Grace is a 21 year old lady currently in 300 level studying medical laboratory science in Unimed. Her 25 year old sister who had graduated from Unimed three years back, who now resides and works in Lagos called her to check up on her as usual.
“You don’t find love Grace, you wait for love to find you”
Grace repeated the same line her sister, Goodness, had told her over the phone.
“Finding love in Ondo is hard but she found love in the whole of Lagos within two years of working there. I’ve spent three years in this small town and I kept meeting all the sons of pharaoh, when exactly will I meet my Prince Charming; the son of Moses.”
Grace murmured to herself while she walked back to her off-campus hostel from class.
She lives alone in a self-contained apartment very close to the school.
When she got home, she dropped her backpack and phone on the bed and stormed the kitchen to heat what’s left of the jollof rice she cooked before going for lectures in the morning.
“Calling it jollof rice is a way to make it seem like the usual jollof but as a student like us, it’s typically a mixture of rice, oil, seasoning, salt and pepper that’s phobic to the palate”
Those were the exact words Grace used to describe their jollof rice the last time her friend, Mary came around and Mary in turn described it as a “poor man’s” jollof rice.
Grace had been receiving notifications from her Snapchat and WhatsApp all day but several instagram notifications came in continuously after she entered the kitchen.
“Who’s this person naw”
She screamed and left the kitchen in anger.
just like they say “an hungry man is an angry man”
She counted up to the eighth time that the instagram notification popped. She hurriedly picked up the phone and swiped down.
the_fabulous_pete liked your post
the_fabulous_pete commented on your post
the_fabulous_pete liked your story
the_fabulous_pete liked your post
the_fabulous_pete liked your post
She also had some unchecked inboxes.
“Hello Gracy”
“How’re you doing”
“I’ve been following you for a while now and I really want to get to know you better”
She hissed and dropped the phone on the bed in anger. Stormed the kitchen back to check on her “poor man’s” jollof rice.
these guys and their wahala. If we check well now, we’ll find out that he’s one of the numerous instagram’s scammers
She continued gesticulating and talking to herself as though someone else was in the kitchen with her.
However when she finished eating, she clicked on the Twitter app. She tweeted twice and was busy scrolling others’ tweets when her mom’s call came in.
She swiped left to pick up.
Her mom doesn’t call frequently in fact, she could count the number of times her mother had called her in the past three months. She totally understands that her mother is a busy woman; a level 14 government official who would soon retire from work and focus more on her personal businesses.
She’s been working so hard to train both Grace and her sister since their father passed away. Knowing fully well that time is no longer on her side at work, she’s been investing a lot in her two stores. A grocery store and a fabric store each at different areas in the city.
“Hello Grace, how’re you?”
“I’m fine ma. How’re you too?”
“I’m very well my dear”
“I didn’t call to say much, Goodness called me not long ago that I should hear from you. So my dear, what did you say you need 10,000 naira for?”
Her mother asked as fast as she could in the most disciplinarian tone she could use.
“So she told you..” Grace murmured under her breath.
“My dear answer me, I do not have luxury of time. It’s just last week that I sent you 15,000 naira for upkeep.”
“Errrm ermmm…” Grace stammered to answer the question.
“Well, whatever it is, I only have 5,000 naira to give you, so whatever it is that you wanted to use the money to do, cut it by half..”
“…UBA or First bank”
Grace managed to reply “First bank” when her mother cut in.
“Have a good day”.
“Thank you ma”. And the call ended.
The next day was Thursday. Grace had woken up by 5:30 am as usual to cook and prepare for her 8 am lecture.
By the time she got to class, most of her classmates were busy staring and muttering words to themselves in secret. She wondered what was happening but all the answer to her wonders came to her when she got to her sit.
Michael, one of her classmates who has been wooing her secretly had dropped a letter with a pink ribbon and a rose on her chair.
“Oh! Now I understand” Grace muttered to herself.
She picked up the letter and read it. It was filled with showers of lovely words that’s enough to make a woman’s head swell in excitement.
Grace didn’t trip but was more concerned about the ending of the letter which states “kindly spare me 10 minutes of your time after today’s lectures. Thank you very much in anticipation.”
Grace finished her lectures for the day and remained on her seat for her suitor to come around and voila he came with a piece of cake and a box of chocolate drink.
She allowed him to sit with her and they talked out their interests.
“I’ll think about it and give you an answer later” Grace replied to cap their discussion.
