Lemonades episode 1

TITLE: LEMONADES

WRITTEN BY: OGECHI ALABI

PART 1
I made some choices which I am not proud of and now I live with them. But then, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Esther. I am the first child of my parents and the most senior of four children. My father is an Igbo man from Ngwa in Abia state while my mother is an Ijebu woman from Ogun state.

My parents’ marriage was tough. My father’s parents didn’t want him to marry a Yoruba girl. My mother’s family were also in opposition. I was the reason both families conceded. My father returned to his station in Lagos and got my mother pregnant. My mother went home to her people when she was almost six months gone. There was chaos and within months, they got married.

My paternal grandmother didn’t hide her hatred for my mother. She insisted my mother was a city girl who was wayward and used pregnancy to trap her only son. She fueled many feuds between my father and mother with her baseless accusations and manipulations. My mother initially fought back and it caused further rifts between my parents. Along the line, she became wiser and stopped trying to prove anything to my father. When my grandmother realized my mother wasn’t interested in their bickering or exchange of words, she felt she had won. She didn’t. My parents’ relationship became stronger and they had three sons after me to the greatest surprise of my grandmother.

When we grew older, we visited the village more often. Grandmother always picks on me.

“That ofe mmanu girl didn’t teach you anything. You cannot pound cocoyam? What does she feed my son?”

“Is that how to sit down? Sit down and close your legs. She shouldn’t initiate you to her waywardness”

“Where are you going? You can’t go anywhere. Don’t you know you are a girl? You stay here out of boys way”

“Why are you making noise? Don’t you know women are only seen not heard? Your mother has failed in her duties”

These and many more were her comments to me. I felt bad each time she picked on me. When I complained to my mother, she told me to be patient as we would leave after a few more days. I hated my paternal grandmother and had good reasons to.

I was an above average student in school which made my father very proud of me. He didn’t hide the fact I was his favourite child as I was the only girl. He displayed this by calling me after his meal where he left behind pieces of meat, fish and stockfish. It was always reserved for me, his princess.

He told me he wanted me to be a nurse. He wanted me to attend nursing school and after my qualifying examinations, he will get me an American husband so I will be comfortable for the rest of my life.

“I want you to make your money and help your husband in training your children. See your mother, she has been a good wife to me. She helped cover my shame when I was without a job and now I have gotten a good job, I will repay her for all she did for me. If it were an Igbo woman, she would have finished me with her words but your mother only prayed for me and planned with me. My mother was very wrong about her”

When I entered senior secondary class, I met a new student in the school. Emmanuel was a tall and handsome boy. All the girls in school were smitten by him including me. I was also good looking but I wasn’t popular and I was naturally a reserved person. I was open and friendly only when I was with close friends and family.

Emmanuel took a liking to me when I answered a tough question in Chemistry class. He asked me if I was moving to science class in SS2 and I confirmed it. That was our first conversation.

‘What do you want to study?” he asked me.

“Nursing”

“Nice. You are intelligent. Why not Medicine?”

“My father said Nurses make a lot of money abroad”

“That’s nice. I want to study Medicine. Maybe we could be a doctor and nurse couple”

I blushed when he made that comment. Did he just refer to us as a couple? The hottest boy in school was interested in me and I knew if we became a couple, I would become popular. I had to be sure before I made terrible assumptions.

The next day, he changed his seat to sit beside me. Emmanuel was very intelligent too. We became study partners in school. We were known and then I became popular. Many of the ‘happening’ girls in school were interested in me because they wanted to get to Emmanuel but what they didn’t know was that he was only interested in me.

In SS2, our friendship had become even closer than before. We went to each other’s houses and our parents knew each other. He was from a good home (or so I thought). We talked about what we wanted to achieve in life. He had changed his mind about medicine to engineering because he found out he preferred calculations. Our doctor and nurse coupling dream was shattered and replaced with engineer and nurse.

One afternoon, after school, Emmanuel walked me home. He stopped at a street corner and asked that we stop there and talk. It was away from prying eyes and it was fine by me. As we spoke, he professed his affection for me and then kissed me. It was my first kiss but I don’t remember how it felt. He told me he had been eager to do this to me from the very first day he saw me.

