BITE ME IN THE ASS.

CHAPTER: 3.

*****

Schools had gone on midterm break, so there wasn't much to do other than sit at home, read or hang with friends.

I don't hang out with friends.

I have only one friend and he was always with me most of the time.

That morning, I sat on my bed reading when I heard my mother yelling for me. I rolled my eyes, dumped my book on the bed, and made my way into the kitchen where her voice seemed to be coming from.

One thing I don't like about holidays is that's when parents and older siblings remember you exist and they won't allow you a moment of rest without sending you on one errand to another until you're either hiding away or claiming to be doing something extremely important.

Even at that, they would still demand to know what the important thing is, so you have to be very creative with your lies.

"Yes, mom," I answered once I was in front of the open door.

I have always wanted to learn how to cook but my father was one of those.

He would send me packing whenever he saw me helping out in the kitchen.

He claimed a kitchen is a place for women so I should leave it to them.

"I'm out of tomato paste." She turned around to pick up her purse lying around on the kitchen counter, she went ahead to open it and hand me some cash. "Hurry to mummy Michael's store and get half a dozen for me." I took the money and went back to my room to grab a shirt. A minute later I was on my way.

It was only a five minutes stroll until I was where I needed to buy the tomato paste. I got to the mini-shop but it was closed. A frown filled my face just immediately because I would have to walk another ten minutes until the next mini-shop.

I was feeling lazy that day and obviously wasn't ready to make that walk so I decided to go into the compound. The shop was just a store right outside a compound so I could just head in there and request what I wanted.

Maybe they were opening a bit late.

I wish I hadn't gone into that compound.

I wish I had just walked the ten minutes distance.

But, it was too late.

The sun was shining brightly in the sky as I slid the black gates open, in a second my eyes fell into the crowd of people seated around the house. There were almost twelve people around, each with their heads down with palms supporting them. Low sniffling could be heard as well as loud wailing coming from inside the bungalow.

I stood at my spot completely frozen.

What in hell have I just walked into?

I didn't want to approach them. Something about these sorts of gatherings always leaves me self-conscious. They were all very sad like their lives have just been forcefully taken away from them.

Something was terribly wrong.

I didn't want to be there anymore but I couldn't move.

My legs were stuck to the grounds.

I felt odd. Not bad, just odd, like my normal thoughts and feelings had been turned down low.

I felt strange.

Some part of me wanted to walk over there and demand what was happening but that is not even my place to ask.

I'm just a boy who wants to buy tomato paste.

It doesn't matter whether I knew this family or not. I wasn't friends with any of their children but I was not their enemy either.

We just don't talk much.

Finally, I gathered my disorganized brain and slowly turned around to leave when the gates opened and Jacob stepped in front of me.

Jacob was the oldest son in that family and he had just one brother who is of the same age as me.

"Emy." He smiled with a sorrowful countenance once our eyes met. He had bags under his eyes a shred of evidence that something wasn't right or he hasn't slept well in weeks.

"Did something happen?" I eventually asked.

Jacob forced a small laugh, his eyes glazed over as if fighting a losing battle against an onslaught of terrible memories.

I didn't miss the strand of tear that ran down the other side of his cheeks.

"Michael is dead..." He said, trailing off.

"Oh, God, I am so sorry..." My eyes leaked instantly.

That was the first time I heard someone I knew died.

As I said, he wasn't my friend but whenever I walked past their shop, he would always call my attention just so he would greet me whether I saw him or not.

He was a good kid.

"W-Why... How... Was he sick?" I blinked tears away from my blurred vision.

I think I saw him yesterday.

He always seemed cheerfully happy.

But, I was wrong.

"We found him hanging on the fan this morning." Jacob choked out, voice filled with the most intensity of pain and I nearly fell to my knees in shock.

Suicide?

He killed himself.

No happy person would commit suicide.

I felt faint and nauseous. I had to get away from there before I spewed.

