Chapter Two : "We see you"
The night was thick, hot, and unkind. Liliana lay on her narrow bed, the kind whose iron frame squeaked with every sigh, every turn. The power was out again, as usual. Only the soft moan of crickets filled the room, threading through the broken edges of her window net. She sat upright, reached for her notepad, and wrote a list under the faint light of her dying phone torch:
"Things I'll do before I die"
- Leave this house.
- Publish something that burns.
- Never, ever be like them."
Her handwriting was jagged, uncertain. She paused, pen hovering midair.
That was when it began again the memory. It crept in like smoke seeping under a locked door.
She hadn't thought about it in months, maybe years. The compound in Gwagwalada, the laughter of children playing ten-ten in the dust, the echo of her uncle's voice calling her name softly, friendly, harmlessly…..Until it wasn't.
It's strange how memory works; it never asked for permission, it just barges in, pulling her by the hair back into those moments she wished were buried. She could still smell the dust and stale palm wine, hear the silence that followed after she realized something was wrong after she understood that her "innocence" had been taken without her knowing what that word even meant.
She remembered not telling anyone. Not because she didn't want to, but because she didn't have the language to describe what had been done. How do you say such things to your mother, when you're barely ten and everyone worships your uncle as the family helper?
Her chest grew tight. She dropped the pen and pressed her palms into her eyes.
So much had been stolen from her, trust, comfort, and the idea that home was safe.
And then there were the confusing years after when curiosity blurred into guilt, when the neighborhood girls played games, they didn't understand. Liliana had pulled herself out, out of the touch, out of the shame, out of the thought that maybe she was ruined. Maybe that was her first rebellion to choose herself, and to stay clean, even when her mind wasn't.
A rumble from her stomach dragged her back to the present. "Hunger," she murmured with a humorless smile. It was past midnight, and Abuja had gone to sleep. She made her way to the kitchen, barefoot on cracked tiles, and found the remnants of okpa her mother had left. Cold, dry, but edible. She ate silently, sitting on the floor, the blue torchlight her only company.
"Liliana!"
Her mother's voice sliced through the darkness.
"You're still awake? What are you doing eating like a rat?"
Liliana swallowed quickly. "Couldn't sleep, Mama."
Her mother sighed that tired, sharp sigh that carried years of worry and unspoken resentment. She leaned against the doorway, wrapper tied high on her chest. "You need to stop thinking too much. Move on with your life. Derek is not the only man on this earth."
Liliana froze. "I'm not thinking about Derek."
"Eh-heh?" Her mother raised a brow. "Since when? You were the one crying two months ago like somebody's widow. You are twenty-three, my daughter. Time is not your friend. You should have said yes when he asked you to move in with him."
Liliana's jaw tightened. "To cohabit? No, Mama. I won't."
Her mother shook her head. "Nwanyi, sometimes a woman needs to be wise. Two heads are better than one. Onye buru chi ya uzo, ogbagbuo onwe ya n'oso. When you try to walk alone, you stumble."
Liliana frowned. "You're advising me to go live with a man? To become like Nnaemeka's wife the one you call Jezebel every Sunday?"
"Ehn, at least she has somebody! You graduate you have nothing. No job, no husband, no money. Tell me, what will you use that certificate for? Pele o, graduate!" Her mother smirked, the sarcasm sharp as pepper.
Liliana stood slowly. "Why are you pressuring me, Mama? I'm still finding myself."
Her mother muttered, "You'll find yourself when hunger finds you first."
Liliana walked past her, into her room, shutting the door harder than she meant to.
She sat on her bed again, phone in hand, scrolling through the chaos of the internet. Every post was a mirror she didn't want to look into. People laughing, glowing, thriving. Then a headline caught her eye: "Regina Daniels Reportedly Assaulted by Billionaire Husband."
The comments below were a battlefield
"Na she find trouble."
"She deserves it."
"Gold digger of the year."
Liliana's jaw clenched.
"Why is the man not behind bars?" she whispered. "Why is everyone so used to blaming women for surviving in a world built to choke them?"
She typed a long comment:
"Sometimes girls marry monsters not because they are greedy, but because the world taught them it's the only way to live."
Then she deleted it.
Her fingers trembled with anger. She opened her notes app instead and wrote, "If my voice can shake the room, then I'll scream."
She created the page with trembling hands.
Bio: A voice that refuses to die.
Profile picture: a shadowed silhouette against storm clouds.
Her first post read:
"A woman is not a cage to be filled with other people's expectations.
She's the wind that chooses where to blow."
After four hours, three likes.
One comment:
"This one too don chop heartbreak."
Liliana laughed dryly, tossed the phone aside. But then, before sleep claimed her, she wrote again angrier, braver.
She fell asleep mid-sentence.
When she woke, her phone was buzzing. Notifications everywhere. Comments, shares, reposts. Something had happened overnight maybe someone had shared it, maybe fate had finally looked her way. She didn't care how. She smiled, her first real smile in days.
At school the next morning, Ngozi cornered her before assembly. "Lili, I saw one page like this Stormbird, the writer sounds like you."
Liliana laughed nervously. "Really? Maybe she's, my twin."
Ngozi snorted. "Abeg, If na you, make you no use my name o. I no wan wahala with principal."
They both laughed, but the sound didn't reach Liliana's eyes.
Later that day, the principal called her in. His office which smelled of old wood and perfume. Sitting beside him was a young man tall, calm, clean. Emmanuel, his son, just back from the UK.
Introductions were polite until the door opened again. Mrs. Okeke the principal's wife entered, holding her phone like a weapon.
"I saw something online," she began, staring at Liliana. "Such nonsense people write these days. Listen to this: 'A woman is not a cage...'" She hissed. "Hungry feminist nonsense. These girls want to destroy marriages!"
She turned the phone. Liliana's words blinked back at her.
For a second, Liliana felt her stomach drop.
The principal coughed. "You see, Emmanuel, this is what I've been saying our young girls are becoming too wayward, hiding under the guise of 'independence'."
Emmanuel's eyes darted between his father and Liliana. "Dad"
"No, no, let me finish. Feminism, my foot! The woman should know her place."
Liliana's blood boiled. She wanted to speak, to scream, but Emmanuel cut in gently. "Sir, maybe the writers just expressing herself, Art and all that."
Mrs. Okeke hissed. "Expression that lacks morals is just noise."
The air was tight. Emmanuel smiled faintly at Liliana, a silent apology, as he changed the subject. The meeting ended quickly after that, but the humiliation lingered.
That night, Liliana sat in her room again, the hum of the city leaking faintly through her cracked window. She wrote furiously:
"How strange that the ones meant to teach righteousness are themselves rotting with hypocrisy. A teacher cheats on his wife, and still stands before children preaching virtue. And his wife, poor soul, follows him like a goat to the slaughter."
The door creaked.
Her brother's voice echoed in the living room. "Lili! You no go greet your brother?"
She rolled her eyes. Not again. She tiptoed throughout his stay and, stayed quiet until he left. Only then did she breathe.
Her phone vibrated. A new message.
"We see you."
She frowned. No name. No number.
A chill slithered down her spine. "We? Who is we?"
Was this fame or danger? She couldn't tell.
She tossed the phone onto her bed, exhaled, and muttered, "If it's war, they want…"