What next?

“So what now?” Maria tosses an empty coca-cola can in a waste bin accommodating rays from the street light above it.

*Earlier that day.*

Waking up in the morning had never felt so nice for Maria Ali. She pushes her bed cover aside and climbs down the bed. Picking up her phone to check for new texts and tossing it on the bed almost immediately,she scans the room for nothing in particular.

Today of all day there was no text from him, just notifications of who liked or commented on her recent IG post and tweets.

She hums and dances her way to the kitchen of her apartment. It’s a one room apartment, situated just in front of the most beautiful white duplex she has ever seen. She looks out the window when she hears a horn, hoping to see at least one of the occupants of the house but the gateman is the only human she sees as he closes the gate and disappears into the house. This time, it was a black Range Rover with tinted windows. She watches as the car goes down out the close into the road, then continues her journey to the kitchen wondering what kind of people live there.

She‘s a clown when it comes to fitness. On the sight of a bloat, she’d stand in front of the mirror and cuss at herself, swear to do a one month intensive workout but just after a few sit-ups, she goes on the net and reads one thousand and one quotes on self love, posting a few on instagram and twitter and they hit over a thousand likes in few hours. He was always the first to comment with emojis and cute remarks.

He?

He is Damian. The first eight months of their relationship were gifts with roses; constant texts and calls into the next day; date nights and sweet love making; that was in freshman year of university. As time goes on it reduced to occasional date nights and just love making, text without calls; then it just reduced completely to having sex. Sometimes, you don’t need a reason to loose interest in your patner, it just happens. It happened to them, his actions towards her changed over the years, however, he couldn’t end things with her. The media admired their cuteness together and it fetched them hundreds of followers on instagram and twitter. They -together- became each other‘s content just to fake the media out, which in turn means protecting their job as influencers. When they weren’t creating contents, they were in their separate worlds, him doing whatever and she probably running ads for brands or stalking the building in front of her. Other times, she hangs out with Arike and the other girl or take herself out for a good meal. She has the media, a boyfriend, and a couple of girlfriends but many at times, she sat at home with a face like a wet weekend.

Even though she and Damian aren’t like they used to be, she still abides by his rules. She always wanted a nose piercing and it had been one of the things he ruled out when they agreed to date. But you know what?

Today is a good day to break up and get that piercing. Damian was her first love and the feelings haven’t changed... yet, however many things have gone wrong. Not like they fight, which would have been better—fighting and making up. They just stopped having a lot to talk about. Their four years anniversary is today and there’s not even an atom of excitement.

There’s no way she’s going through yet another year for strangers to drop cute comments like “awwn” and “God when?” She‘s done keeping up with the facade for a public that has zero knowledge when it comes to matters of her private despair.

She shakes her toothbrush to remove residual water, puts it into its case and drops it in her robe pocket.

”Eggs?” She tilts her head for a few seconds, then reaches for two eggs resting peacefully in their crates on the cabinet. She reaches for a stray pan just beside the sink and turns on the gas. She resumes humming as she adds vegetable oil, she lets it heat a few seconds and breaks the eggs in it. The hissing sound hot oil makes when it comes in contact with it’s project, is Maria’s best part of frying. She flips the egg once, let it fry a little and turns off the gas. She loves plain eggs no seasoning. Placing the fried eggs in a small steel plate, she walks out of the kitchen, snatching along with her what looks like a day old bread trying to take a long nap on the kitchen cabinet.

Breakfast was great.

She downs a sachet of water and falls back to the bed. Picking up her phone, she scrolls through her contacts and dials, Arike.

”Hey mama,” came Arike’s voice from the phone. ”How are you preparing for the big four years? I’m sure everyone is waiting for—”

”Where did you get your nose piercing?”Maria interrupts her friend. “Send me the details on whatsapp.”

”Wait—”

”Asap.”

She ends the call. Arike poses as her friend but Maria knows she would be happy if she ended things with Damian. Not because she cares about her but because she just can’t wait for Maria’s relationship to hit a dead end so she could welcome her to the single club. 

Maria’s phone vibrates. A text from Arike containing the address she requested.

Going to Damian’s house with a piercing to request for a break up? Epic. She pats herself on the back for having thought of something so badass. She knew she was going to end things with Damian but half of her wished they’d somehow work out. She can always not get the piercing and walk to his house and continue the usual. But one thing she’d always yearned for was happiness and doing that won’t give it to her.

She undresses and walks across the room into the bathroom. Thanks to the fragrance of her soap, the place smells like lavender. She turns on the shower, gave mositure to her body; she frees the soap from it’s dish and romances it with her hand sponge until frothy white masses of bubbles were produced. Satisfied, she scrubs her body gently with the sponge.

Being happy and doing whatever, was an experience she lacked ever since she was a child. Her parents probably felt no need to keep her, so she was abandoned at an orphanage with barely enough to eat and you dare not complain or get spanked by Miss Muyi, the mummy that looks at someone else instead of the person she’s shouting at. It was later on she realised it was an eye default named strabismus.

One fateful day, a cheerful looking woman came to the orphanage for her and she thought, “Finally.”

