A Story Of Deceit

Episode 24

I wanted to hang up immediately because Ngozi was still there, I didn’t want to start discussing personal issues with Dayo in front of her, therefore, I hung up and almost immediately, Ngozi left the kitchen. ‘ooooh, nawa sef’, I complained, why didn’t she just go before?’, I complained. Just then, Dayo called again, I still wanted to hang up, but, I just couldn’t, for some reason, I just wanted to hear what he had to say. “Dayo, what do you want?’, I asked, ‘Uwanah, just calm down first, let’s talk’, ‘why should I calm down?, wait first, how did you even get my number?’, I asked, ‘Uwanah, I was so desperate to talk to you, so, I stole it from David’s phone, I’m yet to tell him anyway’, he said, ‘ehen?, okay, now, you have my number, what do you want to talk to me about?’, ‘Uwa, can we see?’, he tried to say in a convincing tone. I won’t deny the fact that I wanted to see him with the foolish excuse of lashing out on him but I still had a dignity to protect, even if I had to forgive Dayo, he’d have to work for it, besides, someone had to remind him of his deeds to Yemisi. ‘You don’t need to see me and have you called Yemisi?’, Dayo said nothing for a while, ‘so, you no fit talk again, rat don chop your mouth’, I mocked, ‘uhm, Uwa, forget about Yemisi’, he blatantly said, ‘Eh, you’re wicked, Dayo, I should forget about the mother of your baby, Dayo, you’re heartless’, I insulted, ‘how many times would I say that I’m not the father of that child?’, he said, ‘how many times would you say what to who?, so wait sha, if you had impregnated me, you would have said, you’re not the father shey?’, I asked, ‘Uwa, you’re different’, he said, ‘Dayo, something is wrong with your head, everytime, you say I’m different, but you keep on doing the same thing after you’ve gotten what you want’, I yelled. ‘Uwanah, infact, I’ll just go straight to the point, I swear, I don’t want to ruin your life, I’m not telling lies when I say I still love you and you might think I’m lying but this time, I don’t care how long it takes for you to believe me, I won’t give up’, he informed. I won’t lie that those words got to me and the fact that it did made me angry at myself, ‘Dayo, I don’t have anything to say to you, all I know is that you should better call Yemisi to know how she’s doing, you better call her’, I said and hung up immediately.

I was distraught about everything, at times like that, I would ask David for advice, that was exactly what I planned to do. Though, I wanted to believe everything Dayo said but, I still hated him very much and I knew that telling David about him, collecting my number would make David very angry at him. I decided to not to tell David about Mr. Martins, for all I knew, it may just be a coincidence that, Mr. Martins was also Bassey, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions just yet.

Later that day after work, David told me, he would call Stella on our way home since he made a promise to me, that he would, so, I decided to wait till after the phone call before telling him of Dayo’s deed. I concluded that the phone call would not take more than five minutes, but it took a stretch of almost twenty minutes. David’s call card got exhausted and she called him back, immediately. David’s countenance was filled with uncertainty when he first dialled her phone number but it altered when they spoke for the first two minutes, I didn’t know what Stella told him that made him laugh that way. From the Martins’ residence to where we’d get a bus, there were still talking. I wouldn’t say, I was jealous but, Dayo got so engrossed in the conversation that he forgot to hold my hand when we had to cross the road. Not that, I couldn’t cross the road on my own, it’s just that, I was used to the normal way of stretching out my hand to him, hence, I felt bad. I was glad when I noticed the call was coming to an end till I heard, ‘uhm, okay, lemme call you when I get home’, David assured her. It just didn’t make sense that David spoke to her that long, I didn’t care to ask him what they were talking about anyway, it wasn’t my business afterall. ‘Yes, you said, you had something to tell me’, he said with a satisfied smile after the long phone call. I smiled and said, ‘it’s nothing jahre’, I lied, I was no longer in the mood to gist him about Dayo, I felt, it was unnecessary. The rest of the night was annoying, David bought airtime and called her immediately we got home, he even ignored my call for dinner. I got angry, there were saying meaningless things, I began to wonder if David was a flirt and I was imagining things that he liked me, maybe, he was just very caring after all.

