TO BE YOUNG AND IN LOVE (Chapter 3)

The exam hall was quiet, peaceful and serene. Well, that was just the exam hall. I could see the anxiety and worry on almost all the faces I glimpsed. It was our second paper. Mathematics. I had almost not slept the night before; I made sure I was able to cover all the topics before sleeping. I was quite intelligent then, but Math was not so much my thing. I always had to study and study hard before I could correctly solve Math problems.

I looked across my seat to my far right and my eyes caught Umar’s. I knew that he wasn’t much of a book person, and he only read when he really had to. It was obvious that he hadn’t prepared well enough for the paper. Ibrahim’s seat was just three seats behind Umar’s. When he looked at me, he smiled and winked. I wondered if he was horny, because on a normal day, he wouldn’t even smile at me, let alone wink.

I faced my front when I noticed the invigilator approaching my seat with the exam papers, and my heart beat intensified as he got closer. He dropped one sheet on my desk and moved on. I flipped to the first page, and after going through the questions, my heart leaped for joy. Almost all of them were from the topics I had paid more attention to. I whispered a short prayer of thanks to God and descended on the questions.

Two hours later, I was done. I submitted my paper and walked out. I hadn’t bothered to check on Umar and Ibrahim, to see if any of them had finished, because I was one of the first students to finish. And so I thought none of them would have been through by then.

But as I stepped out of the hall, I saw Ibrahim sitting in the gutter nearby. Usually, I would just walk past him like I didn’t even know him, but as I continued walking, he stopped me and told me to sit in the gutter with him. It was a Wednesday and the junior boys were being chased to the school’s field for the usual sports activities that took place every Wednesday afternoon. We had handed over to the SS2 students who were now making the junior boys go through hell, and we were supposed to be facing our exams. Supposed to.

I sat in the gutter, all the while feeling a bit nervous as to reason why Ibrahim would ask me to sit with him, when it was him who told me to always behave like we didn’t know each other at all.

“The Maths was simple ba, I saw the way you were just ‘pieces-ing’ it,” he said. “I wish I was sitting at your back sef.”

I faked a smile and said, “It was just okay.”

Just then, I looked towards the entrance of the hall and I saw Umar step out. He kept a straight face, even though everyone else who came out of the hall was smiling; the ones who did well in the paper and the ones who didn’t. Everybody kept on blabbing about how the paper was too easy.

Well, the results will separate the grains from the chaff, I thought.

Umar stood by the entrance talking to somebody, it was Steve. I had always known that Steve was gay. It was as glaring as a white man standing in the midst of extremely black people, at least to me. I knew he’d always wanted me but I wasn’t in any way attracted to him. And the past few weeks that Umar and I hadn’t been talking, I noticed that Steve was always with him, and his hands were always doing their best to let me know that well. He would place his hands on Umar’s laps or his chest or his palms whenever I saw them together. I would like to think Umar didn’t like Steve very much, that the sour expression I saw on his face whenever I spied them together was telling of how much he would rather be anywhere than with Steve. But that would just be a disgruntled me thinking that. After all, no matter what he felt about Steve, he always stayed with him. I guess he was trying hard to get over me and find a replacement too.

Steve and Umar started for the hostel area when Umar spotted me and Ibrahim. When he saw that we were sitting together and I was looking at him, he squeezed his face. Just a little bit, enough for me to know that he was angry about it, and maybe jealous too. I had been staring at them for too long but I really didn’t care. Different things roiled around in my head – Umar and I in each other’s arms kissing passionately and him whispering sweet nothings into my ears, biting my ear lobes gently, kissing my neck and pinching my nipples sweetly. I must say, I’d really missed Umar.

“Are you even listening to me at all?” Ibrahim’s voice rang in my ears, jolting me back to the present.

“Ehn… Wh-what did you say?” I stuttered.

“Who are you looking at?”

“Me? Nobody o… I was checking if Jon had come out of the hall,” I lied.

