Living off campus 5

My initial indifference turned to concern. Why was Ife crying? Had Tunji hit her? If he had done that, that was the height of it. I kept asking her what was wrong with her but couldn’t reply. All she did was weep. After a while, she spoke up tunji had brought another girl into the room and he had the effrontery to send Ife out. What further added insult to Ife’s injury was the fact that the girl was more beautiful than she was.

I tried to console her without giving her the ‘I told you so’ attitude. She kept on cursing and lamenting, she even threatened to go into Tunji’s room and embarrass them but I stopped her. Rather I advised that she wen later to get her things when the other girl was gone.

Ife was still lamenting when we started hearing voices at he passage , it was definitely Doyin’s voice. She was raining curses heavily on Ronald. We were surprised, we kept quiet and leaned against our door to hear every bit of what was being said but all we did hear was Doyin cursing Ronald bitterly even in vernacular, the sound of door slamming, Ronald must be leaving angrily we thought. I began to wonder wasn’t this the perfect Ronald that Doyin treated as her mini god? Things were really happening…..
Few hours later, Ife went to pack her things back into the room. I really felt sorry for her she looked used and abused.
As if all the events that had occurred earlier in the day wasn’t enough, we started hearing laura’s voice inside of Wole’s room, she didn’t sound like she was on good terms with him. We weren’t really surprised at these, Laura and wole had a strange perception of a relationship. Their own relationship meant ‘relationfight”. They only got along when they were eating together or sleeping together. They were always fighting, wole had tried to break up the relationship several times, he claimed he couldn’t cope with Laura’s jealousy but it seemed he was hooked for life. Like he was already captured by her.

Night came and we managed to sleep amidst the hostile atmosphere. The following day as I dressed up for school I noticed that Ife remained on the bed. I asked if she wasn’t going to school, she replied that she wasn’t. I tried to convince her to go but she claimed she wasn’t fine. I left her behind hoping that she would have a change of heart. I decided to walk to the busstop with Riike who also had early morning lectures

As we walked Riike started to talk about the real reason for Ronald and Doyin’s fight. She told me of how Ronald’s other girlfriend had insulted Doyin in public. The poor girl had been shocked and embarrassed. She also told me of how laura kept threatning Wole over some messages and pictures she saw on his phone. I was about to pass my own comment on the abnormal relationships when Riikeasked me a shocking question .she asked me what Ife was going to do about her pregnancy, I argued with Riike and almost fought her for suggesting that Ife was pregnant . but the issue kept coming to my mind, truly it had been long I saw Ife have her period. I made up my mind to find out.

A lot of people asked after Ife in school, i ran into her classmates who told me of all the tests she had missed. I became worried again ,ife was definitely playing around an extra year. I decided to go home early and talk sense to her. I also made up my mind to call her parents if she refused to change. As soon as I got home I stated hearing loud voices of laughter, Bukky our part time room mate as we often called her because she often didn’t sleep at home was with her male visitors again. She claimed she had a boyfriend who lived in Lagos but Ife and I see different men visit her each time. One wonders which is actually her boyfriend. I got close to our room and heard another loud noise like something crashed, I rushed into the room and saw Ife vomiting. As she vomited she bent down to pick up the broken toilet sink, I stood still.