Nobody In Her Family Knows

Ify sat in front of the dressing mirror. Her eyes looked dim. They had gone to hide themselves within their sockets. If it were possible, no one would see them again. She was still in Abuja with her aunt, Mrs. Okafor. And they would be flying down to Lagos the next day since it was at Lagos that the engagement party was going to hold. The governor had insisted it be that way. According to Mrs. Okafor, it was a scheme to bring K back to Lagos since he never goes there. Since his father became the governor for over three years, he has only been to Lagos twice. The father only sees him whenever the father was to be in Aso rock. But it got to a point, the man stopped meeting K as well. And so this engagement was a way of getting his son around as well. Even the governor wants his family around him too.

Ify picked up her phone, a picture of Lanre which she was in together with a popular Nigerian actress appeared on her screen. She has been looking at the picture whenever she felt like she needed to talk to someone. But how could she talk to Lanre about these things in person. How could she tell Lanre that she was getting engaged to the same guy who had proposed to her a month ago? How could she even go about telling Lanre these things. She was scared. She has no idea how Lanre would react if she found out. Lanre was unpredictable.

But for Odenigbo, she knows what he would do. He was going to spam her inbox with a lot of messages. Then he would call her. She was yet to tell him it was over between them, because she was still hoping that K would change his mind and make their parents cancel the engagement. If that could happen, then she was going to leave Abuja and never come back. Even her youth service, she would do it far away from the north or the west. She would apply to be posted in the south.

“Asa nwa!” Ify heard her aunt call. She immediately left locked her phone screen so that her aunt does not see Lanre’s picture and start asking her if she already called Lanre. Her aunt has been asking her to call Lanre and invite her for the engagement. She can’t tell her aunt she was unable to do that because Lanre and K had some chemistry. Or, if she could interpret it from K’s point of view, K likes Lanre sexually, while Lanre loves K. Ify had no clue her aunt knew about K and Lanre’s relationship even before she did.

“Good evening aunt!” Ify greeted with a smile on her lips. She wonders her she even managed to wear that smile on her face. But she had to. She does not want to explain things. If she did, then everyone was going to find out about K and Lanre’s relationship as well as her relationship with Odenigbo. Nobody in her family knows she is engaged to Odenigbo except for her elder brother, Ebubenna, and Lanre.