I wish I’d told Tobechukwu, too, how often I thought about how he stepped in for me. We’d fought a lot when we were younger, but that was nothing special: I fought with almost everyone because I was slim and some suspicion of delicacy clung to me and it made boys aggressive, for whatever reason. Some people can’t see softness without wanting to hurt it. But after I came back, after growing out my hair, Tobechukwu didn’t react like other guys in the area did—calling out insults and sometimes hurling empty bottles my way so they could laugh and watch me dance to avoid the spray of broken glass. It couldn’t be because we were neighbors, because our mothers liked to have tea together. Aunty Osinachi always came, brought some biscuits, stayed for about forty-five minutes chatting, then left, but this hadn’t stopped me and Tobechukwu from fighting back when we were in secondary school.

I didn’t understand him, not until one night when he showed up at the boys’ quarters, where I was smoking out on the landing, and sat down next to me.

“I can smell that from over the fence,” he said, and held out his hand. I passed the joint to him and watched him hiss in a long, crackling breath. He handed it back to me as he exhaled, smoke spinning out of his mouth in a thin swirl.

“It’s your first time dropping by,” I noted, and Tobechukwu nodded without saying anything. We sat there in silence for a while until I turned to him.

“Why?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what exactly I meant. Why was he there? Why had he helped me that day? Why hadn’t he come before? I didn’t know which question I was asking or which one he thought I was asking. But he didn’t answer; he just turned his head and watched me pull in another smoked-up breath, watched me exhale and pass the joint back to him.

He stood up and stepped in front of me, tilting his head back as he inhaled. The moonlight fell over his throat and I could smell the old salt of his sweat. He handed it back to me and my fingers brushed against his, my head buzzing from the high. He blew the smoke down into my face gently, looking at me with a careful blankness. I realized how close he was standing to me, the proximity of his thighs under his cargo shorts, the subtle forward thrust of his hips. I smiled to myself and set the joint aside on the milk tin cover I’d been using as an ashtray. Hunger radiated the same everywhere, throbbing and loud even without words. I didn’t mind it.

Tobechukwu didn’t stop me when I reached for the waist of his shorts and unbuttoned them, leaving his belt on. In fact, he adjusted his legs a little so I could reach in and pull him out, heavy and long against my palm, soft and smooth. I looked up at him and saw him watching me with a cool curiosity, his arms hanging relaxed by his sides. He reminded me of the senior boys from when I was in boarding school, their complete assurance that it was well and right for me to provide them with pleasure, an assurance so solid that nothing they did shook up who they believed themselves to be: boys who could not be broken, boys who broke other boys and were no less for it. The difference was that Tobechukwu seemed indifferent, not threatening. If I stood and walked away, I knew he wouldn’t stop me, but I didn’t want to leave. He waited and his pulse beat along my palm. He only closed his eyes when I took him into my mouth, his hand sliding to the back of my head, fingers caressing my hair, tangling in it. So this was why: he liked how I looked, he’d come to see if he was right about me, and he was. I sank my fingers into the backs of his thighs and he tugged at my hair, groaning softly in the back of his throat as he slipped into the back of mine. He felt like a stranger. He felt perfect.

After a few minutes he pulled away, trailing saliva from my teeth. He was still soft. I watched him tuck it in and zip up, then reach for the stub of the joint and take a final hit before stubbing it out on the concrete.

“Thanks,” he said, then walked away as if nothing had happened. I stared at his back, and in one beat I was alone again in the boys’ quarters, the taste of his skin still inside my cheek, the moon above, and desire reverberating emptily in me. I laughed. I couldn’t help it—there was nothing else to do. Everything had stopped making sense a long time ago. I lay back on the concrete and let the mosquitoes eat me up in a thousand little lovebites, feeling so terribly lonely. At least, I thought, he and I were even now.

Thirteen

Osita

My mother gave up on De Chika and his family. She was convinced Vivek was possessed by something that would take them all down, and us too if we allowed it.

“I have told Kavita that she should bring the boy back for deliverance, but she doesn’t want to hear.” Her voice rang harsh with condemnation. “Leave them.”

