The first time I lost my voice, it was because of the robbers. They were five, and their guns were pointed at my father. The short one among them hit my father with the butt of the gun as he asked, “Where is it? Where is it?” I didn’t speak again until I turned ten. My mother believed it was Pastor Solomon’s prayer oil that loosened my tongue, so she became a fire-cracking, staunch member of Fire the Enemies Ministry.

The second time I lost my voice, I was 13. I was waiting to board a bus in Oshodi when a random boy spanked my butt, laughed, and ran away. I stood dazed for several minutes, looking around at passersby, wondering if they saw what had just happened to me or if I was hallucinating it. All I saw were faces of fierce determination, sweaty brows, people just trying to make ends meet. The only eyes on me were desperate, hovering ones, waiting for me to slacken and turn my bag backwards. I was all alone.

“Jesu wa pelu e” is what my mother would say if she read those last words. But where is He anyway? Where was He the night my father died? An easy-going man, made to suffer in the last moments of his life, jerking uncontrollably until he was still. Who am I to tell that he stared at me as his breath seeped away slowly, ruby-gelatin liquid spreading on the terrazzo floor of our living room? His eyes stayed open as my mother yelled and yelled, before running outside half-naked to bang on the doors of the neighbors in the next house, who refused to open for fear they might be the next victims of the robbery that claimed my father’s life.

Who would understand that for years those eyes haunted me? In the dark, when I dashed into a room to pick something up. At night, when I struggled for sleep. In the face of the beggar in a wheelchair at Ketu, who looked offended when I said, “Allah bamu sa.”

My mother believed it was because I was my father’s favorite, but it was Dare who first called it what it was: trauma. He also told me it could take years to unpack what I had experienced as a five-year-old.

Dare was easy. It was easy to talk to him because when I regained my voice, it didn’t come back whole. It came back in sputters and remained so. But at least I could talk.

He wasn’t the first to wonder why I barely spoke in JAMB lesson classes, but he was the first to notice it wasn’t shyness. Like a determined seller in Eko Market, Dare followed me around during lunch break and said he wouldn’t budge until I spoke to him. His persistence was unnerving, but he was adamant. When lunch break was over, he asked Uchechi, my friend and seatmate at the lesson center, to switch seats with him. And she did. I could only stare at her, hoping my eyes would convey the betrayal I felt, but she only smiled, winked, and sidled up to Dare’s friend.

During class, Dare wrote, “Why are you such a snob?” on his notebook and tapped me with his pen. I shook my head. He scribbled again: “You are such a snob.” I angrily flipped to the last page of my notebook and wrote: “I am not a snob. I just don’t like annoying boys.” His brows creased as he hastily wrote: “If I am annoying, then you are a snob.” We went back and forth, refusing each other’s assessment, but that broke the ice.

As the boring voice of the Math tutor began to announce the end of the class, Dare stood up to use the restroom, and somehow I found myself scanning the room for him to return. He never did. At the bus stop, Uchechi teased me about my “new boyfriend,” and I retorted angrily, “I don’t have a boyf-ff-f-friend.” “Ok o,” was all she said.

The next day, I saw Dare holding court with his friends before class. They towered over him, yet he seemed larger than life as they all listened to him. His blue shirt had wet spots in the armpits, and I imagined him accidentally spattering saliva as he spoke passionately. I smiled. Uchechi nudged me in the side and looked at me suspiciously. I mouthed “What?”

He didn’t come to sit beside me that day, but he kept staring at me intermittently, and each time, my chest constricted.

What is this weird feeling? Why am I finding it hard to swallow? Why am I afraid to look straight ahead at the tutor for fear of catching Dare’s eyes on me? I blamed him for making me lose concentration and made a mental note to avoid him during break.

I bolted out of class the moment it was time for lunch. I went towards the parking lot and stood under the flame trees, shielded beside the Peugeot of the math tutor. My chest felt tight, my arms clammy, but at least I could breathe. My thoughts cleared: I didn’t hate what Dare was doing, but I didn’t know if I was permitted to like it. Why was he staring at me? What did he want others to think? Did he want his friends to see me as one of the bad girls? My thoughts began to race again. One of the flame tree’s orange-red flowers dropped, and I caught it mid-air, twirling it around my fingers.

“You keep running from me.”

I was startled. Dare was grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.

“W-wh-what is it?!” I yelled.

“You don’t have to scream. Why are you screaming?” His grin disappeared, replaced by a frown of concern.

“You k-k-eep s-ssstalking me. Ss-ss-stop stalking me!” My eyes watered as I crushed the flower in my hand and began to walk away.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t stalking you. I just want to be your friend. Honest to God,” he said, sticking his finger on his tongue and pointing at the sky.

