Courageous Nerd

Genesis Chinelo's laughter rang out. The fact that I was attracted to Genesis seemed ludicrous to her, along with the fact that I, a girl, was planning to ask a guy out. She'd stop, then crack up again. It was beginning to get weird. When she finally stopped cackling, she simply said, "It's your choice, do it if you feel he's worth it". So it began. Genesis, Chinelo and I have become close friends since then. He'd turned me down, and I still beat myself up about it, but I have hopes. We get along pretty well and, after a girl was raped to death in campus, he made it his duty to escort us back to the hostel. Chinelo's hostel is before mine, so we had a window to talk before getting to my hostel. We'd make small talk, deep talk, and I'd get to see his dimple. I lived for those windows. I think he's beginning to like me. He asked Chinelo for permission to 'borrow' me for the evening, and we went to see a movie that I'd been singing...

REMINDERS Each time people ask me why I don't get mad angry, I see her grin. The before and after, merging together, slicing a bit off my heart... Saturday mornings. I hated them, still do. That Saturday though, was way more irksome. My (not biological) elder sister had gone to the village to visit her parents, so I was stuck cleaning the rooms. My ire was palpable. I was done with the living room, the kitchen and my parents' bedroom. It was time for the parlour upstairs, and I confronted it like a girl possessed. My younger sister came upstairs to watch movies and I told her to go downstairs and do it. She told me that my elder brother was already watching a movie downstairs, and plopped down on a chair. My resentment was growing. She didn't clean anywhere and she wasn't going to, because she wasn't old enough to use a mop, but she was old enough to disregard me and comfortably watch movies when I explicitly told her too. I saw red, and yes, I know, but it...