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CHAPTER 26

Author: Tina Rose
last update Last Updated: 2024-10-29 19:42:56

A woman met me at the entrance of the building and parted my ways with Romeo. Romeo disappeared into the gigantic door in front of us while the woman in a white starched housekeeper’s uniform lead me round the house opposite the direction I was just coming from with Romeo.

We arrived at a different entrance, this one leads into a hallway that gave this illusion that it continued forever because of the glass-like floor that held the reflection of everything. On the walls just right of the hall was golden sculptures, heads of lions bursting out of the walls in between doors as if there were trapped in it in the eighties with magic, on the left side was this stairs that seemed to curve into the ceilings. And the ceilings itself wasn’t left without stunning designs, the intricate ironwork was left exposed to show a masterpiece of a chain of connections looking like some constellations of some sort.

I stared in awe, turning my neck in almost three sixty degrees in admiration.

“Wow! This pl
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    “I don’t believe you,” he spat after a long stretch of silence.“Huh?” I swallowed.What was I thinking? He couldn’t just believe me because I said so. I would have to prove it with their shared experiences of which I had none. I couldn’t be Angel without knowing one thing about her or him or heck about their time together. What if they had like a signature greeting? Or maybe they had pet names for themselves. I let out a sigh loud and clear as I soon realize that the wall I had just pushed myself to.“I don’t believe you.” This time he had magically covered the distance between us. I stepped back as his glare crawled all over my body like eight-legged insects. I pushed back even further as he covered the breathing distance I had created, until I hit the foot of the bed and sat forcibly on the bouncy foam did he stop.“If you will allow me…”“Allow you to do what?”I swear I didn’t even know where I was going with that. A chance to explain? Explain what exactly? That I pretended to be

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER ONE

    Do you know the love of my life? You should. Is this a love story if you don't know the one with the power of spring controlling these fluttering creatures inside of me? The one making me spin and spin and spin and…fall. I had lived my life thinking I was the main character of a novel, a romance novel to be exact. Maybe a little comedy, some sprinkles of mystery but overall a heartwarming love story complete with a meet cute filled with butterflies, a love confession that surpassed that of Anthony Bridgeton and most importantly an happy ever after where our children sit by our feet with awe as we tell our stories for the hundredth times. I was hopeless when it came to the matters of love, maybe because I watched too many rom-coms or spent too much of my sleeping hours obsessing about finding the boy of my dreams. Maybe I was just born this way, who knows?But I did know the reason for why I couldn’t stop dreaming even with my eyes wide open. Hussein. I couldn't even say his name ou

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    Our Uber ride arrived a few minutes later, it was a lady on the wheel. She saw me and immediately called me African Queen. My head nearly burst in feathers from the flattery she showered on us. You know if an African woman says you are beautiful, it means you are spectacularly stunning that day. Imagine if Hussein saw me. His jaw probably hit the floor. We headed to his house first to pick him up before we zoomed to Victoria Island where the show was happening in the next three hours. With the traffic included, we should be there with one hour left to settle and take pictures. Hussein lived in an estate similar to ours, the main gate opened to the road sandwiched with similar looking duplexes. He lived in one with his brother and his two nephews. The kind woman parked as I had instructed. I didn't wait for the car to roar to the end before I clicked the door open. Nikki decided to stay behind, watching me go with a teasing knowing look. I knew she was talking about me to the drive

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER THREE

    I was bawling when Nikki opened the car door for me."Jeez! What happened?" She panicked. She held me by the shoulders and tried to look me in the eyes. I pressed my hands to my face and the tears didn't stop running. I remembered the mascara I had watched in a YouTube tutorial to achieve strand by strand definition. It was rolling down to waste. "Why? Nikki, why? How– I don't know, Nikki. I don't know what I did wrong. How is this happening to me? I love him, I– I do. I really love him. I don't understand. I– I– don't…how can he not– love me? How can he? I-I– love him." "He said…that?""He has a girlfriend. In there.""What? Are you sure? Hussein? Girlfriend?" Nikki shook her head in disbelief. "Nonye. She is–" Broken sobs were the last thing out of my mouth. "He is stupid." Nikki said like it was all the explanation I needed. She tore my hands from my face before she pulled me into a hug and brought me to sit close to her.“It’s okay.”“It’s not!” I snapped. "It's not okay. I

