The perfect picture

I enjoyed listening to Mina Nawe by Soa Matrix, Mashudu and others while reading through this chapter - suggestion.

_ _ _

It was all beginning to make sense now.

Everything that happened in my dream during the period I fell into coma was simply a repeat of everything that had taken place in real life.

The only exception had been Miles. He and every other scene that his presence instigated were only present in my dream and not in real life.

He wasn't the one on the rooftop when I wanted to jump off. We never entered a bus together, I went home myself in the cold and dark.

I never met Miles at the park after refusing to go home in Tobi's car. I never saw him at the couple item store when Kiki and I had gone shopping for Valentine's nor did I meet him at the hospital when Joyce was sick. When i tried running into the road after leaving the hospital, it was Kiki who prevented me with her shouts. I never texted him or called him and we never went on outings.

I clutched my chest in the realization of what had gone wrong. In reality, I made an attempt to take my own life and ended up in a coma which lasted fro three months.

During my coma, I was killed by Miles in my long-term dream.

For one thing I knew, I was scared.

Scared of two things - one being the fact that I had grown attached to the boy with blue eyes more than I knew it and the other was the ugly truth of him being someone who killed me in my dream.

It all made perfect sense now. There was no Miles in my life. There were times we spent together.

It was difficult to accept the fact that all those moments were nothing but a facade.

However, the question in my head still remained. Why did everything that happened before my coma repeat itself in my dream and why did Miles push me to my death with no show of remorse?

In spite of all these, I shoved those thoughts aside, with the assurance that it was all a dream yet I couldn't lie to myself that I wasn't hurt by "that dream."

"So you have come back?" The angry voice of my mother jolted me from my thoughts.

As I lifted my gaze to acknowledge her presence, I wondered, ' How long have I been thinking? '

"You wanted to show the whole world that I am a witch, right? That I am the one who threatened to take your life," She marched towards me and aggressively pushed my forehead with her index finger.

"If not for Miriam who rushed you to the hospital in my absence, I would have made sure I buried you beside your father's grave. Try me in this house again and you will see."

She ended with a hiss and angrily stomped her way upstairs. Richard, who had come home with her stayed back in his spot and stared at me for a brief moment of silence.

"Such an evil child, you are. Now I see the fruit that caused your mother and I so much trouble."

And with that, he walked away.

For the first time since I had known Richard, his words hurt me so much that I could feel my heart slightly ache.

What did he even mean by that?

Why didn't God just let me die when I wanted to? Why did he want me to continue suffering on the inside?

Was this the kind of life he wanted from me?

Heartbroken, I made for my room and locked myself in.

There it was, my room - still as I had left it.

The rope hanging from the fan, the two pen knives that rested on my reading desk and the open windows.

I walked under the fan and stared at the dangling rope. I had once thought of hanging myself to death but I never found the courage to endure such process. I never took it off the fan, with the assurance that I would use it someday.

I moved over to the reading table next and picked up the pen knives. The thoughts of stabbing myself with both knives always crossed my mind.

"Two knives will get the job done faster," I would say.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

A sigh escaped my lips and I placed the knives into a cupboard.

Afterwards, I walked up to the windows.

Considering how huge our mansion was and the location of my room, I was able to witness the beautiful scenery of Wuse from these large windows everyday.

Despite coming to these windows to clear my head by watching the beauty, it just couldn't help and that was the only time, I lost the will to live.

Courage? I earned it tend folds.

I was tired. Tired of the fact that my mother hated me for a reason I was oblivious to. Tired of the fact that my father was no longer here to comfort me. Tired that my life was in shambles despite having the amount of wealth many people desired.

Yes, I had money. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I was grateful but parental love was missing from my life. Only when father was alive did I get to experience 50% of that love. The other 50% was firmly in my mom's grasp and she refused to let it go.

The day all these flooded my thoughts and without looking back, I jumped out the window. I was still in the process of falling when I lost consciousness.

Whatever must have happened,I still had no idea and woke up from a coma afterwards.

Another sigh escaped my lips as I finally retired to bed. Rest was all I needed now more than anything.

*.*.*.

As usual, loud chatters erupted from the class of SS3A. The class sent their noises of liveliness around as they went about their various activities.

From whispers of gossip to the loud voices of boys playing mobile games. This was so until the dark skinned girl they all knew walked in.

It was as though an angel had passed and the whole class went as silent as a graveyard. With out form teacher beside me, I stopped in front of the class, all eyes fixed on me.

"Good morning class," Our youthful teacher greeted.

"Good morning sir," The whole class responded in unison.

He acknowledged the response with a nod and continued.

"You all must have known that dear Tilda here has been ill for a very long time now and has only recovered a few weeks back. Now, she is back on her feet and is finally ready to join us in this session as an SS3 student."

The class cheered in my honour and the words of "welcome back" bombarded my ears, to which I replied with broad smiles and clasped hands followed by "thank you."

Considering the fact that I had been out of school for three months which marked out third term in SS2, I was returning to school into the second week of first term in SS3.

As expected, there were new faces here and there. It didn't quite make sense to me why some students changed schools in their final year but it was just that way.

Our teacher soon left and almost everyone in the class were on my neck, except for the new students that is.

Kiki hugged me so passionately as though she hadn't seen me at home yesterday. I was in fact happy to see her happy.

"Welcome back o," The three musketeers greeted me. By now, you should know the people I was referring to.

"We missed you ehn," Mirabel demonstrated with exaggeration.

"As in, nobody to even throw blow with again," Miracle added.

"We really missed you, Tilda," Abike moved to hug me.

To be honest, that was the most serious I had ever seen her be.

Even the silent boy, Aaron said, "Welcome back." to me and immediately went back to his seat where he closed his eyes and listened to the music that played from his earpiece.

Everyone welcomed me except for that onr person - Tobi.

...or maybe I was wrong. He always loved doing things on a one-on-one mode.

During break, I happened to be the only one in class since I told Kiki I wasn't hungry and Tobi walked in on me.

That handsome smile was there as he walked up to me.

"Welcome back, beautiful," He smiled warmly. "I really missed having you around."

Then he held out his hand for a handshake.

"Thank you, handsome," I chuckled lightly and shook his hand.