On the 22nd of April 2021, the police arrived at 5 Carlton Avenue. There had been a noise complaint, a woman screaming, and a neighbour who had seen her hanging from a broken glass balcony by the hem of her dress. There were glass shards all over the floor and her body had been badly bruised.
When they arrived, they found the owner of the house waiting with an army of lawyers. A young man sat on the stairs shaking, blood on his arms and t-shirt with a tear-streaked face. Next to him was another young man with bloodshot eyes and a cut on his face. A woman had died in what seemed to be a pretty violent death. There were two young men in the room who looked guilty and an army of lawyers ready to defend them. You can imagine who the first suspects were.
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Lesedi
Ade was not a relationship person, he never had been. It was a thing he had inherited from his father, he went in and out of situations “as quickly and efficiently as possible” (his words not mine) and he saw nothing wrong with it. Ade was not a bad man, he really wasn’t, he was just a good person who had been hurt way too many times and now he didn’t know how to love anymore.
Ade was a trust fund kid, which is to be expected because only rich people would give their child such a pretentious name. He spoke about it with pride and honor. The kind that only African men can possess. Ade wore his name like it was his brand. Everyone called him the king, and when white girls at clubs and parties would ask him, “Baby what does your name mean?” He would smirk at them and say “It means king baby, royalty.” He never let me forget it. It was Ade’s mantra: ‘you’re messing with the king’.
His mother and father had divorced early on in his life and his mother had left him to go live with a Greek model, while he stayed with his father. Ade’s father was a flawed billionaire who thought that spoiling Ade would help raise him. I used to tell Ade that he wasn’t a bad person, he just needed therapy to deal with his daddy issues. Then again, I had been friends with him from childhood. I would always make excuses for him.
The day he met Ayo, I was there. It was a normal day on campus, Ade and I were in a hurry to get to a class we were late for. Ade ran into a girl who came out of nowhere and spilled some coffee on her portfolio bag. “Shit, we’re so sorry” I said to the girl. Ade took out a cloth to try and help her wipe her bag.
She looked up and smiled, “It’s all good, this is waterproof.” she moved past us and told us to watch where we were going next time. Ade watched her walk away and I rolled my eyes. “Forget about it man, she is way out of your league. That’s Ayo Abiola, star art student.” I could tell he wasn’t convinced.
Ayo was an art major, I had seen her plenty of times around campus. I liked Ayo, she was one of the nicest people in my year. She was a really good girl, and I mean that in your “girl next door”, helps blind people cross the street, kind of way. She was part of the SRC, organized fundraisers and did plenty of community service, she even worked part-time at the campus cafe. She was extremely confident, and relatively popular. She’d gotten into varsity on a full paid scholarship that she had won at an art contest when she was fourteen years old. From this you can tell she was extremely talented, and her art was really good for someone who seemed so boring. I digress, this was a girl who had a lot going for her, meeting Ade was probably the worst thing that could have ever happened to her.
Ayo was incredibly beautiful. She had that effortless runway-model beauty, that striking Naomi-esque beauty that stunned everyone. I wasn’t surprised that Ade now found this girl fascinating, I had too at some point. In true Ade fashion, he approached her and ‘sincerely’ apologized for spilling coffee on her portfolio bag.
Innocent smiles and giggles were exchanged, and I could tell after that she was hooked. Their conversation was effortless, it flowed easily between them and their personalities just seemed to bounce off of each other. I couldn’t help but laugh and wonder “How does Ade do that? How is it that he draws people in so easily? What is it about him?”
I mean I already knew the answer, it was his casual demeanor: the way he looks at you like you’re liquid gold, his touch feels like soft velvet, and the softness of his voice. Ade always knew what he was talking about, and when he didn’t he was willing to learn. He listened, actually listened and with him it was like you mattered. He made you feel like you mattered to him; your words, your feelings, your presence. Ade had a way of making you feel important. He had done that for me too when I first met him; when we were kids at eight years old. Ayo Abiola had never stood a chance against his charm.
Hours later, after classes ended, I watched them leave campus together. As usual when Ade got a new hobby, he left me at campus and took my car. How would he tell a girl that his car had been taken away because his dad got tired of paying bail for his drunk driving.
Nevertheless I remember feeling intense jealousy and hatred for her, that girl who had never done anything to me. I remember hating her because she got to hold his hands, she got to be near him and talk to him and hear him say “You’re fucking with the king baby”. I would never get that, I would never get to experience that with him, I hated that she did.
I absolutely love it 🥺