her conclusion, and Tade is deep in thought. Bunmi walks away. I have done the right thing…right? I have bought Tade more time to think things through. I want to volunteer to clean up, but I know I should keep my distance.
* * *
—
Mohammed denies the charges vehemently, but he is fired anyway. I can see the decision does not sit well with Tade, but the evidence, or lack of evidence, is not in Mohammed’s favor. It worries me that Tade does not mention the broken ring to me. In fact, he has not sought me out at all.
“Hey,” I say a few days later, standing in the doorway of his office.
“What’s up?” He does not look at me, but continues writing in his file.
“I…I just wanted to check that everything is alright with you.”
“Yeah, everything is cool.”
“I didn’t want to ask in front of the others…but I hope the ring wasn’t stolen…”
He stops writing and puts his pen down. He looks at me for the first time. “Actually, Korede, it was.”
I’m about to feign shock and commiserate, when he continues.
“But what is funny is that the two bottles of diazepam in the cabinet weren’t. The drugs were all over the place, but the ring was the only thing that was actually taken. Curious behavior, for a drug addict.”
He holds my gaze. I refuse to blink or look away. I can feel my eyeballs drying out. “Very curious,” I manage.
We stare at each other for a while longer, then he sighs and rubs his face. “Okay,” he says, almost to himself. “Okay. Is there anything else?”
“No…no. Not at all.”
That night I drop the diamond into the third mainland bridge lagoon.
PHONE
I have found that the best way to take your mind off something is to binge-watch TV shows. The hours pass by and I lie on my bed, stuffing my mouth with groundnuts and staring at my laptop screen. I lean forward and type in the address to Femi’s blog, but my efforts are met with a 404. His blog has been taken down. He no longer exists for the online world; he can no longer exist for me. He is beyond my reach now in death, as he would have been in life.
My phone vibrates and I consider ignoring it, but I reach forward and drag it toward me.
It’s Ayoola.
My heart skips a beat.
“Hello?”
“Korede.”
#2: PETER
“Korede, he’s dead.”
“What?”
“He’s…”
“What the hell? What are you saying? He’s…you…you…”
She burst into tears.
“Please. Please. Help me.”
THEATER
This is the first time I will be entering Tade’s home. I imagined this moment in several different ways, but never like this. I bang on the door and then I bang again, not caring who hears or sees as long as the door is opened in time.
I hear the click of the door and step back. Tade stands there, sweat rolling off his face and neck, in spite of the blast of air conditioning that hits me. I push past him and look around. I see his living room, his kitchen, stairs. I don’t see Ayoola.
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs,” he whispers. I run up the stairs, calling out to Ayoola, but she does not reply. She can’t be dead. She can’t be. Life without her…And if she is gone, it is my fault for saying more than I should have. I knew that this could only ever be the case—to save him, I’ve sacrificed her.
“Turn left,” he says from close behind me. I open the door. My hand is shaking. I am in his bedroom—the king-sized bed takes up a third of the room, and on the other side of it I hear a low moan.
For a moment I am too scared to react. She is slumped on the floor, much the same way that Femi was, pressing her hand to her side. I can see the blood spilling through her fingers, but the knife—her knife—is still in her. She looks at me and gives me a weak smile.
“The irony,” she says. I rush to her side.
“She…she…tried to kill me.”
I ignore him and use the scissors in my first aid kit to cut off the bottom half of my shirt, after the bandages prove too paltry to do the job. I wanted to call an ambulance, but I couldn’t risk Tade talking to anyone till I got to her.
“I didn’t take out the knife,” she tells me.
“Good girl.”
I use my jacket as a pillow and help her lie down. She moans again and it feels as though someone were squeezing my