She was taken to a comfortable three room apartment with quite a colorful interior. Little did she know she was there to be a maid and not a daughter. Good thing was, they managed to see her through school but she lost a good amount of fresh skin to whip marks and scars; the reason most of her clothes are long sleeved. Damian would always dress her wounds if she returns to school with fresh cuts, cursing at her foster mum in the process. She loved him even more whenever he does that and she misses that Damian. She loved and felt loved and she was grateful that year happened. She dabs her eyes to stop tears from dropping, then smiles.

To the social media, she is living her best life, Happy Maria Ali with a loving boyfriend of four years.

But to her, she had not begun to live yet, she is Unhappy Maria Ali, with nothing but sadness and loneliness. Although she experienced happiness at one time in her life which was in the first twelve months of her relationship, she wants it to be a constant feeling. She’s tired.

She turns on the shower and clean water runs down her body, taking with it, the dirt wrapped in lathers. She turns the shower off and draws her towel off its rack. Walking out into the room, she dries her skin. Her phone vibrates. She walks to the table on which it lay and looks at it.

[Damian: Meet me at ultima by 4]

She sighs, not even a happy anniversary. She had really become a tool for content.

*few hours later *

If there’s a better word to describe pain, that’s what Maria Ali is going through right now. 

Dressed in a yellow body-con long sleeved top tucked into a black boyfriend jean,a black tote hanging from her left shoulder, with a little bit of make up to give her brown skin an extra bit of color, she enters her uber.

“Ultima, Sir.” She says, “Sorry for keeping you waiting.” 

“No problem.” The driver starts the journey.

She brings out her mirror and stares at her face. Except for the redness around the nose ring and of course the pain, every other thing was how she wanted it. The look was perfect.

She looks out into the streets, at moving cars and passers-by. Different traders exhibit different goods. Some stood akimbo in front of their stores, waiting for customers, some women cluster at a corner gossiping about maybe the protest that just ended or another woman or even a man— it could be anything. She sights a guy and a girl talking to each other on the pedestrian way, hands locked. She wonders if they were in a relationship or on the road to being in one. The girl looks happy just like she looked four years ago. She diverts her attention to the school students in their worn out shorts and big pinafores kicking empty cans while they talk and laugh, the older ones in their trousers and skirts remained self conscious as they talk and laugh with their opposites. As usual the street is busy.

The uber stops.

“Thank you.” Maria Ali says and steps down. She stares at the red and white building with its large plaque that reads ultima, then walks to the door. The security guy opens and she smiles at him then walks inside. She scans the place for Damian and finds him sitting at the extreme end of the restaurant. He was dressed in a plain black top, blue jeans, black yeezy boots and a baseball cap. He looks up from his phone and she sees him; his facial features so finely structured on a light skin. She walks towards him, hips swaying from side to side.

“Hey.” He stands up and spreads his arms for a hug.

“Hey.” She walks into his embrace. He hugs her tight and for a minute, she doubted the rightness of the choice she was about to make. Maybe he still likes her, maybe if she just stayed for the main purpose of their meeting...she snaps out of the thought reminding herself that he didn’t even say “happy anniversary.” She didn’t say it either.

He lets go of her and looks at her face, then moves closer to be sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

“A nose piercing?” He frowns. “You got a nose piercing?”

“Yes Damian.” She says “and... Let’s break up.”

“Wait, what?” He looks surprised.

“Let’s end things Damian.” She fights back tears. “We both know this isn’t going anywhere, i’m getting old and i want to be happy.”

Damian looks confused. “You just woke up and decided to break up? Especially on a day like this?”

”A day like what?”

“A day like today, Maria.” He says. “C’mon. My followers and probably yours too would be anticipating our anniversary pictures and videos. You know, we can’t keep them—“

“W-what?” Maria stutters. “I asked for a break up and you’re... you’re telling me about keeping the media updated?” She says, her voice rising.

Damian looks around and waves at the attendants, a little embarrassed. “That’s all you care about? The media?!” She continues not minding her surroundings.

“Stop all these noise, Maria.” Damian yells back. “We both knew at some point it became an act from which we both benefited. Quit being childish Maria and let’s get back to business.”

“It wasn’t just an act for me, Damian...and i can’t take it anymore.” She says slowly freeing the tears from their cage. “One last thing, Damian, where did it all go wrong?”

He looks at her and for a brief second, she saw the Damian that loved her. He drops his head. “I’m sorry, Maria.”

* * *

She realizes the streets had gotten dark when the street lights come on. She had been sitting on one of the stone chairs in the university of Ibadan’s heritage park for about an hour. No call from Damian, just a couple of “where are you”, “what’s going on?” and “You guys must be having so much fun, twitter peeps are trending the hashtag #MariDam 4L” from Arike.

What was she thinking? Why did she just ask where it all went wrong three years after? Maybe he wasn’t just using her. Subconsciously, she was also controlled by the Media. She opens her phone, goes to gallery and clicks on an album named MariDam. After going through a few pictures and videos, she deletes the album and deactivates all her social media account. She dries the wetness off her eyes with the back of her palm, dips a hand into her black tote and brings out a coca-cola can. She opens it and drinks till the can was empty. Letting out a loud burp, she stands up and walks down the path.

She got her piercing like she always wanted, broke up with Damian and deleted her social media accounts. Something she never imagined she would do and on of all days, the day of her dating anniversary of four years. Well she did it because she felt that would bring the happiness she had always yearned for but why does she feel so empty?

She lets out a sigh.

“So what now?” Maria tosses an empty coca-cola can in a waste bin accommodating rays of light from the street light above it.