Fejiro…

Fejiro was finally going to kill him.

As she gazed outside her small kitchen window at the rowdy Adenuga Street below, her brain froze as she digested that fact. Her eyes closed shut. Her entire body vibrated with some sort of thermal energy as she gripped the handle of the knife for dear life.

Soon enough, he came in.

She felt his presence before his body hit her back. She smelled his cologne the moment his hands went to her braids…that intoxicating scent Omotore bought for his 30th birthday that always. Drove. Her. Loco.

He lifted the braids off her right shoulder and stilled.

Fejiro stilled too, waiting. Her body tensed, melting.

The heat was a thick smoke in the air she could physically touch. Her heart raced like she’d run a marathon. Her breaths came out in short, shaky rasps. He had barely touched her and her body was already convulsing.

Touch me. Please. No…I don’t really mean it. Just Leave me. I have to kill you. But if you stop touching me, I just might die.

Fejiro’s mind was in shambles. She was loosing her mind. The air itself grew too thick, her hand already bleeding from holding the knife too tight; her hips swaying to the rhythm of his. All the nights they’d ever spent together had never felt like this.

Finally, he half-bent, locked his lips to her hypersensitive neck and whispered her name in that deep, dark baritone.

“Fejiro…”

And she lost it.

Desperate hands flew. Lips crushed like a tsunami. Fejiro latched onto his strength like a vice. Within seconds, he lifted her unto the kitchen counter, and in one swift motion, sunk in deep. Fejiro’s eyes rolled backwards. He’d finally come home.

He looked into her eyes and knew how she felt. Of course, he always knew.

It had never felt like this. Sex between them had never been this raw, this intense, this electrifying. And in those small moments when he lay in her arms, Fejiro saw herself believing he was forever.

But several minutes later, he lifted her off the counter. Fejiro turned around and hid her face in her chest. As the seconds passed, Fejiro felt him mulling over his decision in his head.

Eventually, he sighed, kissed her neck tenderly as he always did, lingered there a little longer and then said; “Feji, I have to go. You know that.”

A beat passed. “I love—“

“No, don’t . Go. Just leave” She never could handle those words from his lips. She just couldn’t.

Minutes after the door closed on Tega’s back, her gaze landed on the knife on the counter. Fejiro broke into bitter laughter.

---

“This girl, I don’t like the way you are dressed. See all these your openings, eh. What will Michael say about this? Have you forgotten you are now a married woman?”.

Fejiro did not even bother telling her mother that her weak-hearted boyfriend had not yet asked for her hand. To mama, an impromptu introduction to all the family members was enough marriage for her. Instead, she blocked out mama’s words and settled down in her seat, looking around her. It was her cousin’s wedding and everything was so elaborately done. What would anyone expect from the family?

Seeing some familiar faces in the crowd, Fejiro said hello and nodded her head in greeting, trying to stay calm.

Several minutes later, when Mama sprang up and shouted, Fejiro’s heart skipped. Her source of anxiety had arrived.

“My daughter, you are finally here. Hope the trip wasn’t stressful?”

Omotore laughed. “No, Mama. It was very smooth. How is Papa doing?. Ahn ahn!!. Eji!. Why are you still sitting there?. Won’t you stand up and greet your elder sister?. After months apart?”

Fejiro smiled cozily and hugged her sister, listening to her rant about not visiting often, about her niece and nephew missing her.

But Fejiro wasn’t listening.

She was no longer there. Like a magnet, her eyes glued to Tega’s own staring right back at her in complete rapture. Oblivious to everything as usual, Omotore went on and on about their vow renewals.

Fejiro’s chest shrunk in shock. With her eyes, she questioned him: Renewing your vows?

In reply, his eyes darted away and he smiled at mama.

The wedding flew past in a blur. She was numb and boneless, forcing herself to look away from Omotore and Tega seated directly opposite her. As she forced herself to delete the picture of his tossing her facedown on the table there and then, wiping every utensil off and taking her damn aso oke off.

She forced herself not to gaze into his eyes and see the exact same thought mirrored there.

At a point in the ceremony, Omotore clasped their hands together on the table. Seeing those hands and the utter joy on her sister’s face, Fejiro felt like a complete maniac. Guilt unlike ever before ran over her system like a tornado.

What had she done to her own sister?

And she wondered, how could Tega look have married Omotore after years spent loving each other? How could fate have been so cruel to give her this marriage as the penance for leaving him all those years ago? How could his eyes switch between loving two sisters so effortlessly that he was so oblivious to the impending doom?

How could she still live with herself? Live with knowing she was the one who destroyed her sister’s entire life?

For the first time in the five years spent living in the fantasy she created with Tega, pure hatred seeped into her skin with a vengeance.

Two months later, when her eyes locked on those two tiny lines on the pregnancy test, Fejiro held that knife between her hands and finally plunged.