"Did you want something?" He asked but I was shoving past him and walking out of the compound, forgetting about the tomato pastes, in fact, I barely felt alive.

What would have prompted him to do that?

Did something happen?

Did someone hurt him?

I had so many questions dashing through my mind on repeat.

The more I walked the stranger I felt, emotions trickling out of me and I was getting blanker and emptier. My mind started feeling a little hazy the more I tried to figure out why he did it.

I felt like I knew why.

Like he was telling me why.

I felt him beside me. My body succumbed to a dark presence inundated by anguish and despair and it was speaking to me.

You know why I did it.

A small rapidly dwindling part of me started to panic.

I didn't recall when I got home. My mother's voice boomed from the kitchen the second I entered the house asking if I bought the tomato pastes but I didn't even reply.

I just threw the money onto the ground and went into my bedroom then slowly sank into my bed.

My mother was yelling from the living room inquiring why I didn't buy it and how she needed to cook and can't do that because I hadn't gotten what she asked me to.

My father came out when he heard her yelling and told her to send someone else.

Without meaning to, I started turning down the voices around me and fixed all my attention on that strange presence that was visible in the room, beside me, and pressing down on me with emotions that I couldn't control.

I had no idea what was happening to me.

I felt as if I was carrying a burden that wasn't mine to carry and it was pressing down on me, stealing the air from my lungs and draining my life's source.

Do you know the kind of horror that is the opposite of feeling scared or feeling anything at all?

The kind of vacuous hideousness of a fly buzzing against a closed window for hours on end in an empty room?

That was what filled my mind.

Through all the emptiness a thought floated through my mind.

It was a simple truth.

A truth I never wanted to admit.

Still wouldn't.

I prefer to pretend it was never there.

But it whispered into my ears, with an eerie voice filled with despair.

You know you're just the same.

A cold chill ran down my spine when it whispered the last words.

You're next.

••••°°°•••°°°••••

I woke up the next morning feeling the way a corpse would feel if it were to be dug up and smacked across the face with a shovel.

Numb.

The next thing I noticed was that I was on the floor.

How had I ended up there?

To this day I never spoke to anyone about what happened on that fateful day.

It felt so surreal, almost dreamlike and I doubt anyone would even believe me.

Dragging myself to the kitchen, I drank at least a gallon of water straight from the tap before puking it all back up.

The sound of me retching out my innards must have been loud because the next thing I knew, my older sister's voice was yelling from behind me.

"Hey, take that grossness into the bathroom!"

I began dragging myself back into the room but her voice stopped me in my tracks.

"What is wrong with you? You don't look well and you had your door locked since you came home yesterday. No amount of knocking would wake you up so you could open the door. You missed both lunch and dinner. Is everything alright with you?"

I didn't answer her.

I didn't even recall locking my door.

I have little memory of what happened the previous day but I remember that Michael had killed himself.

I remembered that hideous oppressing feeling.

I shoved the thoughts to the back of my mind, shut my door, and undressed so I could get in the shower.

The rest of the day went by pretty fast and soon it was almost none, I sat on my bed trying to read a book. Exams were fast approaching and I liked to be prepared beforehand. I heard my sister speaking excitedly with someone but I didn't pay much mind to it because I needed to finish a page so I could put a mark on it but my door burst open and in walked Chima looking lustfully gorgeous as ever. He was wearing flowery shorts on a sleeveless shirt, with that grin that never seemed to leave his face.

My lips stretched out a welcoming smile and he winked, shutting the door behind him.

"Come..." He started to speak in the Igbo language. "It's time to get up and go!" He bounced into the room and jumped on my bed bouncing on top of it until I hissed and shut my book in annoyance.

"What is it?" I glared at him, tossing the book to the side.

"Oh, knock that off, you're ugly when you frown." He shoved me playfully and I tackled him against the bed which resulted in good wrestling around the bed and just like always he would win.

"Cheater." I laughed, sitting up and brushing my hands on my shirt to smoothen the rumples on it.

