Oxygen 4

Was I trying to prove a point? 

That tonight things would immediately change, that after tonight I was officially done with Maduka? Was that it?

Read Part Three Here

Was that why I sang out loud with the DJ, stood in front of the crowd, and sang my heart out? Was I just trying to cope and distract myself from the sharp ache in my chest?

I don't know whatever the reason was, but maybe drinking a full can of alcohol helped a little in freeing me up.

Because I was free, I was happy.

Dancing with women I'd never seen before, it felt really nice to remember I was bisexual and before Maduka I was only ever attracted to women. I hated the way it slowly started feeling like I had turned straight along the lines without knowing when. I hated how besides Maduka it felt like women meant nothing to me because the women I got with meant nothing to him. So tonight gave me joy.

I felt like me again, attracted to women and only them, exchanging digits with the women who leaned in when my hands touched the sides of their thighs when we danced, who added slower grinds against me as they stared deep into my eyes.

 A homophobic society like Nigeria meant you had to search for the little signs instead. No one walked around and said, "Hey, I'm gay, are you too?" There were no bios with a rainbow to signify in person, so you learn to listen to the hints even when tipsy. You learn to trust the motions.

You learn not to assume because a wrong assumption in Nigeria was a risk on its own.

It felt nice jumping around and receiving twerks from equally drunk women who felt more secure and safer grinding against a female stranger than against a male, to be trusted like that and to be deserving of that, because I didn't linger when they became tired, I didn't follow them around feeling entitled to their number just after a dance, I let them go. It felt nice. 

I was having fun. I forgot I existed. I no longer felt heavy. I was genuinely happy.

So maybe that's why I did it.

I just wanted to spread happiness really, and Maduka didn't look happy. He was sitting in the VIP room, crouched over his phone, when I'd come to grab Staniel's bag for his ATM card to buy a meal because I could feel my high decline and I knew if I didn't get food in I'd wake up the next day feeling absolutely wrecked.

I wanted to spread happiness. I honestly wasn't looking to hop on the closest guy and kiss him or do anything. Tonight I was strictly focusing on the ladies so, I just wanted to make him dance too, so I tapped him.

He ignored me. Which just meant he was really unhappy, right?

So I shook him and yelled, 'cause the music was still really loud even in the room, "Don't be such a sour puss! Come dance!"

And he turned.

He wasn't Maduka, and I didn't even have the time to wonder why I even imagined him there before there was an immediate rush of realization that overcame every thought. For the first time ever, ever entirely, I felt the opposite of what I felt with Maduka, with anyone ever really.

I think that's what made me first feel and know it wasn't Maduka before my eyes even adjusted to his face. I felt my heart rate calm down.

His face for some reason seemed to give me peace. There was none of that rush of blood straight to the head, none of that sweaty palms, none of that throat dryness, time did not freeze, there was no pounding of the chest, no all-consuming adrenaline, no paralyzing gut feeling, and I began to realize maybe those feelings weren't even good—they weren't the right feelings to feel.

The intoxicating high of love.

The heaviness I associated with Maduka, maybe it was just... anxiety?

The void I felt he closed up, what if it was a void he actually activated?

This stranger didn't fill a void; he reminded me it didn't have to be there in the first place.

But, when our eyes met, I felt weird.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to dance right now," he spoke with a gentle smile, and I realized he was polite. His voice was gentle and slow. I wondered why I romanticized Maduka's brashness, his rudeness, his cockiness when there was always an alternate possibility.

I discovered gentleness could exist.

"Oh, I'm sorry too!" I apologized for shaking him like that but I was still drunk, so I tripped, and luckily for me, I didn't fall on him Bollywood-style, there was no slow motion, no staring into his eyes, I was lucky enough to hold onto the couch he was on but I still took a whiff of his perfume by accident—bending over him like that I really had no choice, and so, once again, I had another of these weird discoveries.

His perfume had no effect on me. There was no thumping in my chest, or maybe because I'd had no association to the smell. It smelt like nothing really, but yet at the same time was obviously perfume, if I could put a name on what the perfume smelt like I'd say the word green, it smelt like 'green'. Maybe because there was no association, but I liked how there was nothing. No effect.

It felt weird. 

Maduka's distinct scent was one of the reasons we even started talking, it'd had an immediate effect on me so effective I—someone who was then certain she was only attracted to the same sex and had never said anything nice to the male gender of my species—went out of my way and complimented how he smelt so good even while sweating from all the football training he was doing, then the next day, I saw him waiting for me in front of my classroom where he handed me a new bottle of his perfume in exchange for my phone number, we started talking because the smell of his perfume began a thumping in my chest. 

That's why I liked how the smell of the stranger's perfume didn't activate anything in me, I liked that there was nothing. 

