02. The Betrayal

7 YEARS LATER

I woke up to the sound of my infuriating human alarm, Eric, shouting stupidly in my ears, as he shook my body.

"You know what? There is no point waking you up; don't bother going to work, you’re late anyway," Eric hissed.

My eyes widened immediately, as I registered what he just said. I practically flew into the bathroom.

Eric and I have been friends for almost six years now, I met him shortly after my 17th birthday. He had just moved into the house opposite mine, and my parents decided to go say hi. Eric kept his eyes on me the whole time, and when we finally had time to ourselves, he said he liked my tattoo. I was shocked because the thing was not bold and it was in a hidden place, so how the hell did he see it?

Eric thought I was some sort of bad girl and of course I let him believe that for a while, until I felt comfortable enough to talk about my "marriage".

I used the marriage to keep him away from developing feelings for me, but it turned out he was dating this chick and I wasn't attractive to him. I'm still not attractive to him to this day, not that I want to be or anything.

I rushed out of the bathroom after taking the quickest shower.

"Did you even scrub well?" Eric teased. I flipped him and ran into my room to dress up.

I had finally gotten a job, after an incident that made me lose almost everything and everyone I cared about. It took a while and a whole lot of changes to get the job, but I did, and I was about to be late on my first day.

I slipped a pair of jeans trousers and an almost crop cardigan on, and then a brown coat. I grabbed my bag, collected the pancake Eric was about to stuff into his mouth and an apple, then I ran out of the house.

Unfortunately, there were no available taxis and I forgot to order an uber. I was starting to feel like someone had it out for me! I was going to lose my job on the first day. Talk about sadness and frustration.

I decided to make use of my legs as I couldn't get a taxi. If it was back home in Nigeria, I sure would've used a motorcycle to work, but it wasn't, and there were no available motorcycles anywhere. I ran so fast like my life depended on it, because it did.

As I got to the crossing, the sign still showed red, but there weren't any cars coming, and I was late, so I made my way across the road, when a white shiny car horned so loud I almost lost my hearing. The car stopped, but I didn't have the time to.

"I'm sorry!" I yelled.

"You should watch where you're going, you won't get to  work if you die!" He added, but I didn't care, I just kept running. 

Finally, I could see the building of the elementary school I was going to work at as a teacher. I smiled and increased my pace, sprinting through the halls of the school, until I bumped into someone I shouldn't have.

"Miss Kyeks? What's going on? Why are you all sweaty?" The shabby looking principal asked me.

"I- I spilled water on my face, on my way here," I lied. 

"Good morning Mrs, Chadwell," I faked a smile and went around the woman. 

For some reason, the school looked empty, I looked around some more and went to my appointed class, it was empty, and there was only one explanation: I was early.

I pulled out my phone from my bag and looked at the time, it was 7:20am and school starts by 8:30am.

I dialed Eric's number immediately.

"Hey princess, or do I call you Usain Bolt?" He laughed over the phone.

"Hahaha, fuck you!" I told him and hung up.

The clearing of someone’s throat startled me, it was Mrs. Chadwell. She had that judgmental look on her face. I blame myself for being early.

"Is there something you need?" I asked her like I didn't just swear in a no-swearing environment.

"Miss.Kyeks, was it?" She asked, I nodded my head.

"You're aware this is a school, yes?" She asked and I nodded.

"No swearing! I'll let it go because you're early," she said and I smiled.

"Did you cover what we talked about?" She asked looking at my left hand.

I rolled my eyes in my head. Mrs. Chadwell had seen my tattoo and asked that I find a way to cover it if I wanted a chance to work at her school. I nodded my head immediately because I needed the job, if I didn't, I would've told her to fuck herself!

"I have a concealer in my bag, I'll do that right now," I smiled at her. She nodded and left my office.

I took a deep breath to settle my fast beating heart before finally pulling out a few makeup products from my bag and hurrying to the ladies to get my face right.

I put on light makeup on my face and applied my concealer on my tattoo. Conceal don't feel, don't let it show; those words ran through my mind as I concealed my marriage mark. Of course I was proud of walking around with it, I didn't just feel comfortable telling people what it meant, plus Mrs. Chadwell said something about other teachers presuming that I was a bad person, because apparently, only bad people have tattoos; the amount of backwardness baffled me. Having a tattoo has nothing to do with anyone's behavior, when are people going to learn?

Some minutes later, small humans started trooping into the class, looking at me like I had something on my face; well at least they were quiet.

"Hi, good morning everyone. I'm Jumy Kyeks, your new teacher, feel free to call me when you’re having any problems, okay?" I asked, smiling lovingly at the six years olds, hoping to God that they'd like me.

"Nice to meet you ma'am," they said in unison. I did a small happy dance to their response, in my head of course.

There were about thirty of them, and while they looked like crooks, they were surprisingly respectful, I liked that.

Hearing the bell for the final class gave me more relief than the children, that was for sure. Immediately I heard the bell, I stopped talking and relaxed on my desk, and of course the little brats laughed at me, it was all good though. It was better than trying to make my life miserable by pranking me, I wouldn't survive.

All the children ran out of the class as expected, or so I thought.

There were two Asian children sitting in a corner, a boy and a girl, they looked alike so I concluded they were twins; they were the ones with the hard names to pronounce.

I walked over to them slowly, smiling as I took every step.

"Hey," I smiled.

"Hi," they answered in unison, definitely twins.

"Aren't you guys going home?" I asked them, 

"We are supposed to, but we don't know who's coming to get us," the boy said. Wow!

"Okay, uh- what are your names again?" I asked, just to take their minds off the topic. They were clearly having parental issues and I didn't want to pry.

"I'm Ri On" the body said. Oh, cute.

"I'm Ri Jin" the girl answered shyly. Ri On put his hands over his sisters shoulders, scowling at me. Protective! That's cute.

"Okay, you guys can call me Jums, but only after school, okay?" I told them. I wanted them to be comfortable around me, children needed that type of stability, right?

"Do you guys want me to-" I was easily cut off by the sound of a strange soothing voice that sounded at that moment.

I looked to the entrance of my class and I froze, I couldn't move.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," he said, smiling at the children.

"Daddy!" The twins ran to him. Daddy? 

The fuck? I mean, he was looked daddy alright, but the fuck? 

I shook my head to be sure I was seeing right. Standing by the door of my class was the man I had married some years ago, in a tattoo shop, Yu Bin.

"Hey, you're the road runner from this morning aren't you?"