It was hard to watch, the way she severed her love for them. When I finally decided to pay them a visit, it was easy not to tell my mother. I wasn’t sure about my decision; it was months after we were all at the village house together, and I hadn’t spoken to them since. Still, when Aunty Kavita opened their back door, she didn’t seem surprised to see me.

“Vivek’s not here,” she said, hugging me.

I kissed her cheek. “He’s not?” I’d been expecting to find him shuttered away, playing the recluse that he was in my imagination.

“He’s probably at Maja’s house, visiting Juju.” Aunty Kavita smelled like lemongrass and curry. She wiped her hands on her skirt and smiled at me. “You remember their house, right?”

“Of course,” I said. “Make sure you save me some curry, they don’t feed me at home.” Her laughter floated behind the screen door as it drifted shut.

It was the start of the dry season; the air was clear and sharp as I walked down the street to Juju’s house. Aunty Maja’s gate was unlocked, so I pushed it open and walked through the garden, up to their front door, and rang the doorbell.

Juju opened it, and I stared. She’d braided her hair, and the tails hung over her bare shoulders, brushing against the pink dress she had on—she looked nothing like the lanky, unfriendly girl I’d known growing up. I could see glimmers of her mother in her face now, hiding in the clear dark honey of her skin.

“Hey,” I said, and she stared.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just like that?” I joked. “You can’t even say hello?” We hadn’t seen each other in years. She smiled and kissed my cheek, but the smile was halfway and the kiss was perfunctory. “I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”

“Nsogbu ad?gh?.” I brushed my cheek against hers, doubling the greeting. “I’m just looking for Vivek.”

Juju’s face closed up. “Oh. Actually—”

I raised a hand to stop her from having to come up with a lie. “I just want to see him, Juju. He’s my cousin.”

She exhaled heavily and stared at me. “I have to check,” she said. “Wait here.” The door closed behind her, leaving me out on the veranda, staring at her mother’s cattail flowers. A tight knot of anxiety crept up between my shoulder blades. I’d been trying so hard to not think about why I was there, why I was trying to see Vivek. I knew the reason—of course I knew—but to admit it was more than I could handle. I had to pretend, otherwise I would turn and walk back through the hibiscus-lined path and out of that gate and drive back to Owerri and never come back. So I counted the cattails to keep me from running away. I’d reached fifteen when Juju opened the door.

“He said it’s fine,” she told me, stepping aside to allow me in.

“But you don’t agree,” I said, watching her face.

At first Juju didn’t reply, simply leading me upstairs to one of the bedrooms. At the door, though, she paused. “I don’t even know why he wants to see you after the things you said to him in the village,” she said. “But if he says it’s fine, I suppose it’s fine.”

My face heated in shame. “He told you about that?”

Juju’s stare didn’t waver. “Yeah, he did. And he’s different now, Osita, very different. So be careful. If you’re going to say something like what you said before, it’s better that you just go home now, ?n?kwa?”

“I’m not going to say anything like that, I swear. I just . . . I need to see him. I want to know if he’s okay.”

She stepped aside, still watching me, and as I turned the door handle, she put a hand on my arm. “I’m asking you. Take it easy.”

“I hear you. I’m not going to do anything.” I pushed open the door and closed it behind me, Juju hovering on the other side as the wood clicked shut into the door frame.

Vivek was standing at the window, leaning against the wall, his fingers curled softly around the iron bar of the window protector. I sucked in a quick draft of air, my heart thudding against its own membrane. My cousin had lost even more weight; his hair was down to his waist. I stared at his wrists, his slender ankles, the white caftan he was wearing. Vivek turned his head as he heard me enter, and I saw both the bruised shadows under his eyes and the soft red of a lip tint staining his mouth. He didn’t move.

“Osita,” he said, and his voice was a stream of memory, my oldest friend. Seeing him hurt my chest. He looked as if he was dying. “Juju said you would look different,” I said.

Vivek smiled. “I look worse, I know. Don’t worry, I’ve just been sick. But I’m getting better.”

“Okay,” I said. “And . . . the lipstick?” There was no point pretending I didn’t see it. He lifted a shoulder, then dropped it, indifferent. He was watching me, curious to see how I would react. “You know it makes you look—”