Chapter 52: 52

Amina

Ivan shut the car door when I got into the passenger side on the front. He joined me in the car and started the engine.

"Okay, now we can continue the conversation we were having. We are on our way to school." I reminded him.

"Where was I?" He asked me and u blinked twice as I tried to remember his last few words from our discussion earlier.

"You were saying something about how you don't normally compliment people and when you do, it's because they have somehow managed to charm you beyond your wits." I summarized and saw a smile creep up the edge of his lips.

"So, explain to me, are you saying that I don't have what it takes to 'charm you beyond your wits'?" I asked him and made sure to place emphasis on the specific words he had used.

"No." His answer was simple.

"What are you saying then?"

"If I am going to compliment a woman as beautiful as yourself, I'm not just going to say: 'you look pretty', or say: 'the dress looks good on you', why? Because I know that you have probably being told that and thus making it too basic, too plain for someone I'm attracted to to want to compliment."

"So what would you say then?" I swallowed and asked him, eager to hear him go on. I hope there's traffic so that we can be slower to school.

"Let start with your lips, how full yet small they are, that shade of chocolate on the upper part and then the lower lip with a touch crimson. You have beautiful lips, Jewel." He paused his words for a while and I took a moment to let his words dilute into my eardrums."You have beautiful, alluring lips, it naturally just gives whoever looks at it a hint of temptation."

He slowed the car down when we got a red light and he used the opportunity to look at me. His eyes met mine the moment he turned them away from the road to my face. I looked away but when I looked back at him, I saw a soft smile on his face while he stared at my lips.

"You are doing that thing again, Ivan." I told him because I was beginning to feel goosebumps all over me with the way he was looking at me.

The lights turned green and he started to drive again."What thing?" He asked like he didn't know what I was talking about.

I was surely not going to bring up the day he talked about my lips like that in my room. That day, I thought I felt weak in the knees because he was so close but it was happening again and he wasn't even close.

"Your skin is so soft..." He went on."I can feel just by holding your arm and i wonder what it would be like to..." He stopped talking and chuckled before throwing a glance at me."The clothes you wear are lucky as fuck, you know. They get to be so close to you most of the time."

"Would it be crazy if I were to choose to be one of your clothes in my next life? But I won't. You know why? Clothes get old and you can throw them away so in my next life, I would just come back as me again, maybe be a Nigerian, maybe be your Nigerian next-door neighbor so that I don't have to kidnap you in that life too just to meet you." He laughed.

"..." I wanted to talk but I didn't have words.

"It's crazy to think that I hadn't kidnapped you, I probably would have never met you. I would probably still have my reiterative lifestyle of just work and home but now I get to drive you to school some days and spend the whole day with you some other days even if we have different opinions and argue most of the time."

"Even if you my Nigerian next-door neighbor, I probably still wouldn't know you." I chuckled at the thought of what he said."I don't have a social life, what makes you think we would have met? I don't even have neighbors back home." I thought I should inform him."We live in an estate, it's just my father's property all around us."

"Okay. In my next life, I think I should be your father's servant then, you would be able to know me then?" He said and I laughed out loud.

"If you were one of my father's servant and you say all you just said, I'm sure he would pull out your tongue for that."

"What if I were a Nigerian prince, will he let me get to know you?"

"He doesn't even approve of his friend's children coming by to our place." I sighed as I told him.

"Wow."

"I know right? His too protective of me. He thinks I'm still that little so he has to keep his eyes on me all the time."

"He did have a good reason by doing all of that. I mean, if he hadn't let you out of his sight, I wouldn't have been able to kidnap you so easily."I turned my head and saw him smile after saying that. He seemed to have noticed that I was staring at him because he glanced at me but returned his eyes to the road.

"Can I ask you for something?" I said when I saw that we were getting closer to my school.

"What is it?"

"Can I please talk to people at school? Please?" I pleaded with him but he didn't say a word in conformation of what I just pleaded for."Ivannnn?" I dragged on his name as I called.

"You can't." He finally responded.

"Come on, please, I won't say anything about you or your gang."

"No Jewel, ask for anything else."

"They probably think I'm weird because when they talk to me, I don't reply to them. Just let me try to make friends?"

"If you talk to anyone today, you will stop going to school."

"See? You are being mean again. I can't believe you, just when I think we are getting to be friends or something." I sighed and folded my arms.

"Why can't you just do what I'm asking you to do, it's the least you could do to make my life less stressful. Why do you want to interact with others so bad all of a sudden? How many times did you ask your father for freedom? And how many times did he grant that?"

"You are not my father," I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried not to cry."Coming to this place, I thought I would finally be free; I thought I would get to live life on my own terms, you know, without having anyone to tell me how to live my life but then you show up. Now, you are the one telling me what I am allowed to do and what I'm not."