Beneath Chapter 10(II)
- Secrets destroy things. I felt that this chapter.
I love her. I'm not going anywhere." A pause. "Have you ever been in love?"
"Get a grip. You'll see my sister when you get it together. Until then she's off limits."
They don’t have a clue by Tega Ethan
Keside
The bonfire night had us singing at the top of our voices.
Old school Nigerian songs, every single one. Me and Neato rapping 5 & 6, singing the classics, the kind of songs that live in the body before they live in the memory. Then we moved to amapiano, which isn't really about singing at all but about dancing — the South African songs carrying through the chilly Ogun State air while the Chinese lanterns hung above us like ten thousand ballerinas standing on one foot. Surreal. For a second I forgot where we were. For a second it could have been Disney Sea.
Then the Osabades arrived.
Nana and Kainene screamed at a volume that had nothing to do with dignity. They rushed to get signed copies — I had ordered a special edition for Kai separately, apart from the one she already had, because I had done that quietly and was not going to explain why. The three of them went so deep into conversation that they screamed all over again when they spotted Valerie and Emerald arriving with Kam and Chukwudera. Diadem came with his wife, the two of them inseparable. But you could see Wale watching him from across the fire. Must be a particular kind of torture — watching the man who tried to steal your girlfriend, multiple times, move through a space so casually.
We all fell into conversation. Lola took a drink from the table and spent most of the next ten minutes narrowing her eyes at Diadem with a specific and sustained animosity.
"Please forgive him," I told her, chuckling. "It's a book. They're cool now."
"Well," she said. "I am not."
Fair enough.
It was time to write our names on the Chinese lanterns. Cheesy. Completely cheesy. I loved it and I was not going to show that to a single person. I stood beside Kai and performed mild indifference while we took turns with the marker, and when our fingers brushed I felt it run from my hand all the way up my arm without permission.
I didn't miss the way Kai held her own hand afterward, as though she had been briefly electrocuted.
We held each other's stare.
I let her eyes move across me while mine took their time with her. She had on a teal short-sleeve top, the back cut square with a bow at the finish. A high-slit white pencil wrap skirt. Teal pointed heels. The skirt was married to her curves in the specific way of clothing that has found its reason for existing. Her top made her look twice as full as usual — Kainene is a curvy, busty woman. Her hair was a makeshift fringe, a few bangs set carefully in front, the rest bouncy and wavy behind. She was checking something on her custom-built tab — white, aesthetic, assembled by the Wokoma clan — ticking off items with the hyper-focused energy she got when she was working. Her deep turquoise ring sat perfectly beside a diamond-detailed silver band. Her nails were painted deep wine.
She was a smoke show. Absolutely stunning. She had the sass to go with every single inch of it.
I let myself imagine, briefly, everything I wanted to do with that in due time. Then I put it away. If I was going to touch her it had to be real. I couldn't force myself into something just because the wanting was loud.
Speaking of which.
Sophie.
The photograph they'd found. The questions that had been sitting in me since Neato showed me the screen. Why had she stayed away? She could have told me. We'd had a bond that felt like frequency — I could sense her even from a distance, something I had never been able to explain and had never tried to. Something about those photographs was not adding up. Her eyes looked vacant. Sophie had been full of life, completely full of it, and those eyes were not her eyes. Not exactly.
If it was her — what did that mean for Kainene? Where did Kai stand in all of this?
I thought about my father. I hadn't seen much of him since that day. I could predict exactly what he was doing: sitting alone with his pride, turning it over, refusing to put it down. His pride was going to be the fall of him. I was going to take his company. He had started watching me more carefully, and the PR team had been in a full war with the media all week. Let them both work. I had other things.
I moved over to where Kainene was standing.
Found her staring at me. Hungry about it.
I gave her a slow smirk and gestured at myself.
*It's alright, I get it.*
---
Kainene
Keside looked mouthwatering.
Green cargo pants, black t-shirt, a basketball jacket covered in brooch elements that should not have worked as well as they did. I took my eyes all the way down and brought them back up. He looked devastating. I got the overwhelming, inconvenient feeling that my list was going to give me serious trouble.
When I finally looked up at his face, he swallowed.
We made our lantern together — wrote our names, snapped the padlock shut like we were on a bridge in Korea.
Then, from across the fire, Neato and Somebi.
Their voices were slightly higher than usual. The specific register of two people who have stopped managing themselves.
"I am like my father, Somebi." Neato's voice was tight and deliberate. "I am going to hurt you. I am going to go to another woman's arms and leave you sitting by a window waiting for someone who is having the time of his life. I don't want to watch you wither away into a version of yourself that waited for me."
Somebi crossed her arms. Uncrossed them.
"When love comes you stay." Her voice was quiet and controlled in the way of something about to break. "You always blame yourself for it and run away because running is easier than facing yourself. Let yourself be loved, Neto." She looked at him. "Whatever this is — I'm done with your attitude. Fix up, or don't come near me. I mean it this time."
She walked out.
She had a point.
Somkele and I followed her to the tent. We rubbed soothing circles while she cried, really cried, the kind that has been waiting for permission. She kept asking how she was supposed to unlove him.
Outside the tent, Neato's voice.
"Let me in. I just want to see her. Tell her I don't know what I'm doing. One minute I need her like air. The next I'm already anticipating the moment she leaves me."
Then shuffling. Ugo's voice, low and final. Then the sound of fabric grabbed by a fist.
"Leave her alone."
"I love her. I'm not going anywhere." A pause. "Have you ever been in love?"
"Get a grip. You'll see my sister when you get it together. Until then she's off limits."