I sniffed and walked on. He followed.

“So, can I be your friend?”

“No.”

He followed me back into class and sat next to me. I didn’t say a word. But secretly, I was pleased. We began exchanging notes again. When he asked for my 2go username, I told him I didn’t have an android phone. He offered to bring me one of his Blackberries, and I laughed at the insanity of it. But he did. I rejected it, but Uchechi took it from him and said she’d keep it for me. I stared at her in alarm, but she only shrugged. Yet on weekends, I was quick to run off to her house to chat with Dare on 2go.

Typing felt like freedom. I could express myself without worrying about my stutter. No embarrassment. The evening Dare asked me to be his girlfriend, I had just turned “Expert” on 2go from chatting with him alone. I turned him down. We were both just fifteen. He promised to keep being my friend and to eventually win me over.

Dare spoke often about the future, how he’d accompany me to classes when we gain admission to Unilorin, how his uncle had a house and car in Fate Basin and , how we’d take evening rides from the main campus to Oke Odo and back. He talked about the village behind Unilorin, Ile Apa, and how we’d go there to experience village life like his brothers once did. He even dreamed aloud about us going for our masters in the UK. I asked him, “With which money?” and he’d reply, “Are you doubting your brilliancy? You’ll get a scholarship easily.” He routinely typed out the full lyrics of Love My Baby by Wizkid and ended every conversation with 143, I love you.

When the JAMB results came out, Dare texted that he didn’t meet the cut off for accounting. I comforted him, reminding him my law degree was five years while accouting, which he considered, was only four. “Who wants to be an accountant anyway?” He joked, I teased, and life continued.

Then Dare requested to meet one weekend, a month before my resumption at Unilorin.

Uchechi and I left the house under the pretext of buying toiletries. Dare had grown taller.

“Dare! What have you been eating?” Uchechi teased. He smiled and opened his arms for a hug. I awkwardly punched his chest, and Uchechi rolled her eyes.

We found a snug corner at TFC restaurant. I gestured for Uchechi to join us, but she mumbled about three being a crowd and left for another section of the restaurant. Dare smiled.

“What should we order?” He asked me.

“Uhm, anything is f-fine.” The restaurant’s signature smell of curry, greasy meat and baking dough wafted from the kitchen.

“I’m not really hungry, but I’ll have orange juice and meat pie. I know you like scotch eggs, and theirs are really nice.”

I nodded, not wanting to stutter in front of the pretty waitress.

When she left, Dare began. He talked about how much he enjoyed our conversations, how his brothers teased him at home about me. I smiled. He mocked, “Oh, you like me being teased, abi? Well played.”

Then he asked me again to be his girlfriend. I shook my head. He asked why, but this time I had no reason. Silence stretched until he blurted,

“I’ll be leaving for America by the end of next week.”

“What?” I gasped.

He sighed. “I don’t mind rewriting JAMB next year, but my parents thinks it would be a waste of my time to wait. And you know my brother Lanre is already there, so… Me, I don’t want to go. I hate the cold, but I didn’t expect this.”

“You knew s-ssince, right?” I asked.

“Well, not really. I mean, I applied and got the admission, but you know I’m not really—”

“It is f-ffine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

After that, our conversation went flat. When we were leaving, he held my hand in the parking lot, steering me aside.

“Again, I’m asking you to be my girlfriend. When I come home during summer, I’ll visit you. We’ll text. We’ll—”

I stared at him, not knowing what to say. He looked at me painfully, then nodded.

“I get it, Kewa. But I’ll come back for you. And if you follow someone else, I’ll still find you and give you two million dollars.”

We burst into laughter at that, then headed back to Uchechi. He walked me home, despite my protests, talking freely like he wasn’t leaving.

At my gate, he stopped and bade me farewell. I wanted to hug him, but I felt awkward after turning him down. I wanted to tell him how much I liked him too. That I thought about him each night before sleep. That he helped me find my voice even if it still sputtered. That when I couldn’t say the words, I could write them. Dare showed me that.

I wanted to show him the poem I wrote about him, the one Uchechi called cringy. I wanted to tell him I loved our Harry Potter jokes. That my chest tightened with jealousy whenever he mentioned another girl. That I imagined us sitting together for hours under the flame tree, surrounded by silence. That I imagined kissing him under the mistletoe like Cho and Harry.

I wanted to tell him I’d miss him terribly, that I feared his leaving would end what might have blossomed into something beautiful, like the crimson flowers of the flame tree. I wanted to meet Dare’s eyes and tell him all I held back, but fear froze me again, the same way it had the night my father’s gaze pinned me still.

The words got stuck in my throat.

I managed an awkward bye before forcing my heavy legs to move and went inside. I had enough memories of us to last through the night.