His hair wasn’t even locked, so how could I have mistaken his full, thick afro for Maduka’s dreadlocks.  

"You're drunk," he said with a tired sigh, but I could see he tried to smile weakly, and I wondered if he was also a people pleaser like I was. I remembered how heavy his voice sounded when he spoke, but here he was, trying to smile. Even his smile felt polite, like he was trying to meet me halfway even though I could tell he wasn't fully here.

But still, I couldn't help but wonder why I didn't immediately uplift his mood, why his eyes didn't light up at the sight of my face like Maduka's did when we first met. I wondered where the slight smirk was. I wondered why he wasn't immediately falling for me too. I wondered where the "You're the most beautiful girl I've seen all night" was, I wondered why things weren't playing out how I imagined something like this would've played out. 

But the more I stared into his eyes, I found myself happy, happy that everything I expected was not here.

It felt calm and not rushed, not forced. It was nothing.

I realized I liked nothing.

"No, I'm not drunk, I'm Estella, duh!" I giggled after, and he giggled with me. I liked that he could have a positive reaction to me. I was glad that I'd at least spread some happiness.

"Well, Estella, I'm Osita. I'm sorry you had to shake me back to Earth. It's just been one of those days where everything goes wrong..." he said and then stood up, waved at the position he'd been sitting in, and once again, I wondered. 

I wondered why he didn't touch me, why he didn't direct my movements with his hands, why he wasn't quick to feel my skin. But I also liked that he wasn't. It was weird how much I liked the unfamiliarity he brought.

I also liked that he offered his seat to me and explained why he'd ignored me—even though he didn't have to—in such an automatic, bare-minimum way, like I was automatically deserving of his politeness. Like it cost him nothing either to communicate or to care.

It felt weird, so I sat down, then stared at his screen. It was open on a WhatsApp chat, please don't let her out of your sight was the last thing he'd sent and the only thing I allowed myself to read, because I looked away too automatically, because he was deserving of his own privacy, and it cost me nothing to not invade it.

"You mean nights?" I corrected with a weak smile. A pathetic attempt to get him to giggle again. 

"Yeah, it's been one of those nights." He did not giggle. 

"Tell me about it," I huffed, as memories from earlier tonight with Maduka flooded in.

Across the room, I spotted Staniel’s bag with the ATM card poking out. For some reason, it made me giggle. I guess I was still tipsy enough to find small things funny even though I could feel myself quickly sobering up. 

“Do you school here?” Osita asked after a long stretch of silence, he glanced at me before tucking his phone into his pocket.

“Yeah. Second-year Architecture,” I said then immediately wondered if he’d think I was too young. Maduka always commented on our age difference, reminding me every chance he could that I was just a kid. 

He nodded. “Third-year Mechanical Engineering.”

“Mec Eng? It's a five year course so that means we'd graduate together.” I smiled then realized the gravity of my words, of my tone and began to panic. 

Maybe that was too much, too definitive.

Graduate Together. 

Together.

I worried it would scare him off, it would turn him immediately off and his cloak of kindness would fall and reveal someone who truly wanted nothing to do with me. 

But it didn't. 

Instead, he smiled back and said “Amen.”

Which was weird. 

We talked all night while I fully sobered up. He was good company. There was no pressure to be anything but two strangers talking. No urge to jump on him. No declarations of how beautiful I was. Just… us. Two strangers who had two more years to go in the same university. 

The loud music, the neon lights, the warm fading buzz of alcohol in my veins—everything felt so chaotic outside the room, yet there with Osita, there was an unexpected stillness. 

There was a weird grounding force in the room that made me wonder if pure oxygen actually just felt like the simple inhalation and exhalation act of breathing, instead of the destructive inflation and deflation cycle I was so used to. 

Did pure Oxygen itself just feel like finally breathing good air? 

When Staniel eventually walked in with fried rice and Panadol, he complained about how when I hadn’t returned with his ATM card on time, he'd ended up using Tolu’s instead because he was worried I'd just crashed on the floor in the room. 

I glanced at Osita’s face when Staniel drew out Tolu's name like he was drawing air hearts around the letters. 

As queer people in Nigeria, you learn to analyze reactions. Gauge how homophobic someone might be before revealing anything. To my surprise, Osita didn’t react to Staniel’s tone when he said Tolu’s name. 

No homophobic ears perked up.

I liked that.

Staniel liked that he didn’t walk in on me kissing some random guy and the three of us complained about university while I fought the urge to sleep. 

When I could no longer fight it, I decided to eat then I popped the Panadol into my mouth, so I could have a fair chance of fighting the inevitable hangover I'd wake up with. 

And the last thing I remembered before dozing off was Osita and Staniel laughing about something which I found weird. 

Read Part Five Here