“When is the later, Grace?”
“Hmmmm, let’s says sometime around next week”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting”
While Grace walked home, her mind was splitted in different places.
could this be love?
does he really love me?
he’s buying me so many stuff, it seems he’ll know how to care for a woman
She thought a lot to herself hoping for her subconscious to give her a sign.
She was in the middle of discussion with her invisible mind when the thought of the first test that she had failed crossed her mind.
“Omooo, let’s read for my test first”
The following week was going to be the last week in school before going for Christmas and new year break. It’s usually a short break that lasts for at most two weeks. She and her colleagues were supposed to write a second test in one of their courses but the lecturer announced to the class that it’s been postponed until the short break is over.
Grace had enough time to think about the proposal that Michael had talked to her about and it’s now left for her to decide if she’d be his girlfriend or not.
Days go over days and Grace decided to reveal her answer after so much thought. Although she didn’t tell anyone about it, not even her sister.
She had wanted to be in an easy and low-key relationship without everyone monitoring their every move.
However, she panned that she’d go over to where she could possibly find him - the night class, to deliver her response. The night class is still their usual lecture room but it’s tagged night class when students go there to study at night time
Despite the fact that they have no exams or tests coming up until the break is over, some people still go for night class but not to study.
ENDING ONE
Michael is a big fan of night class since he gets to assimilate better when studying at night in a quiet environment than during the day. However, now that there aren't any exams coming up, Grace knew he’d be there playing games at least or arguing football with his guys.
Grace dressed up in a baby pink flowery flared short gown, brushed her bob wig and wore it, lined her lips with a brown lip liner and applied a gloss to balance her already full lips. She wore a golden brown sandal and applied perfume on her neck, chest, armpits, arm, wrists and ankles. She also put on the golden bracelet that her sister had gotten for her on her last birthday.
She rarely wore it because she sees it as an extremely special item. Her sister had bought it for a fortune at that time so she only wore it to very important occasions.
Instead of trekking down to the night class, she boarded a bike and stopped at the junction of the lecture room. She walked her way down to the lecture room to see her potential lover.
Unfortunately, she caught him kissing another girl just before she stepped into the room.
what a good welcome
Grace helped herself to believe what she had just seen. She felt fooled. And she blamed herself for making so much time to think about him and the efforts she invested into looking great to please him.
The warnings that Goodness gave her kept ringing in her head and at that point, all she wanted to do was not to confront him but to go back and focus on her studies.. hopefully love would find her without searching.
ENDING TWO
Fortunately for her, Michael didn’t contact her during the two weeks of Christmas and new year break.
That was enough time to get over someone who wasn’t even hers in the first place.
Although he didn’t see her on that day, Grace thought that was another sign he isn’t the right person and she appreciated herself for not rashly accepting his proposal at first.
When school resumed after the short break, their scheduled second test was held on the first day of lecture and by the time the results came out, she did excellently well.
Grace finally went to give herself a treat at chicken republic for passing her second test in the course that she thought was extremely difficult to pass.
While she sat waiting for her order, a young man who looked like he’s in middle twenties walked towards her.
“Hello, are you “darling_grace” on instagram?”
Grace turned to him, a little confused and replied “what if I’m darling_grace? What’s the problem?”
“Yeah I sent a message to your DM a few months back but you didn’t reply, I love your content and I got a wig for my mom from the store you referred to in one of your posts and my mom loved the wig so much.”
“Ohh you’re…”
“the_fabulous_pete, yeah” he replied.
“I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your dm”
“It’s okay, can I sit?
“Sure”
“So what are you doing in Unimed?”
“Your bio says you're a masters degree older in public health relations” she explained.
“You checked my bio? Wow”
“Ohhh! well, I should at least know the stranger that sent me a direct message” she replied with a blush on her face.
They both laughed over the issue, got their orders and walked out of the chicken republic together.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t go through the right approach, I really wanted to know more about you and I still do.
Had no idea I’d run into you here”
“Don’t talk too much, I’ll think about being friends with you” Grace replied.
“What if I want to be more than a friend?” Peter asked innocently with his brows raised to the sky and his arms up. more like I mean no harm
“Then you have so much to do”
“How can I begin the tasks?”
“You don't just rest?”
“No ma’am “
They both laughed, exchanged mobile phone numbers and went their separate ways.
“I’ll call you when I get home” Peter said while her bike zoomed off.