NOT QUITE READY, I THINK.

                                      

...Zona couldn’t quite believe her ears, she had wanted to hear this for so long, was this an extended version of the two persons arguments she has with her mom, the one where she acts as both herself and her mom, the one where she tells her  mom the things she couldn’t bring herself to tell her in the flesh to avoid unnecessary arguments, the one where her mom seems to always agree with her and indulge her every whim, her mom in this case being represented by none other than Zona. No, it is just as real as the day her dad had moved on out to devil knows where. If for anything, Obiageli never calls Zona by her full name, she wasn’t the least bit excited by the long stretch of the hexasyllabic first name and she had very well let her mom know. They had settled on ‘Zona’ the day she got lost at the mall and wouldn’t answer to screams of her name when Obiageli called frantically. It had been a good plan by a defiant 6 year old, she had slipped out of sight and hidden, Obiageli almost had a fit of the vapors when she didn’t see her child around, it took a million shouts of ‘Echezonachukwu” and a single barely loud ‘Zona’ to bring her out from her hiding place. She had achieved her goal. She was ‘Zona’ to the world. 

‘Echezonachukwu’ resurfaced only when Obiageli  wanted to sound all too sincere or on rare cases when she needed to ply some emotional blackmail of some sort to get her way with Zona, not that it works though. The teenager was set in her ways, just like Azuka Godson, the man that walked out on them, the man who she once loved, and the man who had gone and left two broken hearts and lives in his wake.  Only if one chose their preferred dad. She hated that she had to be the walking image of her dad if the scant photos of him her mom had kept did him any justice, she hated that her good looks and her coffee brown eyes came from the man, as if that wasn’t enough, she had to be grateful to him too for her height. 

   “Yes?” her mom retorted in a way of an answer, “are you for real?” she quizzed, Obiageli nodded. She didn’t like that Zona avoided her so much lately anymore than she liked the whole headphones charade either. She wasn’t sure Zona was ready to go to Nigeria for the real reason the trip was intended, she wasn’t sure if asking her to stay back was the right thing to do either. She just knew she missed her daughter; she didn’t like it when they weren’t speaking to each other. She was definitely going to mend the fences she set out to break two months ago.

   “wha- what changed?” Zona stuttered  ” Why did you change your mind?”  “Or is this some prank because if it is it won’t be well received” Zona could barely hide her confusion that actually did little to belie the happiness that is welling up inside her, the sense of relief that had been distant of late came back in a flush, she let out a deep breath she didn’t know she had been holding since her mom walked into her room 20 minutes ago, in an instant she flung her long arms around her mom, she hugged her so tight before she got the chance to change her mind. Damn all that could possibly go wrong if she did visit Nigeria, damn the purse thieves and the insurgents alike, she could very well live amidst those, what she couldn’t do was bring herself face to face with Azuka Godson, her ‘father’. Not yet, she wasn’t quite sure when, maybe next week, maybe never. Maybe she needed to grow a little more, maybe after she graduated she would take a year before college, the schools would all have to wait for her afterall she was every bit a genius; any school would only be grateful if she chose them. Or maybe, just maybe the man would fall off the surface of the earth and she would know there was no ‘dad’ to find. For now, she wasn’t ready; at least she doesn’t think she is even though her mom seems to think otherwise.

  All was well with the world again (at least for now),or  at least her world, the one that contained just her and her mom… the world in a corner of Wade Street. It was safe, it was familiar, and most importantly, it was home.

                                  

                          ...to be obviously continued hehehe

Foot note: please refer to the first post and adjoin to this one, and I do hope you enjoy it. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH for encouraging my work by visiting ijustdoddle, leaving comments, and sharing. invite your baes and boos and even your crush *winks* ..dza more dza merrier... 

 Have a fantastic weekend..

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