Chapter Three
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he sun that day shone with a kind of brightness that
is only seen after a rain fall that comes preceding cloudy moments. It was a
day after Haniel and Deborah had made public their relationship. They walked
together in school like couple and gestures around like celebrities from one of
the best sale Nollywood’s amorous movies. With the licence given to do all they could to solidify the union and see
that it stand the taste of time, and with the examinations behind them, Deborah
came around Haniel’s place as often as she wants, waiting for the day they will
round up. She and Haniel dreaded that day that must come and they deliberately
refuse to talk about it. Maybe to even think about it. But it must come anyway
since Deborah must return home to her parents. She must return.
After school that day Haniel and Deborah
announced to Richard and Comfort that they would be spending some time for the
first time at Haniel’s place. Richard told Haniel not to allow anything happened.
“But
how again can I show her she meant the world to me?” Haniel asked Richard.
Richard looked at him with a blank stare and
said. “You can show you love her even more, when you play the man role by
guiding the both of you and by keeping your hopes alive.” Richard knew Haniel
had never taken any girl to his house before, and that fact of Deborah going
there is making the heart of Richard bit faster than usual.
“Well,
Han,” she beamed, “I was wondering if you had ever get around to that.”
“I
was not sure if you could handle it right away, Debby.”
The
last rays of the sun through the window slid beneath the horizon of the bed as
they lay on the warm bed, their bodies pressed closely together. The kisses
became more frequent as passion mounted and coins were stirred. The air of the
ceiling fan and the isolation of the hammatan
session seemed to contribute to the delicious atmosphere of lovemaking. The
back was a favourite music.
Then
Haniel said.
“Can
you accept me as I am and still be happy with me for the rest of your life?”
Say yes Debby and I will be yours forever.
Dear God, make her say yes.
He thought he
saw her smiling. She hung her head as if shy. Or she was afraid to invoke utterance snare and later regret it. But
everyone was already part of it. Everyone. Even Haniel’s birds now reacted
every time Debby came around their cage. She had been taught to listen to them
while they sing. And she also gave
them food, and most times she does that even when it was not the right time to.
So everyone and virtually everything were aware of their relationship but not
everyone was praying for it to succeed.
The girls in that
school had been known for their wiliness to be with Haniel as anything: a
friend, a girlfriend, a wife and everything in-between. And when a stranger
came to their school and took the most celebrated guy from them, they frown at
it and made plans to disrupt that union. They had their plans. But each time
they try out every one of their plans, it would refused to see the light.
Deborah was a good girl who respect and treat those
around her with love, attention and care. She showed the girls lots of the
things she learnt at her former school. The school even gave her days in the
week to instruct the girls on how to make dress and design beads from gemstone
or glass, plastic, or wooden ball, pierced for stringing on a cord or sewing
onto fabric. She gained popularity and everyone begun to like her. She was
really harmless. She knew of the desire of other girls to have Haniel and that
was the more reason she intensified her ability to teach all that she could to
all that cares to learn. That way, she wished to win the hearts of many and
gained their respect as well. But now Haniel was asking her a question that
holds water like the ocean bed. The answer she must provide would either make
them or break them. But she must give it. She must.
“I
don’t know. I just don’t know now.” She stood.
“But
you know. Admit it Debby. We don’t need anyone to tell us we are for each
other.”
She
turned to face him and said.
“From
the day I saw you, I knew it was you my soul long for. From the day my mother
told me about her days here, I know my future shall begin here too. And from
today, I will no longer call you by your name. I humbly and solely change your
name in my life from Haniel to Pleasant. And forever I will be yours, to be by
your side come rain come sun. I will love and cherish you no matter what time
brings.”
That
was it, the birth of a new day. Love is like music, until you have lived it and
felt it yourself, you cannot understand the depth involved. Haniel had to take
a chance to gain the experience and every style of it. What goes around comes
around. The live of their parents, somehow, is coming back to them and maybe it
will continue to come back; although not as it had before but in different
variations. Deborah’s mother was in the school to participate in the sporting
competition.
Haniel
reached up and grabbed her slim, attractive waist and pulled her on the large
bed.
“Debby
I want to ravish you.”
“Pleasant
really!” she blushed.
He
nibbled on her earlobe and blew a little strand of hair away.
“Pleasant,
my dress. It’s getting wrinkled.”
“Take
it off.” He demanded, with a leer.
Between
the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, or further, even into adulthood, one is
very often faced with the demand of the lustful side of life. The yearning to
want to satisfy every one of the desires that show its face, the forgetfulness
of the dangers that often comes with them. Now, innocently though it seems,
that Haniel and Deborah had shared the most intimate part of themselves, what
does the future holds for them? Where do they go from here?
As
they made to leave the room and Haniel to escort Deborah down the street that
led to her uncles’ place, she asked the question that seems to have broken the
hard nut kept deep down in the belly of the earth.
“What
should I tell my mum today when she calls?”
Haniel
could not place where the question was coming from, and why was the question
coming after they had made alive the utterance
snare and also knowing fully the dept they have been spellbound in it. But
he returned the shock-created question.
“Why
is your mum calling you today?”
“She
calls every day to ask how am faring.”
Relived
a little, at least knowing she was not initiating the call to report she had
done something with him. He said.
“Tell
her how you are feeling. Exactly how you are feeling.”
And
that she did.