I was on top of the sky all through that day. I couldn’t wait to see him again the next day. I felt connected to him and I never felt the way he made me feel ever. He was perfect and knew how to make me happy.

The kissing continued for days. It extended to when I visited him. We sought every opportunity to kiss and it was becoming more than just kissing. He was touching me in a way which was pleasurable but uncomfortable. I wanted to stop it and ask him to go slow but I couldn’t do that with the way he looked at me.

“I love you. You are so beautiful, Esther. I wish we could spend some time together without any form of distraction. I will show you how you make me feel'' were some of the words he said to me. Such words got me more and more involved with him.

The first time we found ourselves alone in my house, he wanted me to take off my clothes in front of him. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to be naked with him. And also, I was scared anyone would come home and catch us in the act. He got angry and left.

I saw him in school the next day but he didn’t speak with me. He changed his seat. At lunch, he sat with the most popular girl in school and completely ignored me. I felt bad. Within days, my popularity dropped; but that wasn’t my biggest problem. I felt I was also in love with Emmanuel and a day without him was like eternity. I wept when I got home and spent the rest of the day in my room depressed. I lied to my mother that I was ill and skipped school for two days.
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Emmanuel came to see me at home after the second day of missing school. He wanted to know how I was feeling. He gave me a letter when no-one was looking which I hid away. When I got back to my room, I read the letter.

Dear Esther,

School has been boring without you here. I am sorry if I upset you by ignoring you. I told you how I felt and we had agreed we would take it to the next level but you refused to follow through. Even though I love you, I cannot be with someone who won’t follow through with whatever we agree on. You are a beautiful girl and I want to love you in ways you can never imagine. My parents will be travelling on Thursday and no-one will be home until 6pm in the evening. We can skip school on that day and be together in my house. I promise you, it will be memorable.

Your love,

Emmanuel.

I smiled as I read each word over again and hung onto the ‘I love you’ part. I was excited he missed me so much that he had to come to the house to check on me. It meant a great deal to me. Even though I still had reservations about the next level, I still wanted to be with him.

The next school day, Emmanuel was back sitting beside me. I couldn’t stop smiling. We exchanged notes in class while the teaching was going on. He sent me love notes and I replied to them. It was exciting and I was carried away with the attention he was giving and the fact he chose me out of all the girls in school.

That Thursday, I walked my brothers to school and then I waited at the agreed place Emmanuel asked me to wait. Ten minutes later, he joined me and we walked together to his house which wasn’t too far from school.

We entered the house and truly there was no one at home. He offered me a drink and some sandwiches which we had together. We watched a movie together while he held me in his arms. It was romantic. The mood was being set but being a novice, I didn’t know what was going on.

“Let’s go to my room” he said eventually.

We went to his room. He kissed me and I responded. He tried to take off my uniform but I was reluctant. He got frustrated when I wasn’t bulging and he threatened to leave me there and go away. I didn’t want him to. I wasn’t ready for sex; I knew what it was. I was insecure about my body and I wasn’t ready to show it to him. I still had small breasts and hips unlike the girls who threw themselves at him.

I remembered I had once asked him why he took interest in me. He told me, “You didn’t come chasing after me like other girls did. I liked how calm and collected you were. And, you are beautiful. I fell in love the first day I saw you”

Emmanuel made the first move to make me comfortable. He took off his clothes, leaving only his boxers. “Your turn” he said to me. I slowly took off my shirt and had my slip on. I removed my skirt and sat at the edge of the bed while I took off my socks and school shoes.

“Come and lie with me here. You will love it, I promise you” he said to me.

I went to lay on the bed with him and in the next few minutes, my life took a turn for the worse. The decision to meet Emmanuel in his home alone and agreeing to lay almost naked with him on the bed was the most stupid decision I ever made.

Emmanuel and I were still good after our encounter. It seemed we were closer than ever before. He wanted us to meet in places in school to make out but I refused. I told him it would be a disaster if we got caught in the act. Instead we agreed to meet in our homes when we had the chance. He got his older friend, Gbenga, to allow us to use his place once in a while.