THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

At age 13, I rebelled against my mother for the first time, but behind her back. I stopped doing the sign of the cross every 5 seconds, after two girls in my class made fun of me for it.

At age 15, I talked back. Actually, I fought back. I fought back the two girls who had been bullying me for two years. Even though we were all punished for it by our form teacher, I felt good. Releasing the anger inside of me felt good. And that was the moment I began to realize that my mother was... not always right.

At age 16, I made a male friend who was the son of the senior girls hostel’s matron. He was nice. And ugly.

At age 17, I had my first kiss on graduation day with the matron’s son. It was nice. I wanted more. But I knew the more wasn’t going to come from him.

And so, everything changed when I finally entered university. I attended a public university in Enugu, my first ever experience of being in a crowd with boys. For some weird reason, I was relieved to be far away from my mother in Abuja.

I was finally... free.

At age 18, I tore my mother’s list. I lost my virginity. I got nose piercing and tongue piercing. I wore waist beads and leg chains and felt sexy in them, without feeling judged. I didn’t smoke, but I drank.

At age 18 too, I had my first boyfriend. His name was Femi. He attended another university in Enugu. I got a tattoo of my Yoruba boyfriend’s name on my inner laps so that whenever he wants to eat my destiny out or have sex with me, he would admire it.

I never went back home during the holidays. I often lied to my mother that school was keeping me busy and she always believed me, her perfectly innocent, sweet, religious and hardworking daughter. Well, my grades and church attendance showed the opposite.

I often travelled to Lagos with Femi or my friends and booked a cheap hotel room for the first week. If we were not able to pay the bills, we ran away.

There was so much freedom in being mischievous. Nobody could tell us what to do. We were in control and I had never felt more alive than this. I finally felt like the real Chioma Obiakaeze. The one God created me to be, not the one my mother created me to be.

At age 19, I learnt that the slang Yoruba Demon was not a slang but facts. I experienced my first heartbreak. No, he wasn’t a Yoruba demon because he broke my heart. It was because I found out he had 27 other girlfriends and I was not one of them.

At age 20, I tried to love again. It worked out for a while because he was a good guy. But I got bored. I wanted a bad guy like Femi in a loyal boy’s body. But that seemed... quite impossible.

After going through my second heartbreak with this good guy, which was less painful, I started dating multiple men at the same time. Not that I got into a committed relationship with them. I just tried testing the waters before diving into it. But before the water could reach my ankle, there was always something off about each man that made me take my legs out of the water and never turn back.

Plus, I didn’t want another blood in my hands.

I killed Femi the last time we had sex while we dated. I never got to tell him it was over, I just did it with my actions.

We were cuddled up after my final taste of heaven in hell’s body. I stared at him sleeping very peacefully and I couldn’t help but wonder why he deserved to be at peace after all the evil he did to me. And his 27 other girlfriends.

And so, I put a pillow over his face and held on to it until he stopped shaking. That was how he died. After three days, it was declared all over the news that he died from asthma attack because he forgot his inhaler in his trouser pockets. Case closed.

Nobody saw me and him together that day because we had snuck into the boys’ hostel when his school was closed for holiday. And so, everybody assumed he had been hiding in the hostel from his 27 girlfriends who also recently found out they were not the only girl in his life. How he got away with this? I don’t know.

I didn’t feel guilty for killing him. I thought I did the right thing because that was the only way I could release my anger. Heartbreak was a demon. It was a spiritual force that drove you wild.

All my life I’ve been told how to dress. I’ve been told how to compete with other girls in being the perfect wife. I’ve been told what manners to have. I’ve been told not to speak up and just suppress my anger. But never was I told how to control my anger. Never was I told what kind of men to avoid. They just let me off the streets as a sheep to the wolves. And now, this sheep has become a wolf too.

At age 21, I learnt that true romantic love is a myth and only for the brave. Because this heart don tire finish.