27.
Whenever her parents blinked, Esosa disappeared into the shadows, leaving her slippers behind so that no one could trace her. She had a timetable, mapped in her head as to when Evans wanted her and when she needed his phone. Whenever she closed the door behind her, the young man closed his curtains and allowed the girl toy with his devices. She never left until she exhausted the phone battery and his burning desires. That was Esosa in those days. A girl who felt she was aging faster than the world, advancing socially and technically in ways that her mates had yet to discover. She rubbed lipsticks and powders now and she felt she was growing taller. She did everything she saw on the web and she captured everything she did in Evan’s gallery. So was the child high on life and on love that she stopped paying attention to details and started bustling through lines as if there were no hurdles in the first place.
Evans had bought a bigger phone and now Esosa had a million pictures on his phone. She enjoyed everything; swiping the gallery, chatting with strangers, asking questions that led to explored tunnels of long-distance friendship. The more she knew, the less she saw. As the days grew, so did her excitement burn. Until one day. One day when she noticed that the last time she saw red was in her exam sheets. For a month or three, she noticed that she had not woken up in the middle of the dark to search for clothes and change her nighties. No cramps, no headache and no blood. Esosa barely waited for her parents to blink that evening. In the middle of her parents preaching to her twin brother about his choices, she disappeared into the shadow, running unprepared to face her own choices. she did not knock, she barged in on the sleeping Evans and started crying.
‘I think I am pregnant’
‘How do you know?’
‘I have not seen my period in months’
The young man did not give this any thought as Esosa thought he would. He did not suggest abortion, the normal procedure where she came from. Instead, he smiled and hugged her.
‘My uncle is Benin is travelling next week. He lives in a big house. He wants me to come and stay there since he doesn’t want strangers to steal the land. I have been thinking and I want us to move there together. I don’t have money to pay your bride price now, so we will go and when we have settled, we will come together and beg your parents. Then I will buy your father a car and pay your bride price.
‘Are you sure Evans?’ Esosa’s naivety was so ludicrous that Evans had to control his laughter from escaping through his nostrils.
‘Yes, I am. Now come to the bed, let me make you happy’.
The next day, Evans moved out of Ajegunle, selling his furniture in a hurry and telling everyone different locations that he was heading to. When Esosa came home, she went into the room and soon realized that apart from her echo, she was the only living element in the room. There were no bags, no beds and no clothes, just a piece of nylon. Esosa opened the bag and saw Evans’s old phone, the one he used before getting the big android. She read the piece of paper attached to the phone.
‘Dear Esosa, I hope this meets you well, with love, Evans’.