“I’m not hungry, Amma.”

“No, you have to eat something. Let me heat up the akamu.” She went into the kitchen and Vivek sat down, both of our fathers eyeing him.

“You look better like that,” De Chika said. “With it tied back.”

I laughed a little. “Ah-ahn, Dede, it’s just hair.” Vivek smiled but we both cleared our faces when my father lowered his newspaper to glare at us.

De Chika turned to me. “How is Nsukka?”

“It’s going well. School is all right. “

“Your mother says you have a girlfriend there. You know, your father was your age when he got married.”

“Don’t mind that boy.” My father’s voice was derisive behind the pages of newsprint. “Play, play, play, that’s the only thing he knows. No real responsibility.”

“You have a girlfriend?” That was Vivek.

“It’s not serious,” I said.

“Your mother says it’s serious,” said De Chika.

“Chika, you and my wife gossip like old women.” My father shook his head. “Shouldn’t she be having those conversations with your wife?”

“Kavita doesn’t find these topics interesting. I do. If you don’t want to take an interest in your son’s life, that’s your own business.” De Chika grinned at my father; he always took a particular pleasure in irritating his senior brother. My father rolled his eyes and returned to his newspaper, but I knew he was still listening.

Aunty Kavita came back into the room with a plate of akara. “Eat this, the akamu is warming.” Vivek accepted the plate and started tearing the akara into little pieces, occasionally putting one into his mouth. His mother beamed at him and went back to the kitchen.

“So, is it serious?” Vivek asked.

I was starting to get annoyed. “It’s none of your business,” I said.

“You know I’ll be your best man at the wedding. I think it’s my business.”

“That’s a good point,” De Chika said.

I could tell he was happy to see Vivek talking. I didn’t want to ruin it. “I’m just getting to know her,” I said. “That’s all.”

It was all a lie. There was no girl in Nsukka. I’d made her up on a call with my mother once, and her happiness was too great for me to deflate it with the truth. Instead, I pretended to be private about it so I could avoid the questions. It allowed her imagination to construct the perfect daughter-in-law, and I didn’t have to talk about anything else; she could carry the whole conversation just based on that alone.

“What’s her name?” asked Vivek.

“Jesus Christ, Vivek. Mind your own business!”

My mother shouted at me from the kitchen. “Osita! Did you just take the Lord’s name in vain?!”

Vivek winked at me and I felt a surge of anger pierce through. “Sorry, Ma!” I called out, then I stood up. “I’m going out,” I said.

“Your cousin is visiting and you’re going out?” My father gave me one of his looks and I stared right back at him.

Vivek laughed. “It’s fine, Dede. Let him go. I’m irritating him.”

“Irri-what? My friend, if you don’t sit back down!”

Aunty Kavita walked into the room and gave Vivek a bowl of akamu with a spoon suspended in it. “Actually, Ekene, do you mind if I send Osita to run some errands for me? Mary and I want to do some cooking later in the day.”

My father glowered but allowed it, and I left the house with a shopping list and a chest full of relief.

At dinner, Vivek was subdued, eating his rice in small bites with his head bent. NEPA took light shortly after we ate, so I lit a kerosene lamp and went to my room to read a book. An hour later, Vivek came in, closing the door softly and kneeling beside the bed to light a mosquito coil. I kept my eyes on the page as the match rasped into fire, through the breath he released to extinguish it. The lamp made my book glow a dull orange that spread faintly to the walls. The rest of the room was halfway in shadows, swallowing Vivek in grayness as he pulled off his shirt and folded it, then took off his jeans and hung them in the wardrobe. I kept reading as he sprawled on the bed in his boxers and stared at the ceiling. Eventually his breathing settled. I put down the book and climbed into bed, leaning over to blow out the lamp. The room fell into black.

I listened to the crickets outside and the hum of our neighbor’s generator. My eyes adjusted slowly, and I could see how the moonlight was coloring the inside of my room.

“So why did you lie?” asked Vivek, his voice close to my ear.

“About what?”

