Serendipity [BoyxBoy]

Chapter Two

Ada felt defeated and it wasn't an emotion she was used to feeling.

She was the kind of person who was usually in control of every situation. Who knew how to solve problems faster than they came up. Ada was a 'natural born leader' and 'the glue that holds the group together'-her secondary school teachers said so. It was in the remarks section of every single report card she'd ever had. So feeling defeated-- admitting that there was something she couldn't fix-- tore her up on the inside.

Ada hated the way her failure weighed down on her shoulders, too heavy to carry, too important to cast off. She hated how, in the midst of it all, grief swam and drowned and resurfaced again to drown her with it.

She hated it but she couldn't let any of it show. She was way out of her depth but no one had to know that. She had to look like she had her shit together because it was her job to keep everyone together. It was her job to keep MJ sane, it was her job to keep Jameelah from breaking and she'd do it even if it meant tearing herself apart.

She didn't think it was a bad thing at all; breaking herself into little pieces to make everyone else whole. She loved them, so she'd do this for them. They just had to get through this together and she simply hadn't found a way yet. MJ and Jamee weren't her. They didn't know how to contain their emotions. They were kind of kids who felt everything in torrents and wore their hearts on their sleeves. When they were happy, they were bursting with joy and when they were sad, they were drowning.

Ada could contain herself. She balanced them out.
And she would fix this even if she was hurting herself.

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By the time Nosa got home from school, he was absolutely exhausted and a lovely headache was blossoming in the space between his eyebrows. Even after an entire day of classes, he'd never come home feeling like this but Irekanmi had succeeded in giving him a fever in the span of an hour. Then again, he could always tune out his teachers and fall asleep in class. Tuning out Irekanmi was as possible as ignoring dogs barking in harmony to the tune of his least favorite song. Irekan chattered excitedly about anything and everything; the labs were amazing, the school had beautiful greenery, he'd heard the school's football team had won numerous competitions. Nosa had tried to keep up with it, for the sake of not giving Father Boniface any more reason to punish him. And it had worked, surprisingly. For some strange reason, Irekanmi had told Father Boniface that he'd had 'the most luxurious tour' of his life and that Nosa was very good company. Nosa's tired brain couldn't even dwell on the fact that he'd never heard anyone use the word 'luxurious' in conversation.

"Nosa's home!" Ehi screamed the second he walked into the house, tackling his legs.

He shrug off his backpack and lifted her up on his shoulders. She promptly began to rub her sticky fingers on his face, pulling at his cheeks like he was a baby and needed to be pinched. He would have been disgusted were this not routine.

Ehinome was four and a half years old, with a head full of curly hair, a set of teeth riddled with spaces and a penchant for making noise and being a general nuisance. Both his sisters had inherited their Dad's darker skin which had led to many situations of explanations to strangers that he was definitely being a legitimate child of his parents (and many situations of Egho assuring him he was adopted) but they did share the same pointed nose (from their Mum), the same nose she was now pulling. Ehi was the loudest, happiest child he'd ever met and, when she wasn't frustrating him, she looked at him like he was the best big brother in the world.

Nosa liked the feeling that came with that.

"What's it this time, Capri-Sun?" He asked, referring to whatever substance covered her hands.