The first hit landed.
Neato hit Ugo.
Ugo hit back.
Somkele was on her feet screaming. Keside and Williamson went out and separated them. Ugo spat blood from his mouth. Somebi cried harder into my shoulder while the sunrise began arriving slowly, the moon stepping back the way it does when it has decided the night has had enough.
---
The Next Morning
The next morning had everyone on their toes.
Tolu Faramde was covering an exclusive for the Da Silva & Al-Buzair magazine. Interviews were done alongside Keside, Nana, Tiara and others. The F8 Thirty Under Thirty list dropped on Instagram. Somkele and Somebi's follower counts doubled before noon.
Then the photographs.
We wore the same gown — white, flowing, ethereal. The fabric trailed behind us in long ivory pools. The corseted bodice was sculpted with sheer panels and crystal embroidery that caught every shift of light. Thin straps, bare collarbones, the fitted waist dissolving into soft cascading fabric. Long chiffon drapes hung from our arms and floated with every movement, giving the effect of something descended rather than arrived. Hair slicked into flawless buns. We looked less like women standing in a room and more like a vision someone had worked very hard to make permanent.
Ugo and my dad wore white suits without ties.
Everyone gave tight smiles.
Kamara's absence sat in the room like a chair with nobody in it.
Mum kept calling her. My mum had the same gown. The plan had been to slot Kamara's individual shot into the group portrait afterward. She broke down on the call. She couldn't come back, she said. The stares were killing her. She wasn't ready to face Mrs. Umeh. She apologised for breaking what had existed between her mother and Mrs. Umeh and the apology came out in pieces, not all at once.
Dad came close to telling us to pack it in and reschedule for when Kamara was ready. Somebi's eyes were bloodshot even under the makeup, her colour gone. By the time we finished everyone was spent.
I took one with the Umehs. Mrs. Umeh broke down and couldn't come out. Mr. Umeh gave the camera a tight smile that did not reach anywhere near his eyes.
Krystal wore a gown like ours. She looked stunning — standing beside Neato who held onto her like something he was not going to be talked out of, while still wearing her sneakers. That had been her deal with her father and she had not renegotiated it. Chimarobi stared at her without speaking.
Keside kept looking at the space where his mother would have stood. Then he said something under his breath, shook his head, and walked off after a few shots.
It was a disaster. A beautiful, painful, expensive disaster.
The Pedros took theirs. Lola appeared in a red cape dress that outlined ash-coloured doe eyes and an oval face with a beauty mark at the corner of her lips. Bob braids layered courtesy of my mum's shop. She barely allowed her father to speak — she looked like she might be sick when he did — but she wrapped herself around her mother and the joy on her mother's face was something else entirely. Priceless. Worth the whole complicated morning.
Mr. Al-Zubair lost his composure briefly when Nana wore her hair down. He gave her grief about it. Nana stood her ground and Mrs Al-zubair waltzed around like a Disney princess who had already decided.
The Da Silvas. Tiara, who could have been a statue. Williamson and Alma together, followed by Ruby. The Leo Akpan-Archibong family — three brothers, plus Doreen, who received the F8 Honours Award alongside Jidekene. Her brothers wouldn't stop giving her grief but their family portrait had Barbie and Ken energy. Doreen was, without question, stunning.
The Daa-George family. Dr. Tadinma Anozie, Adora, Marobi, and Adaeze — who was staring with considerable intensity at Charles Archibong and not being quiet about it with her eyes.
The Utonwas. Jidekene. Morenike joined them — apparently they were newly together, which I was still turning over in my head.
The Faramdes were last. Tolu jumped into frame looking every kind of devastating — his curly fringe framing a face that I will describe as beautiful because it was, and accuracy matters more than anything else.
The general shot. Videos. Press releases. Social media content. By the time it was done I was so exhausted I could not wait to be out of the dress.
Keside came to help me with the zip.
The most unexpected thing happened.
Shivers ran down my spine. My feet nearly gave out. When he came close and said, low against my ear, *I'm done* — I was completely done. The places where his hands had tingled . I found myself tracing the spot without thinking about it. Both of us watching each other from the mirror like two people who had run out of pretending to have somewhere else to look.
We packed up.
Keside stood talking to the Osabades by the door. They asked that we visit one more place before they left. We said yes.
---
Barbie as Narrator
Secrets destroy things. I felt that this chapter.
I felt for Kamara. I felt for Mr. and Mrs. Umeh and Mr. and Mrs. Wokoma standing in that photograph with tight smiles and the weight of everything unspoken arranged around them like furniture.
Keside couldn't bear it. I understand that. A man standing in the space where his mother should have been and choosing to walk away before it takes him apart in public — that is not weakness. That is the only dignified option left.
Congratulations to every single F8 Thirty Under Thirty. You all deserved it.
Krystal in that gown with her sneakers. She gave not one inch and I respect it completely.
The fight. Ugo spitting blood at sunrise while Somebi cried into Kainene's shoulder asking how she was supposed to unlove someone. That is a whole book inside this book and I need it.
Neato standing outside the tent saying *I need her like air* — sir. Sir. Fix up.
Nneoma and Wale making their appearance. This is how you write an entrance. This is the standard.
Charles Archibong, I see where your eyes kept going. So does everyone else. Sort yourself out.
Marobi staring at Krystal speechless in that gown. I'm adding it to the board.
🖤🍿
Again cover reveal is upon us , I find myself more tensed than usual but sub-stack would a special place to me thank you for being with me for allowing me articulate my words properly with Again .
Love you all 🧡