Read Online After the storm by Osar Adeyemi - Free Book Online Page B

helped herself to some of the food. He
smiled at her before serving himself some of it too.
    "I hope
you like the food?" Mrs. Kadiri asked some time later.
    "Yes,
Ma, it's very nice, thank you."
    "Akeem
said that you graduated with first-class honours," Nadia said.
"Your parents must be very proud of you."
    Yemi
smiled. "Yes, they are happy about it."
    "What
would you give me if I graduate with first-class honours?" Nadia
asked, turning towards her mother.
    "Are you
going to do that?" Mrs. Kadiri asked.
    "Miracles still happen," Nadia replied. She turned towards
her brother. "And why are you smiling?"
    "Why do
you think I am smiling?" he asked.
    "Because
you think your little sister can't cut it. Anyway, we shall leave
the first classes for 'brainiacs' like Yemi. A second-class lower
will do me nicely, thank you. I'm not going to use it
anyway."
    Yemi
listened to the banter between the siblings. She spoke little and
concentrated on her food, but she was acutely aware of Akeem's
mother's cold gaze on her all through the meal.
    ∞∞∞
    Yemi was
glad that her parents were not at home when she got back later that
evening. She was not prepared to answer her mother's questions
about how the visit with Akeem's mother had gone. She lay down in
her room and mulled over the events of the day. She found herself
unable to dismiss the thought that Mrs. Kadiri did not like her.
She could also not shake the feeling that there was some unspoken
tension between Akeem and his mother. It was all so
confusing.
    Akeem
had tried to draw her into a conversation on the journey back home,
but she had said very little. Later that evening, he called her,
but she did not feel like talking. She sent him a text instead and
switched off her phone.
    The next
day, she went over to Sesan's place after church. She still felt
uneasy whenever she thought about Akeem's mother and felt she
needed to retreat to familiar ground to regain her confidence. She
sent a text to Akeem informing him that she would be busy all day.
He called her back immediately, but she just let the phone ring
until it stopped.
    "Hey,
stranger! You're the last person I was expecting!" Sesan said on
seeing her on his doorstep.
    "Thanks," Yemi said drily. "It shows how much down your list
I have dropped."
    He
grinned. "You're still right there at the top!" He led her into the
sitting room. "Let me get you a drink. Pineapple as
usual?"
    Yemi
nodded. She looked around the sitting room. Nothing fancy or posh,
but she felt right at home in it. "Are your parents at
home?"
    "No,
they are out visiting friends," he answered her from the kitchen.
He came back with a glass of juice a few minutes later. "So how
have you been?"
    "Good,"
Yemi said, taking a sip of her drink. "And you?"
    "I'm all
right, I guess. I'm enjoying being free right now. There's always
been one target or the other for me all my life, and it just feels
good to be able to loaf around a bit now." 
    Yemi
giggled. "People who don't know you think you are a loafer anyway,"
she teased. "Do you remember how Mrs. Thomas, our class teacher in
form one, used to scold you because of the way you behaved in
class?"
    Sesan
laughed. "I used to deliberately give her wrong answers just to
wind her up. I'm sure she had concluded I was a hopeless
case."
    "Until
after the first class assessment when you left everyone trailing
behind you. She almost could not believe it." Yemi smiled and shook
her head at him. "You were such a naughty boy back
then!"
    They
talked some more about their secondary school days, laughing as
they remembered fond memories.
    "But
what happened to you this last semester?" Yemi asked quietly. "Your
results were a shock to everyone."
    Sesan
smiled ruefully. "I had a lot on my mind."
    "Issues
at home?"
    "No!"
    She
hadn't thought so either. "Relationship issues?"
    The
expression in his eyes was guarded. "Sort of."
    Yemi was
puzzled. "I was not even aware you were in a
relationship."
    "Well,
you've been pretty