Jon was my roommate, my very special roommate. He wasn’t gay but he knew I was and he was totally accepting of it. He even knew about the me-Umar-and-Ibrahim love/fuck triangle. I confided in him about everything. He was my best friend. I was silently praying that he would just come out of the hall and take me away from this place because Ibrahim had started to annoy me, kind of.

“You think I’m wearing pampers, abi? You think I don’t know you were looking at Umar?” Ibrahim asked.

Chineke’m, which kind interrogation be this one na?

Just then, I saw Jon approach from the hall entrance. He looked our way and caught sight of me. I gave him a quick sign with my eyes and he knew what I wanted him to do. He quickened his steps till he came to where we sat.

“Ehen, Fitzgerald, won’t you come let’s go and read. We have another paper next tomorrow and you’re here organising your annual Umunna market women meeting. C’mon let’s go and read jaré.”

And with that, he dragged me up from the gutter. I mumbled a quick goodbye to Ibrahim and left with Jon.

“What were you two discussing?” he asked the moment we were out of Ibrahim’s earshot.

“Nothing o. I wasn’t even listening to what he was saying sef.”

“So what were you now doing there?”

“Do you know that Steven has been following Umar everywhere of recent?” I said, changing the topic swiftly.

Jon didn’t press for an answer to his question. He said instead, “Abi? I’ve been seeing him and Umar together sha. Eiyaa, so what do you want to do now?”

“Nothing now. What would I do before?”

“Sha, na una sabi,” he said and started running towards the hostel.

“Ahaan! Why are you running now? Wait for me joor!” I shouted and started after him.

***

The shouts of my mates who were playing football in the courtyard of our hostel woke me up. I had taken a nap after the Math paper. I looked at my watch. It was 5:41. Wow! Five hours of sleep? I stood up, pulled on my shirt and walked out of my room. Jon was playing too. I wasn’t really a football person, so I walked past them and strolled to the school’s recreational room, which also happened to be the dining hall for SS3 students, where there were flat screen TVs and a DSTV decoder.

I met some of my mates and a couple of other students watching an American movie. I sat on one of the chairs and asked someone by my side what movie it was. It was one of the American Pie movies. Nice. I really loved the American Pie movie franchise. I watched for a while and then looked around to see if any of my close friends was in the room so I could go sit with him.

And then, I saw them. Them. The couple I love not to like. Umar and Steve. Talking and laughing. That harlot Steve was busy gossiping and overdoing everything. Umar looked at me for a split second and then turned away. I tried to concentrate on the movie and take my mind away from the both of them, but I was only deceiving myself. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore so I got up and left.

It was already time for dinner, so I went to the section of the recreational room which served as our dining hall, took my food and ate. We were already taken to be ex-students of the school, so we didn’t go for afternoon and evening preps. I went back to my room and started reading one of the topics from the subject we were going to write next. I read for about two hours until it was about 8:30. And then I decided to take a little stroll to Umar’s hostel.

I don’t know what I was hoping for to happen, should I see him (alone, God forbid).

I soon got to his hostel. It was very quiet because most of the students were in the recreational room watching a football match between Man-U and Arsenal. Like I said, football wasn’t my thing. I hovered around his hostel for a while and decided to take a piss. I went into the toilet and started to urinate, when I thought I heard someone moaning. It was just a thought until it actually sounded like someone was moaning in one of the toilet stalls. From the sound, I knew that someone was getting a really good blow job, and feeling curious, I decided to go check who the giver and receiver were.

Hell, if they’re attractive people we could just make it a threesome, I thought.

I tiptoed to the toilet where I could hear the sound coming from, and swung the door wide open. My countenance fell. My heart dropped. I honestly thought it was a joke, even though I could clearly see it wasn’t. Just before they sprang apart at my intrusion, there stood Umar with Harlot Steve on his knees, his left hand clasped around Umar’s erect monster.

Written by Fitzgerald