CHAPTER FIVE

“You can’t, I love you, I love you Dee, please don’t. Okay, you want C.K, I’ll borrow cash from my friend, I’ll pay them back…just don’t be angry with me please, I am sorry. Look, babe-”

She was shaking her head, standing up, he pulls her back gently….’’No No Diana please ,don’t do this to me now, aside my mother you are my life. I love you Diana, you are the only girl I love, will love…you can’t get angry over C.k!”

“C.K food? You think that’s the only thing? There are a lot of things Emeka, and one of them is that you can’t care for me. You can’t even care for yourself let alone your mother, how am I going to cope with that, while my friends are basking in their boyfriends wealth , I am here lying and hiding mine telling them all is fine”

‘‘I never asked that you lie, you decided on your own…it is what it is at home,..i can’t pretend that my life isn’t shitty”

‘’That is the problem, I can’t stay in this shitty life with you, you can even afford to pay your fees what’s going to happen? You hardly eat in school because no money for that, you sell in the market Emeka, you go to mechanic shops to work and then restaurants. The son of Mr Ambross chikurdi? One of the business tycoons in the country with a bloody rich company, you see how this is a problem? And even if nothing changes at home with you and your father, that means you won’t amount to nothing in life”

“Diana!!’’ another pain strikes his chest

“It’s the truth Emeka, you have a good heart , you are sweet and loving and I’m glad that I was able to know you .I care about you, really I do but I care about myself more and I know you wouldn’t be able to carter for all of me”

She stands up again, Emeka jumps up holding her “Diana I love you, doesn’t that mean anything?”

‘‘Sometimes love isn’t enough, feelings won’t keep food on your table, I have to be realistic here and so should you. You can’t carter for my needs when you can’t cater for you nor your mother’s. I care about you but I can’t date you anymore….you would end up with nothing other than your name and I don’t want to be with you when that happens”

“So you are running away, dumping me because I have nothing? Because I am nothing”

“Because no matter how much I try to pretend…it’s the truth, I can’t be with you because of that and all things I have mentioned. Goodbye Emeka, I do hope …you understand”

“Is there someone else?”

“No! but there will be“ she says

“Diana please-I love you” A tear drops from his eyes

“But I don’t Emeka , I really don’t. I care for you but love? No. Takecare of yourself “ she says leaving him standing there, fighting tears and the pain in his chest.

He stands there for a long time, he sent her messages she didn’t reply, he called her she didn’t pick. When he tried again, she had blocked him from calling and from social media, deleting their pictures together online and changed her status from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’.

He knew he had lost his first love, and it broke him.

Then he come home, with that pain, with that brokenness to find his father at it again and his mother almost hitting the pavement and two girls laughing and chanting him on..

He saw red, when his father carried a stick and threatened to hit him. He was as tall as his father, and he had been working out…today, all this was going to stop.

All the pain and misery and all that his mother had been suffering under his father had to stop, no more.

He heard his mother scream his name, he didn’t stop, not even when his father slams the stick on his back, he throws him a punch hitting his father’s mouth, he saw a teeth fly, he saw blood follow it.

“Emeka!!!’’ His mother’s voice reaches his head. But he was not listening His father staggers back, sees the blood, shock fills him

“You-you hit me? you hit me!!’’ he holds his mouth, Emeka had never stood up to him before, never.

“So you have become a man now, fighting me? You are finished, take you and that witch out of my house’’

“I am not going anywhere and neither will she” Emeka spat, his nose flaring, his eyes red, his fist still folded

“Then you will regret ever been born” he goes back into the house and then he comes back with a cutlass.

*

His mother screams rushing to stand between him and his father…”Please Papa Emeka “ she begs

“I will kill him, I’ll cut him down’’ he pushes her away and raises the cutlass

Emeka stood “I won’t run Father, come closer” he threatens

His father rushes him with the cutlass bringing it down, Emeka saw it coming down over his head and he heard his mother’s piercing scream

‘’Emeka!!!!!!!!!”