The Turbulence?? (#1 in the Our Side of The Dice series)

Gifty
Lagos, Nigeria

It's liberating and astonishing to realize that a day would come in the history of my teenage years where I would get to live for some months or even a year without my parents being around. My mother especially. No tribute to delinquency or sinister reasons, but having to live your life as a teenager without waking up so early in the morning to do depleting home chores or being restricted from so many things and activities is simply fantastic.

It would have been amazing if my mom and my step-dad were on good terms before they left, but it was beyond them not being around. It was about being at peace with each other. If they weren't, then the freedom I have would be meaningless, and the bliss that is supposed to be felt from being free will be neutralized, and I will not be happy.

The thought of their welfare will be meddling in between my peace of mind, and for an over-thinker like me, that isn't very comforting.

But I know my mom and my step-father love each other very much, and I know they won't be able to do without each other for so long. All I pray for is that they settle their dispute on time and get back together. Watching my mum cry on that day was disheartening. The feud must have been severe because my mum barely cries.

It was terrifying, but I hope that nothing catastrophic comes out of the friction between them. I can't imagine my life without the presence of my step-father. Losing my birth father was so tough for my younger brother and me.

Nevertheless, our step-father's presence in our lives has been a huge blessing. It was God showing that he loved and would never forsake us. Our step-father showered us with so much love as though we were his children. Zion, of course, wasn't very peaceful with him at first, but he became comfortable as time passed by, seeing that our step-father had good intentions.

I know that mum cherishes us. And she's aware of how much we love our step-father, and we wouldn't want to lose such a good father figure in our lives for the second time.

With that, I lay my worries to rest, believing that it will be fine. Heaving a long, breathy sigh, I start to prepare myself for today's activities. I pick my Molitor Stradivarius violin up from my side table and place it gently into my gig bag.

I am fully dressed and prepared to leave the house. After saying a prayer to God, letting him know how much I was hurting on the inside, I ask him to make my day a lot less draining emotionally for me since I was always overwhelmed.

After slinging my gig bag over my shoulder, I head out of my room, locking the door swiftly. With the image of my brother's impassive face coming to my mind, I decide to check on him and see what he is up to before leaving.

On getting to his room in which the door is widely opened, I find my dear, dear brother covered beneath the blue sheets, snoring like a man who'd spent all night digging coal at a mine.

So this cold, collected, and mute boy can be this noisy?

Deciding to be a daring big sister and a concerned advocate for a revival of silence from the model of stillness itself, I walk towards his bed and slap him harshly against his flat posterior. Calmly, he wakes up from bed, but when our eyes meet, he's anything but calm. With a glare simultaneously as deadly as a thunderbolt and a monsoon, he turns towards me.

"Why are you still in bed at this time, Zion? Were you playing video games all night?! Do you know what the time says?!"

Calmly, he gets off his bed and, for a good minute, relinquishes in the bliss of unstretched muscles, then he fixes his fierce gaze back at me. "I don't understand why you all of a sudden had to make my waking up in the morning your business. Also, I don't understand why you had to hit me like that."