WILL YOU BE MINE?

Few months after I met Lemma, around February in the following year, it was announced at school that the following day was the last day at school for there was a pandemic on the rise, the pandemic that was mostly easily spread through physical contact and by sharing same air within a meter between people, it was Corona Virus.

We stopped living our usual norm for we had to put on masks, avoid crowding, as well as being in public space. We stopped going to church and my family started making concoctions to make our immune strong. Every cough was taken more seriously than before.

Gosh! I missed my life before Corona Virus.

Unfortunately, college entrance exams were still going to take place in mid-October, so, whenever there was a tutoring session around, I would take part in it for I did not want to miss an opportunity to gain excellent grades. I wanted to study Business Management in United Kingdom but first, I had to go to one of the local University in my country then transfer in year two to same school in UK.

"This would be an immense pleasure for me to go overseas, away from broken me."

I grew up in a small country in the Southern Africa and my father relocated to London where he forgot all about us and had his new family and a baby boy.

Time went by till Lemma contacted me, finally! He wanted to see me. Apparently, he had asked my best friend Poppy to give him my numbers just some couple of weeks prior the call, he asked me to meet him during lunch hours, luckily, I was already in town, so I headed to his shop straight after shopping.

He asked me to his red Gross Polo, with his hands carrying a takeaway, I sat at the back, and he sat in the driver seat

He stared at me as though I was the one who had summoned him, and I had to say something; perhaps something on my face triggered his stare but there was nothing.

I felt so little to have his eyes fixed on me, so I went through my purse to avoid eye contact.

"So, why am I here?"

As I declared that question, he opened his takeaway full of meat and declared back.

"Do you want some meat?"

I told him that I did not want it but every inch of inner me was screaming for it, then he started talking, or rather, he started rambling on about how he wanted me to be 'his' but things were 'complicated' for he did not want a serious relationship.

"Could this be that one shot I need to tame him"?

I always watched movies and saw how a simple relationship would turn into something serious and I was about to risk it with him; make him fall hard for me. I always thought that romantic movies were too dramatic, too overrated but I was willing to use movie strategies to get him.

Who cares about old ways anyways?

"Well, I don't mind as long as you pay attention to me and treat me right".

We came to an agreement, and I told him that I was going home and that there was a car was coming to pick me up in few minutes, but truth is, I could not help myself around him, I did not want myself to fall hard for him, so I went home.

I was attending Business Study class when I received a phone call from Lemma, I wished I could just pick up the receiver, but it was impossible to do so in the middle of a tutor especially with a professional teacher. Immediately after class, I called him back, I was curious to know what he wanted since he had spent many days without contacting me after our last meeting; he wanted me to go to see him and without hesitation I walked with girls going to same direction as he was so I would have company along the way, but it was before long when he called me.

"I am at the car wash and the que is quite long how about we postpone to another day".

After he said those words, I was so disappointed, I wanted to scream but I had to suppress my feeling and go back home.

Do you know what it's like to hope for the best and then something like that just happen? I felt so unsure of myself.

"Could it be the height, my age, oh my!

I battled with questions to which I had no answers, questions that only he could answer. When all this occurred it was already June, I realized that time was no longer on my side I had to forget about boys and focus more on my schoolwork. Although I loved not waking up at five in the morning it was horrible being home most of the time because of schools' closure. Grandma reared broiler chicken and I had to process them for marked; plucking a chicken is no child's play, just imagen the smell of blood and its internals, I wished I could go far away where I would be alone; I just hated being around people.

Days turned into weeks, weeks went by, months went by and eventually those months turned into a year of complete silence between the two of us. During that time, I was busy watching Chinese dramas especially those involving lawyers and doctors.

I thought to myself:

'I like China, I like its technology and the enormous opportunity for scholarship'.

I thought I could go there straight from high school instead of bridging to UK. I couldn't believe that soon I would finally be sitting in for the final examination.

Varsity here I come.

Around that very year in March my father surfaced, he had to after all I had made a post on Facebook to be assisted in finding him. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him before going to varsity, but he said we shall talk about that once he comes home. He started sending money on monthly basis and even paid for my exam fee. All that was peanuts compared to the expenses mom endured when he turned his back on us and for the fact that we had to split that money with my sibling but I never complaint.

Due to Covid we commenced the examinations in January up until March 2021. I started looking for schools and scholarships so I could go to China, for the first time in a while, I was over the moon. I could even picture myself landing in China already.

Even just before the results were out, I started learning Mandarin, yeah! I was pretty excited. Mom supported the fact that I wanted to study in China, but her financial situation had still not eased, I hoped that the scholarship would come through. In April I finally came across something, the SICAS program and I was given someone to assist me, but at the time I didn't have everything that was required so I had to postpone everything and go study in the local university. Out of three schools I had applied to, I got admitted in two school; in the other I had applied for Degree in Entrepreneurship and the other BSC HON in Computing but due to some reason I had to pick Computing and give up on the UK opportunity. It was at that moment when I was about to go varsity that my father broke all communications with me.

The semester was to begin on September 6th and just luckily, I found someone to go to school with. I was not familiar with any of the people I saw during the orientation five days before.

'I am going to start from scratch and make new friends.

It was almost October when I found girls to be close to, her name was Sharma, a crazy girl, cute but not so smart and then Natty, shy and smartest one but they lived in opposite direction to where I lived so at times when my neighbor abandoned me, I would go home by myself.