I EAT FRESHERS FOR BREAKFAST

At first, I told all the boys I was Asmat’s school father and they should fuck off. But it was giving incest.

So I came clean and told everyone she was my bitch.

Everyone questioned what I saw in her. She didn’t have yansh, she didn’t have breast. She didn’t borrow Brazilian wigs or wore tight clothes to sell her market. In fact, she always wore one orange hoodie that overshadowed her already black skin. But they didn’t know that those were my favourite kind of soups. The ones that looked bland on the outside but when you tasted them, it was end time for you.

When Asmat and I first kissed at the back of her lodge, she bit my lips so hard I almost bled. I told her to never take the lead again. I was the teacher and she was my student. In everything.

And the rules were simple.

“Show daddy some love.” I whispered in her ear as I slid in and out of the ocean between her legs.

And she would scream, making me pound harder.

It was all part of the thrill. You get your weapon, catch your prey and feast it. The harder the catch, the sweeter the feast.

“Be a bad girl to this bad boy. When it comes to me, drop that good girl shit at the door. It’s boring.” I always told her.

And like the obedient student she was in school, she took Bayo Girlfriend 101 very serious. The classwork and assignments were simple. Skip other classes and focus only on mine. After all, you pay to avoid carryovers in this school.

But with me, there was no carryover. You fail my test, you fail my entire course. And the clock was ticking, baby girl. The line to enter this course was very long and if you don’t satisfy me, I’ll pick the next candidate on the waiting list.

Asmat did everything to remain the only girl in my class. She performed gymnastics in bed. Got on her knees to pray to my kingdom. She cooked for me. A fresh plate every night. She cleaned my room. She read all my textbooks and completed my assignments for me. She was so smart that I told her to quit Nursing and join Computer Science.

And to my amazement, she did. She dropped Nursing to join my course. But she didn’t have the proper JAMB and WAEC subjects for it. So, she dropped school as a whole and decided to write all my coursework and exams for me.

“You don’t need the fucking certificate anyway. When I finish school, I’ll get the job and provide for the both of us. Just finish this homework and all these your sleepless nights will pay off one day.” I assured her, tapping ash from the blunt in my hand.

Even when deep down, I knew I wasn’t going to marry this girl.

The soup was beginning to taste bland. Nothing about the seasoning changed but I was beginning to lose my appetite for Asmat. She was too predictable. Too obedient. Too consistent.

I was looking for a new flavour to add to this soup. Something that sparked like a firecracker.

So I began to flirt with other girls in her presence. She said I was just being nice.

I slept in other girls’ lodges. She said I have free will.

I gave her chlamydia, she said it’s probably from the toilet she used in Block D.

She wasn’t driving me crazy anymore. I was. I was the one driving her crazy. I was the one beginning to look for new hideouts to avoid her, but she always found me. I couldn’t appear in my room without seeing her there. She was either washing my clothes, or sweeping my room, or stocking food in my fridge. A fucking nuisance.

Even our sex didn’t feel the same anymore. It was like I was fucking my mother.

I knew what she wanted.

She wanted marriage. But I couldn’t marry her. Because I knew I would hurt her.

I needed someone to challenge me. Someone to call me out on my bullshit. Someone that could handle the beast in me, rather than pamper it. This was no Beauty and the Beast. This was real life. Real monsters faced real monsters.

Man, it was too late to realize that I didn’t need my mother. I needed a militant.

Even when I gave her the cold shoulder, the silent treatment, ghosted her, fucked other girls, did everything to make her leave me, she didn’t leave. She was like that annoying pimple on your nose that didn’t want to burst. In every mirror you looked in, it was right there in your face.

And so, I broke up with her. The night before my graduation.

I was going to leave school anyways. We wouldn’t see each other again outside this school walls. By the time I step out of the gate, she would be blocked on all my accounts. I would be nowhere to be found. So I just made the job easier by ending it all on that night.

She collapsed.

She got on her knees to beg me.

She stained my carpet with hot tears and mucus.

She wrote long paragraphs while I locked her out. Some shit about how much she had sacrificed for me. About how her struggling parents would kill her for dropping out of school. About the seven abortions she did for me in the past year. Bitch, you ain’t the first girl to get abortion for me.

She slept outside my room door while I was fucking Amaka and Georgina on my bed. Their moans were louder than Asmat’s sobs outside my door.

Soon, the night went silent. And for the first time, I felt peace. Ending it all was the beginning of my freedom.

Early the next morning, I opened my room door to get ready for my graduation ceremony. Then I looked up—and fell to the ground.

The fuc—

Asmat’s body hung from the ceiling fan in the corridor, the rope biting deep into her neck, her orange hoodie brushing against my door like she was still trying to come in.

Her eyes were open.

Not curious this time.

Just empty.

And just when I thought I ended it all… she already did.

Inhaling the scent of lavender at Ebeano took me back to the memories of Asmat—like she was standing right in front of me. It didn’t smell like home anymore. But like a rotten fish that stunk up the whole house.

Now that the fish had gotten rid of itself, I could breathe fresh air again. I didn’t feel suffocated by the stench of lavender anymore. Or the choking presence of a nice girl.

Everything about Asmat had been left behind the university walls. It was the first place and the last place I saw her.

Within those walls, where her grave was buried behind the school blocks, lay her body to rest.

And she was better off there… resting in peace… than loving a monster like me.