"I don't cheat." He chuckled.

I rolled my eyes and faced him. "What do you want?" I asked, more seriously this time.

"We are going to the pool." He finally announced what actually brought him to my house and I was shaking my head in repudiation.

I only swam once when we traveled to the village about two years ago. I went to the river with my older brother who was too careless to watch me and I had nearly drowned in the river that awful day. By the time they discovered I was on my way to joining my ancestors I had already swallowed a bucket of water. I was eventually pulled out and somehow revived so I don't dare near any form of water since then.

Unless it was the one in my bathtub even that had to be filled to a certain level.

"I'm not going."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I can't swim!" I blurted out as if he doesn't already know that.

"I know and I will teach you." He encouraged me.

"No, thank you, I'm still not going." I shook my head while pulling my legs off the ground and folding them on the bed.

"Come on, trust me, I will be there with you every step of the way or rather every stroke of the way." He chuckled a bit before putting a tentative arm around me. We went on and on for almost thirty minutes and then I finally gave in. "Yes, now we are talking." He shouted in the native language and I laughed at his enthusiasm.

I would probably not do anything when we get there.

I just needed him to stop talking beside it's so hard for me to say no to him.

I don't know why it's always like that with him.

I saw in him a brother.

One who was of the same age as me and we can relate to each other on so many levels more than it was with my older brother.

"I don't have swimwear." I stalled. He began laughing so hard that I had to laugh along with him. "What?" I asked.

"You actually think I came here without making all the necessary preparations to make sure you don't escape my offer today?" He rushed out of my room.

"The devil." With a dramatic sigh, I rose and chased after him.

"Where are you both going?" Ada was yelling from the kitchen where she was fixing lunch. Chichi was sitting on the sofa reading a storybook.

"We are going to the pool!" Chima called back while peeping into the book Chichi was reading, playfully messing with her.

"Be careful... Emmy is water phobia!" She and Chima began laughing even Chichi joined in at some point while I was left pouting and glaring at all of them, well, except for Ada who was hidden in the kitchen.

Once we got outside the compound, I saw two figures hovering around the fence.

"Who are those?" I asked Chima who had just strapped his backpack and was walking behind me.

"George and Paul." He replied nonchalantly, walking ahead of me.

"The twins?" I nearly barfed.

Don't get me wrong, they were good kids but I considered them ugly. Well, I consider all boys my age ugly except Chima. He is the only one who is handsome enough in my face and the only one I'm friends with but Chima is a people person so he has friends everywhere he went and his parents are rich so that's a bonus.

They were fraternal twins and they have nothing in common. One is a bit short and muscular while the older one is taller and skinnier. If they don't say they are twins, one would never guess.

"Come on, it'll be fun!" Chima pulled me towards the twins and I had no choice but to reluctantly follow. When they saw me, they cheered for me knowing that I had a problem with water and they even placed a bet amongst themselves about whether I was going to come or not and when they saw me. George handed Paul his own share of the money.

He won the bet.

Those idiots.

We made it to the road and Chima flagged down a taxi. We all got in then he told the cab driver where we were headed.

"Where is that?" I asked him, with raised brows.

"Hillsbay, it's a new hotel in town." He told me with a smile.

Of course, it's a new hotel. Chima knows every single hotel in the city. It could be because his father owned hotels in different parts of the states and he was always in competition with them but Chima was bored of going to his father's hotel and now he's discovered a new one.

I didn't say anything after that.

I only sat there thinking about my life and what I would do when I get there.

How I was going to escape not swimming.

What story do I need to come up with so Chima would let me breathe and not force me to swim but rather watch them?

But in as much as I cracked my head on ways to escape, none clicked strongly enough to get me out of that trap.

I was in it for good.

The thoughts of the strange thing that happened yesterday have been completely forgotten.

Wiped clean from my mind.

I had no idea it was going to come back and bite me in the ass.