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*A  NEW  DAY*
When the class representative announced at 2:10pm to the 2nd year students of Economics that their next lecture (Acc 214) would hold at 4pm,there were murmuring from all sides of the class. “Not again!”, someone shouted from behind. “That woman has no chill at all”,a girl said to her seatmate. “Does she not have a family?”,another asked. “I heard she is having issues with her husband,and that is why she tries to do anything that will keep her away from home till night“,her neighbor interjected. These and many more,were protests and angry comments flying around the class,yet no one dared to move or make any effort to leave the class. Mrs Ulondu was known for her strict adherence to the school rule of “75% attendance for a student to be allowed to sit for an exam”,and her students knew better than to cross her by missing her classes.
In all these,Ginika said nothing.For her,she might as well be dead;she had long reached her point of saturation for the day that she felt too tired and hungry,frustrated even to mutter a word of protest. It was a Thursday and this had been the reoccurrence since Wednesday of the previous week,so she was already tired of complaining.
When finally the long lecture ended at 6:03pm,there were countless sighs of relief from every side of the class. Barely managing to keep her eyes open long enough to get to her lodge,Ginika had her bath and was about to hit her bed when she thought of Kingsley.A wide smile spread like butter across her face.She glanced at her wall clock and realized it was already 6:40pm. “I’m really not going to get any rest this evening until I do this”,she admitted to herself. So she took her phone,switched on her data connection to check her WhatsApp messages and there of course was a message from him,sent about twenty minutes earlier. ‘Hi luv ,how you doing?’ She was elated to realize that he was still online. ‘Hey! I’m fine and you?’,she quickly replied. ‘I’m fine too,hope your day went fine?’ Obviously it didn’t,but the thought of and a message from him had wiped away everything so she replied,‘ Yes it did,what about yours?’ ‘It was interesting and stressful;parade,rest,parade,rest and more parade.’,he said. It was his third  day in the NYSC camp at Plateau State and he was trying to cope with the cold weather there,unlike the ‘hot Enugu sun’ he was used to. Ginika and Kingsley chatted for a long time,each trying not to be the one to end the conversation. After about two hours of saying almost everything and nothing,Kingsley finally said ,’I’ll have to leave you so you’ll have some time for yourself and I’ll get to tidy some stuffs too. I’ll call you by 9pm tomorrow.Have a goodnight rest and I love you’,and he sent a kissing emoji 😘.
Ginika wasn’t sure what to reply as she wasn’t the lovey dovey type, and although she was pleasantly surprised,she simply typed “ok. Thanks and goodnight to you too.” It was after she dropped her phone beaming with all shades of smile that she remembered she hasn’t eaten anything else that day,except a plate of rice and a bottle of soft drink that she had taken in school at 12pm while waiting for her third lecture for the day. The hunger became so vicious that she couldn’t even think of beginning to cook anything,so she merely boiled hot water to drink tea with,alongside the leftover bread from the one she bought the previous evening. Then she went on to sleep with the smile still splattered over her face.
She slept until 7am the next morning because her first lecture for the day was to begin at 10am. Just as she was rounding up her personal morning devotion,her phone beeped to signal a new message. One curious peep at the phone revealed that the sender was Kingsley. She hurried through the rest of the prayer impatiently and clicked open the message. The contents read: ‘Hey dear,good morning. I trust you had a good night cause I did. I hope you have a wonderful day. Do take care of yourself for me. Love you. Bye.’ With butterflies rioting in her stomach and her heart beating at an overspeeding rate, Ginika read the message over and over again until she could almost recite it by heart. When she confirmed that she hadn’t missed a word, she went about her regular chores. By the time she was in the shower,she was humming ‘A New Day’ by Celine Dione very loudly unlike her usual reserved self. She stopped herself just in time to ponder: What exactly was it that was making her feel this way about this guy? That she couldn’t answer. She never took her online friends as anything more than they really are;’online’ friends who were there to help reduce stress and create fun,but Kingsley was proving to be different. She had stumbled upon his Instagram page about three months before, while searching for profiles to follow. The first picture that hit her face was that of a tall,dark young man whose smile looked so genuine they could be infectious and dimples so deep she could almost touch them.Before she could even think about it,she had already liked about twenty out of the thirty-two pictures that were in his profile. By evening of that day when she had almost forgotten about the incident,she got some Instagram notifications showing that ‘Mr Handsome’ who later introduced himself as Kingsley had just followed her back,as well liked all the twenty-seven pictures on her profile. The knowledge brought a smile to her face,but her heart skipped more than a beat when she realized that he had ‘slid into her DM(direct message)’ with a ‘Hi’. She waited for about two minutes to reply him in order not to seem ‘too eager.’ From there they introduced themselves and became chat buddies. He told her he was a graduate of Psychology from University of Illorin,waiting to be posting for National Youth Service nad Ginika told him about herself too. She got so carried away by his charming nature,that she couldn’t say No when he asked for her WhatsApp contact about three weeks later.
He had once told her that he wanted to be able to set her heart racing at the mere thought of his name,and whether or not he knew it,he was doing a good job at keeping his promise. She may still be a lot uncertain as to what to make out of this whole ‘thing’ whatever it is, but she was sure of two things...no three. She hadn’t felt like this in almost forever,her gut feeling was telling her that Kingsley would be sticking around for a long time. And she had a phone call to look forward to...

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