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER FOUR

    Romeo. Real life Romeo. In front of me. I swallowed like a rock the size of my head was forcing through my throat. He was made of lava or maybe lava was made of him, I don't know– no one knows. My eyes scanned him head to toe like a machine detecting metal. He wore a skin tight burning red turtleneck shirt that hugged his slender frame and tucked that into one shiny scarlet leather pants and paired with Balenciaga platform boots. And the worst of all…his locs were dyed blood red.It was Valentine's Day, I knew that but this guy already looked drop dead gorgeous when he rocked his plain black locs and used a lip balm on his pink lips. How can they do this to us? To me? To my poor heart? That red pumping thing stopped pumping for a solid minute, I must say. His light brown skin complemented his whole scarlet package too well; they could be woven together and we would never know.I swallowed again, that damn rock wasn't moving anywhere. "Hi," he said. His smile, as usual, made his g

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    The sonorous Arabic melody pierced into my sweet, sweet dream and pulled me by my foot out of it. Two days later, I was still dreaming about him, about that day when my heart burst with no hesitation for him. I never got angry at the alarm imposed on me by the estate's mosque because it was around the same time I should be awake if I was to meet my school bus. Well, except today, I groaned out loud, my chest tightened with annoyance. Romeo was just about to kiss me. This was the third time in a row of unsuccessful kiss attempts. We got so close, the stars grew brighter and swirled in the night sky, his eyes found my lips first then he leaned with his and bam! Something or someone dragged me away from my fantasy. At this point, I wanted to believe there was someone playing games with me somewhere. I hope that person choke on his spit or something. If it was not going to happen in real life, at least let me have it in my dreams for goodness's sake. I wasn't usually like this, I don'

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    The bus moved after we entered. We were five minutes late but somehow the bus driver had managed to wait for us. I wished he didn't. I wanted to go back home and empty my eye sockets. I wanted to scream till I woke up from this unfair dream. But Nikki, she never let me be when I got sad. After that day she adopted the belief that I was itching to go back to the knife every time my little heart got cloudy. And she couldn't be more wrong. I had developed the unbending will to live, that was why my therapist didn't need to see me again. It was almost a rebellion against everything that was bent on making me wallow in agony. My father ceased to be a bother to me, the empty house made me feel like a Disney princess because only princesses are locked up in a castle. Like a battle knight, I had been toughened to mount this journey of life with unrelenting drive and a pocket full of passion.I will live. I will get all that I desire, all that I deserve. I will love someone. I will find some

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  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER 28

    “I don’t believe you,” he spat after a long stretch of silence.“Huh?” I swallowed.What was I thinking? He couldn’t just believe me because I said so. I would have to prove it with their shared experiences of which I had none. I couldn’t be Angel without knowing one thing about her or him or heck about their time together. What if they had like a signature greeting? Or maybe they had pet names for themselves. I let out a sigh loud and clear as I soon realize that the wall I had just pushed myself to.“I don’t believe you.” This time he had magically covered the distance between us. I stepped back as his glare crawled all over my body like eight-legged insects. I pushed back even further as he covered the breathing distance I had created, until I hit the foot of the bed and sat forcibly on the bouncy foam did he stop.“If you will allow me…”“Allow you to do what?”I swear I didn’t even know where I was going with that. A chance to explain? Explain what exactly? That I pretended to be

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  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   Next Chapter Due Tomorrow

    Hello Besties...I know I have not been updating as usual, please forgive my inconsistency. I don't even have excuse, I am just lazy and I think a lot, more like overthinking on every single chapter I try to write.I will be updating tomorrow unfailingly. Two chapters infact, unlikely the single one I do. infact I want to try updating two chapters a day from now on. Wish me luck. Keep reading and stay with me, okay. Don't run off just yet...I'm still loading y'all. PS: if you are seeing, please leave a comment, even if it is just a hi or hola, anything. I'm trying to figure out something. It is really important if you do this for me. Thank you as you support me, love. See you tomorrow.