Stella’s father had not yet returned, I was getting worked up each day about the issue, I couldn’t wait for his return. Even if, he did return, I had no idea on how to present the issue to him. I was discomfited. Stella suddenly become nice to me the next day, I found it strange at first but, I remembered her phone conversation with David. I didn’t refuse her kind gestures like, telling me to forget about tidying up her room and offering me cookies. I knew she wanted me to be an emergency friend in order to make me speak good things about her to David but there was no way, someone like Stella would ever be my friend.
Dayo was blowing up my phone with several calls and text messages, he even texted me the address of his house to visit him whenever I pleased. The text messages kept on coming in from Dayo over a week until this happened.
One night when we returned from work, I went to take my bath, when I returned to the room, I found Dayo with my phone, he dropped it after I came in, I picked up my phone and asked him what he was checking, he denied operating the phone, ‘I don’t even know your password ‘, he said angrily, ‘okay, fine, I’m not accusing you but I just wanted to know why you were with my phone’, I said politely, ‘nothing’, he said abruptly and headed towards the door. I called out for him severally but he refused to respond. I didn’t know if he saw Dayo’s messages on my phone, but on second thought, my password was personal, I had never told him the password to unlock my phone, neither did he tell me his password. ‘He didn’t see it, but, why is he angry na?’, I asked myself, I couldn’t get a definite answer, I decided to wait till he returned which was several hours later. He ignored all my questions and slept off and so did his new behaviour continue.

It wasn’t until days after that I had began to suspect that maybe David read my messages on my phone from Dayo, when he started telling me of the numerous girls that visited Dayo, how Dayo drank to stupor and how he didn’t have a job, ‘I thought, he is your friend?’, I asked David, ‘he’s not my friend anymore, I just have to tell you that he’s not someone, you should mingle with’, he said, I nearly asked him if he went through my messages but for fear of annoying him and for the possibility that I may be wrong, I held back. ‘Okay, no problem’, I said. ‘Uwa, seriously, just forget about Dayo, I’ll forget about him too, he is not my friend anymore, okay?’, he said, ‘oh, okay’, I answered trying to bring up a smile, I found David’s attitude very weird. I lay on the bed to sleep, while David watched T. V, I had almost slept, when, David’s ringtone awoke me, I thought, he’d pick up, but, he didn’t, the phone rang five times, he still refused to pick it up, it was disturbing my sleep, at the sixth ring, I yelled, ‘David, pick up your phone’. ‘No, Uwa, it’s Stella’, he said, I thought my ears heard something else, this was the same person, he had been talking to all week, now he refused to pick her calls, ‘Hmmm, are you quarrelling with her?’, I asked, ‘no, why would I be?, I’m tired of answering her joor, she’s taking my friendliness for something else’, he said, ‘why won’t she take it for something else, when you go dey shine teeth anytime she call?’, I mocked in my mind. ‘Okay, please put the phone in silent, if you won’t pick, it’s disturbing me’, I said, ‘Okay, no problem’, he replied. ‘Thank you’, I said, ‘anything for you dear’, he replied.

I noticed, I had stopped receiving any texts from Dayo after that day David took my phone and David had stopped going to visit Dayo, I called Dayo one of the days because, I was a bit worried but he didn’t pick up, I reasoned that what David said about him was true.
Knowing Dayo’s behaviour in Boma, I decided not to call him, besides, he hadn’t called Yemisi as I asked him to, if he did, Yemisi would have called me to tell me about it. ‘Heartless boy’, I said. For a minute, I paused to think of the coincidence that followed Dayo not calling after David held my phone that night, ‘he must have known my password’, I said in my thoughts. I decided to find out. ‘David’, I called, ‘yes’, he answered, ‘tell me your phone password na please’, I pleaded, ‘ah, ah, you don’t know?’, it’s your number na’, he said, ‘my number, you mean, my phone number?’, I asked, ‘yes, your phone number’, he replied, ‘any problem?’, he asked, ‘no, no problem’, I said. My guess was right, he knew my password, my password was my phone number and it was his password too, which meant, he had read all the messages.

I felt there was need to confront him about invading my phone’s privacy. ‘That night, why did you lie, that you didn’t operate my phone?’, I asked furiously, ‘what are you talking about Uwanah?’, he asked looking puzzled, ‘Please don’t pretend, you know my password is my phone number, since you use it too, I know you’ve read all the messages from Dayo, you should have spoken to me about it, instead of getting angry?’, I said. ‘Wait, Uwanah, your phone number is your password? and which Dayo has been sending texts?’, David asked angrily. ‘ see, I know you read the messages from Dayo, so, let’s talk about it’, ‘Wait, talk about what?, so after telling him, I have feelings for you, he still texted you?’, David got up and angrily said, ‘na me and that idiot today’, he said and left the house at almost 9:30pm. ‘wait, he just said feelings, so this guy has confessed?’, I thought, ‘and maybe, this guy doesn’t know ooo, I just revealed thr secret by myself’, I said aloud. I was worried about his whereabouts and I knew he’d get into a fight with Dayo, I just managed to make David discover the messages from Dayo that he didn’t know about. I knew how David got whenever he was angry. He’d get back eventually and we would talk about the “feelings”, he mentioned earlier but I didn’t know if David would take no for an answer.