes his index finger kiss your cold cracked lips.

"Let me tell the story, Okay", he says still smiling like he knew you are about to be shocked. "She wasn't super pretty but she was a fashionista and she threw the best feasts. All the gods used to hustle to get an invite because the foods she served at her feasts couldn't be found anywhere else. The world was like a desert then", he says removing his finger from your lips.

"The goddess' name was Ukemochi no Kami, she was the goddess of food but no one had ever seen her use her powers, she always did it in secret. She wasn't like the storm gods she couldn't twinkle her arms and cause thunder. She would spit and pee all manner of drinks-", he bites back his laughter.

"Eww!" you say laughing. "Eww! Eww! Eww!", you squeeze your face in disgust. You hadn't sincerely laughed in a while and here you are laughing with a boy whose name you don't even know his name. "What was that sound?" you say hearing a loud ding sound.

"Shit it's four am, we need to leave they'll soon turn on the school gen", he says removing his life vest while you pretend not to look at his chocolate packs. "Angel, how are you getting back to hostel?" he asks and you realise the thought hadn't occurred at all.

"How are you getting back?", you ask him.

"I'm scaling the fence, did you steal a key?" he asks and you shake your head. "So you're scaling the fence too", he says as he wears his sandal.

"You need to run then, girls hostel is far from here. I don't want you to get caught, they'll suspend you". he says slinging his damp singlet across his neck and then he pulls you up. "Angel we need to go."

You look at him like a lost puppy, "I don't know how to scale a fence", you say.

...