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER 24

    “That’s not news anymore.” I bit back with the biggest smile I could find.He wouldn’t get to me this time, not when I knew what he really thought of me-that is that Angel girl behind all those jabs and insults.If Angel was me, which I knew she was not me, okay, but in a hypothetical sense, if he thought that Angel girl was me and he loves Angel then he loves me, a total imposter but nonetheless, it meant those eyes darkened with rage was just superficial and misrouted. He didn’t hate me even as those death glares screamed hatred to my face.“I don’t know why you keep doing this for me. It is just super nice of you to help me in the worst situations that I managed to put myself because you guess it, I’m pathetic.” I shrugged. “See, you don’t have to say it all the time, I know, the world knows. You have to be born yesterday to not know that the new meaning of pathetic is Colette. Me.” I laughed at that even though saying that aloud made me realize that jail or no jail, my life could

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER 23

    Not once have I ever imagined such a place existed in Nigeria. Africa was a poor continent who? We crossed the third mainland bridge like every average and working class Lagosian would do every day of their life and took a turn and another and another and another till it led us to this heavenly gate.And I kid you not when I said, ‘heavenly.’ It was the very line that separate the poor dwellers of earth from the prestigious paradise residents.Our car stood for a few seconds while the security guards, I would call them kingdom knights with their shining golden embroideries and attachments on their navy-blue uniform, they ran through with their routine while I marveled the masterpiece in front of me.Ivory and Gold, mostly ivory with the thick tall bars that shone combined with golden accented swirling pattern at the top and bottom. The gate was then situated in the middle of gigantic pillars that was almost two times the height of the gate itself. The concrete sculpture curved into an

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

    Do you know how I felt being dragged by the police officer like I didn’t have legs that worked? It was like these dirty walls planked at either side of my vision was the last thing I would see.Fear found my soul and spread through my bloodstream. I breathed loud so I could hear myself taking in bouts of breaths without that if felt like there was no air reserved for me, like I didn’t deserve it anymore, like there was no point for it.One good thing was that I haven’t cried since.That was a win, in the midst of this chaos and upending of my sad little life, this was a win worth celebrating. At least, I wasn’t being a crybaby on top of all my other depressing qualifications. Imagine being a murderer and a crybaby on top of it all.I was breaking apart and no one had noticed. And no one had to know.Just then, the officer took a turn that didn’t lead to the holding cell, we came out of the building in general and pulled towards a black car parked but with the engine still running.Jus

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

    “Nikki, tell me he is fine. Is he—” My breaths broke into isolated chunks. I exhaled but it was until I was completely out of breath that I took another breath. I was visibly shaking, my hands on the counter trembled without any control.“Yeah, he is okay.”“Are you sure?” I asked. I pressed my palms to my face to get hold of myself. The policeman that brought me out of the holding cell I was thrown into since morning watched me carefully as if he was sure I was making an incantation to disappear alongside my friend.“Yeah.” She reached out to hold my hand. She smiled but I knew that smile had nothing on the inside. She had this expression that seemed distant, like her real worry shoot to someplace far. Nikki was the person I called first immediately I was given a phone. She called my dad, she told me but right now, I just wanted someone that understood me, someone to tell me that I was okay because right now, I wasn’t. I didn’t think I was even me.“I don’t know, Nikki. I don’t know

  • THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES   CHAPTER TWENTY

    ROMEO“Finally! We’re home. I’m so glad we are out of that stupid hospital, at the very least, that one step forward or one roll forward.” Jennifer said as she rolled me into the room I grew up in.She hurried to open the dark curtains to let sunlight in, something she couldn’t do to her heart content when she was in the hospital. She adjusted the pillows already set on the bed, smoothen the non-existent crease on the black sheets that had already been ironed so much the batman in the middle was crisp and clear like a billboard on the highway. She went next to the framed picture on the nightstand, my first award ever where I got best kid actor of the year from the TV show I was starred on, she began to rub the dust off, there was no dust on it. There was no dust anywhere, everywhere I was tidy and ready for me to come in and live like I belonged here. I don’t. I stopped belonging to this household since that day, the day I opened the pandora box of my life.“Are you glad to be back?”

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