“The girl in Nsukka. There’s no girl in Nsukka.”

I scoffed. “Who told you?”

“Nobody had to tell me anything. You’re a very bad liar.”

I turned my head to look at him and his eyes were bright in the dark. “Mind your business, bhai.”

His teeth gleamed in his smile. “The part I don’t understand is why you’re lying to them in the first place. You know your mother won’t let it go until she’s planning your wedding to this imaginary girl.”

I looked back at the ceiling. “She’s not imaginary,” I said. I was already building her up. Her name would be Amaka. She’d be a nurse, or maybe a teacher.

“When you’re hiding something,” he said, “don’t cover it up with something weak, something that can be blown away easily. You need to protect your secrets better.”

I propped myself up on my elbows. “Bros, I’m seriously tired of hearing this nonsense. What secrets?”

“Maybe it’s not a woman you’re seeing in Nsukka,” he said. “One of my friends at boarding school used to lie like you. He even had one of his classmates’ sisters pretend to be his girlfriend.” Vivek turned his head to me. “Do you have a backup girlfriend?”

I stared at him through the gray light.

“That’s fine if you don’t,” he continued. “I’m just saying you need a better story.”

“Wait.” I felt as if my head was stuffed with surprise. “If it’s not a woman, who else would I be seeing in Nsukka?”

Vivek looked at me, and there was a pause before I realized what he meant. I sat up, furious. “Are you mad? What’s wrong with you?!”

I saw alarm flit through his eyes; he hadn’t expected this anger from me.

“Ah, no vex,” he said, sitting up and reaching for my arm.

I pulled away and jumped off the bed. “Don’t touch me. You think I’m like your friends? Or like you? Is that why you decided to start looking like a woman, ehn? Because you’ve been knacking men? Biko, I’m not like you—forget that one, now-now!” I slapped the palms of my hands against each other, as if dusting off the contagion of his thoughts.

Vivek looked up at me, his back hunched and his legs lean and straight on the bedsheets. His hair had come loose from the bun and it spilled down his shoulders. “So you think I look like a woman?”

My chest was thudding. “What?”

“Is that why you avoided me all day? Because I resemble woman to you?” He laughed and pushed his hair back, off his chest. “You dey see breast?”

I shook my head. My stomach was knotted and painful. “You are really not okay. They should actually be praying for you.”

“All of this because I said maybe you have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend? It’s not that serious.”

“You think that’s normal? You think you sef, that you’re normal? None of this is normal, Vivek! What kind of people have you been around?”

“Why are you so afraid? Because something is different from what you know?” My cousin folded his arms and leaned his back against the headboard of the bed. “I’m disappointed, bhai. I didn’t think you’d be one of these closed-minded people. Leave that for your mother.”

“Fuck you,” I said, and grabbed my pillow off the bed.

He laughed again. “Oh, you’re going to sleep in the parlor? Let your mumsy find you there in the morning, then you can tell her why you didn’t sleep in your room. Or I can tell her for you if you like.”

I wanted to hit him. I felt like we were thirteen again, the way he was worming his way under my skin and making me want to itch it off. “I’m not one of those,” I told him.

“One of what?” Vivek put up his hands. “Actually, never mind. I don’t even care. I’m going to sleep. Do what you like.” He lay back down, turning away from me.

I stood in the dark, holding my pillow and slowly feeling like an idiot. Finally I threw it back on the bed and lay down with my back to him. What a bastard. I lay there with the anger simmering in me for a long time before I fell asleep.

At some point in the night, NEPA came back and the ceiling fan whirred on. I stirred and woke up. I was lying on my back with an arm thrown out; Vivek was scattered beside me, his leg touching mine and his hair drowning my arm, the silver chain and pendant gleaming against his collarbone. I could almost see the lines that marked Ganesh. Vivek sighed and his eyes opened into slits.

“Sorry, bhai,” he whispered, and drifted back to sleep. There was a tendril of hair lying on his cheek that I wanted to move aside, but I was too afraid to touch him. I lay still and looked at the ceiling until sleep collected me again.

Eight