Kenneth

         

At what age, do you think it's appropriate for  a girl or a boy to know and feel the word ,"love". At what age did you realize what love is? 

   I am a girl and I am sixteen years old ,although I don't really look like I am sixteen years old ,to be frank although I hate to admit it, I look like a twelve year old girl or at least thirteen? I look just the way my sister looked in that picture she took at her thirteenth birthday party. Except I am not wearing a plastic pink crown or pink sparkly dress or a sash saying,now a teenager, or a little mermaid bracelet or low neon pink pumps,this morning as I am looking into the mirror. I am wearing a green shirt with an inscription , smart girl  and a black jean skirt reaching just above my knees. I seriously don't look like a sixteen year old. I am as straight as a ruler from my chest way down to my hips and thighs,and slim as my pen,maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But I am really thin and flat.  I leave the front of the mirror, draw down my skirt and sit on the toilet.

 I think I am in love ,I am not sure if it is love but yes it is surely love that I feel. What is love? A strong feeling or infatuation? Or feeling that sips slowly into you and makes you crazy at the end? Or? A feeling that leaves you brooding while you use the toilet like I am now? I don't really know ,but from watching local soap operas I know love always causes conflict. Maybe that is why mum and dad are always  at loggerheads. Since as long as I remember I have never veiwed the opposite sex as the opposite sex. My best friend and neighbor , Dennis, could have walked into the toilet right now and I would feel nothing. I am just like a twelve year old I swear. Apart from my menstrual cycle that started a year and half ago there is nothing girly about me. And I have never felt this way ever not even for Dennis ,who I have dressed up in front several times ,oh..wait not when I am naked like when I am wearing a singlet and short underneath my cloth,and I change into another cloth.

This feeling keeps growing everyday in me. I can feel it everyday, growing and growing and it is making me crazy little by little I guess the songs always blasting from my sister's room are correct.

  Ken is a little bit like me ,he is not tiny or little like me ,he is quite reedy and svelte. He came to our neighborhood last two months. I and Dennis were talking about our elder siblings and how annoying they were, which is a habit for both of us. When the moving truck rode past us ,Ken was in the trunk  sitting on the bed foam with this quirky smile on his face swinging his legs.

"How old do you think he is?" Dennis had asked. I told him what I thought, seventeen or eighteen. But we Dennis argued that he was younger than that ,weirdly we argued for over thirty minutes about how old  we thought the new boy was until his annoying older brother "dog" came to get him. We like to call him dog because his name is Douglas, what a funny weird name. Douglas bullies Dennis a lot and I know it is all because his name sounds lamer than Dennis. Dennis and Ken started hanging out pretty soon and Dennis hung out less with me. I would be drawing on the lawn sitting barefoot on the grass, while Dennis and Ken rode through and fro over a hundred times past me without waving, and so I hated Ken for stealing my friend and I also kept my distance from Dennis at school  even when he wasn't with Ken who was a class ahead of us. I was cross with him and I wanted him to know it but he never seemed to care anyway. Dennis is a little bit pudgy. How I came to love Ken or feel this way is a little bit horror ,strange and weird,it is not the typical love story in Precious love on TV.  It was on a Monday, about a month and some weeks ago. It was a normal day at first, I woke up ,brushed my teeth, had my bath wriggled into my uniform dress. And left for school,when I got to school I found Dennis walking into school alone without Ken which was strange. But I never said anything anyway. After school I went home alone while my sister Bridget stayed back for WAEC lessons. I got bored since I was the only one at home so I took a nap, but then I heard a knock accompanied with loud whispers of my name,it was Dennis. When I reached to open the door ,I thought he had finally come to  beg for my forgiveness ,but nope he didn't. He rather told me he was worried about Ken. He had been knocking at their door and no one had answered him. He asked me to follow him so we could go in through the window and check if anything was wrong like his gut was telling him. Though I was angry I shrugged and followed him ,barefoot it was a short distance, there are only three houses in Ebuka close, my house,Dennis's and Ken's. When we got to the house I knocked five times loudly but there was no response, so I turned the door knob and the door gave way to the most horrid sight I had ever seen, Ken's dad and mum atop each other  soaked with blood,the vast pool of blood around them dried and dark ,we found Ken at the far end with a knife in his stomach sitting and breathing slowly. We rushed to Dennis's house and told their maid what we had seen who called Dennis's parents and mine. By six that evening ,Ken was carried out of the house along with his parents in body sacks. How Ken survived till that hour and after that was a miracle, it was a typical Harry Potter scenario in a kind of way. Ken told us the murder had been committed the night before at twelve Am by masked men. Sadly ,the so-called police officers who came the next day told us finding the murderers would be difficult as most evidence must have been destroyed already, but they would keep working on it. They said this and left without attempting to collect any evidence or do anything just like that. It was at that moment I realized what Dad meant when he said  everything in Nigeria is unorganized. 

  Everyday we visited Ken at the hospital, until he healed. With every visit my heart melted for him , I always cried uncontrollably which earned me scolding from  my parents. I deserved it anyway, but I couldn't just control myself.But I always went with Bridget everyday after school, the hospital was just next two buildings away. And when Ken got discharged my parents took him in. I peered at him when he slept or when he was just sitting in the guest room. I tried to always talk to him, although he never really talks to anybody. He is devastated and it hurts me so much. And recently these days when he looks at me, my heart tumbles over. I like to wash his clothes and smell them too. They don't smell too good but still it delights me. I like to cook him noodles when we come back from school and watch him eat it ,even though he doesn't talk to me. I like to smile at him but he doesn't frequently smile back. When  he smiled back at me yesterday for the second time. I smiled for the rest of the day even in my sleep. Is this love ? Or do I just feel sympathetic towards him? No I do not , after watching Yolanda and Marcus kiss yesterday when watching precious love I dreamt of us kissing too. It would be thrilling to get my first kiss from him. But he just lost his parents last month, I do not think he would be thinking about kisses right now.But it would be so sad if he leaves without us kissing. Yes! He is leaving ,I cried my brains out when mum and dad told him at dinner that his aunt was coming to get him in two weeks, which is tomorrow. I am going crazy ,I don't want him to leave. I will miss him so much. Why did I ever hate him because of Dennis, why did I never speak to him,all this while. Oh..Ken. I love him. Yes, I do. He is my first love. A damaged devastated orphan is my first love. What should I do so he could stay? No. There is no way out ,by this time tomorrow, I am just going to cry till I can cry no more after saying good bye to Ken.

Someone is knocking. "Who is there?" I ask. 

"It's me Kenneth".

I stand up abruptly and flush. Maybe just maybe he is coming to confess his feelings to me I think ,as I drag my skirt downwards.

" come in" , I say .

Ken walks in like a zombie to the toilet loosens his belt ,turns around and looks at me in a `will you excuse me way`. I smile at him like a doofus  and walk out. 

That was weird.

But then he calls me back, and I turn around.

"I  will miss you" he says with a smile and my heart tumbles over. 

"Me too" I say and smile back.

I have never felt so better.