Four

Toyin clenched her fists as she walked back to the class. She walked into the class under the curious eyes of some of her classmates. Toyin sat on her chair and placed her head on her table.

“Are you okay?” Rebecca asked.

Toyin nodded as she wrapped her hands around herself for some self-comfort. That was all she needed.

Toyin opened her locker to pick her Chemistry notebook as the teacher walked into the class and a look of surprise flashed through her face as her eyes went to Femi’s seat situated at the last row in the class. His head was placed on the locker and seeing that he had not raised his head after the teacher entered, he must have probably slept off.

A complicated look crossed Toyin’s face seeing the novel neatly placed in her locker. In the past, Femi never returned her novels. Her novels would definitely have amounted to a small shelf if Femi had kept them. Toyin was sure he must have burnt them. Countless times that Femi had seized her things and this was the first time he was returning it.

Seeing the novel carefully placed back in her locker came as a huge surprise to her. She dared to think that someone had asked him to return it back to her but she knew Femi and her classmates too well. Not that no one dared to stand up to him during but in the matters of her and Femi; nobody even Rebecca sometimes didn’t interfere or even intervene. They just watched or laughed while some just looked on with indifference.

It was one of the things that had made Toyin distance herself and stay away from her classmates. As much as she would beg to pardon, deep down they were all horrible people without emotions.

How could they watch Femi harass her every day without doing or saying anything? They even encouraged him by laughing and jeering at her. She didn’t think she hated Femi as much as she hated her hypocritical classmates.

As she sat down for the next class, Toyin leaned her head softly against the wall beside her. Letting her mind wander on its own and freely, it soon became blank and still wandered back to the particular person she had been trying to take her mind off.

She would never be able to take her mind off him even if she wanted to, not that she ever wanted to though. No matter what happened or what he did, she couldn’t stop loving him, she couldn’t stop liking him. He was almost her lifeline but unfortunately, he would never know, she would never tell him. They were secrets she was going to carry to her grave. They were secrets that were buried in the deepest parts of her heart never to be spoken out or even to anyone.

She couldn’t tell anyone these secrets. She was too scared to. Not even Rebecca. Absolutely no one. No one was close enough to see the signs besides; She didn’t dare to.