Asheley 2.0

Yeast infection gone, Ash now had a lot of time on her hands, she had managed to convince her parents why she wouldn’t be coming home for the holidays – but she now realized there wasn’t much to do at all on campus.

After finishing up a report she knew she was going to need when school finally reopened, she prepared herself for a short walk around the less populated school; the goal was to stretch her legs a bit before settling down to a movie and some homemade kelewele.

She had barely put on her shoes when “oh!” the lights went off. It was rumoured the school authorities sometimes disconnected the electricity to discourage students who didn’t want to spend the holidays with family this time of year.

She waited a whole hour before calling Cordelia

“They’ve dum the light oh.”

“Oh, how? Wait a little, it’ll probably come back within the hour.”

When Cordelia was told it had been an actual hour since, she suggested Asheley go see the Hall Supervisor.

Armed with her phone as a torchlight, she made her way to the end of the corridor and knocked loudly at the Supervisor’s door. It took all of a minute for him to diagnose her problem and make his recommendation. It seemed she was taking him away from something very important, also, was is normal for him to be sweating like that?

“You see, school has vacated and the hostel board cannot keep paying the utility bills those of you staying behind rack up," he said – his tone accusatory,

“Me mmom dierr, I would suggest you go out and get some prepaid units from the outlets before they 

close for the day. You’ll find the card in the box right next to the meter in front of your room.”

Then he waved her off, shutting the door before she could utter a thank you.

It wasn’t any different from purchasing prepaid units back home, so she simply went back in, grabbed her purse and charged down the hallway in the name of electricity.

                                                                  **** 

When she got to the tiny metal container aptly named “Small but Mighty Ventures” it was clear she and the supervisor weren’t the only ones still on campus. There was this great queue that seemed stagnant and stayed so for the better part of 30 more minutes, some of the people stepping out of formation to look for places to sit while others stood by too engrossed in their phones to care.

Asheley was beginning to despair – also, who really says things like despair – she was beginning to get impatient.

“It’s a network problem –“

She turned sharply to face the speaker.

“They’re not used to serving such crowds so the system crashed, we’ll have to wait a while longer before they can get it up and running again.”

It was a young lady, early 20’s – short natural hair pulled up into some semblance of a high bun. At first glance, she looked funny, crooked teeth peering over the top of her bottom lip, but she had these striking eyes which seemed to accentuate the tiny nose and elfin ears. 

She was also really short; Asheley caught herself, petite was the right word. Minus the teeth she looked... exotic.

Asheley smiled in place of muttering a confused thank you, noting the honesty in the other girl’s eyes. She liked those eyes.

By the time they were served about an hour and some later, they’d bonded over their shared love for Annalise Keating and a strong dislike for governmental institutions that thrived on ineptitude and complete incompetency.

She walked with Asheley to the front of her hostel.

“I’m on the other side of campus. Harmony Hostel – Business Admin, but I live in Assin Fosu, so I choose to stay for the short holidays.”

Asheley nodded in understanding.

“I live right here in Accra, but avoiding the holiday drama. My family usually does the most this time of year” she volunteered with a shrug.

They both laughed at that. They had already shared phone numbers with the promise to continue discussing the new episode of HTGAWM so they parted ways.

“Bye, Debbie” Asheley smiled, waving at the receding figure that was her new friend?

                                                    

                                                                        ****

It didn’t take long for her to settle back in, hot plate of kelewele in one hand and a glass of Coke in another. Now that Cordelia was gone, the room seemed vast, her bed taking up little to no space in one corner. She placed them on the bedside table and grabbed the AC remote turning it up and securing her laptop with another hand.

48 minutes later, she was really upset. Why did someone have to die in every season of HTGAWM, why was Annalise still drinking, and who knew Bonnie had so much baggage? She grabbed her phone and texted Debbie.

“So, 48 minutes down and I still think Bonnie’s a ticking time bomb. Sooner than later, she’s going to explode and no one will be ready for it.”

Her text received a smiley and another which read

“We will be ready for it. Also, don’t you think this new Gabriel character is sketchy? Aside from being so hot?” *wink emoji, water emoji, tongue out emoji*

Asheley laughed at that.

“Moving on to the next episode? I can’t wait.”

“Too late, I’m 4 minutes in already.”

She took a break to wash up and get back into bed, the next episode running on her laptop.

She was halfway into the episode when her phone buzzed, she reached for it – thinking it was Debbie sharing some twisted theory about who this Gabriel character was again.

“Awake?”

The text was from an unregistered number, and who would be asking she was awake, at – 10 PM?

She texted back

“Who is this, please?”

“Can I call you?

She didn’t want to encourage this person.

“Who is this, please?”

“You’ll find out when I call you.”

She racked her brain, trying to think of who would be calling her this late at night.

“I’d like to know who you are beforehand. So I’m going to ask one last time, who is this?”

There was a whole 5 minutes before she received a text back.

“I don’t know how you’re going to take this, which is why I’d prefer to hear your voice – so I know if I’m overstepping my bounds first. A text back would seem… cold.”

Ei.

What is this?

Her phone began to ring, and she was tired of this charade.

She answered the call with a stern “Who is this?”

A rich baritone intoned with a chuckle, “I set myself up for that, I see. How are you, Asheley?”

She was taken aback by the voice – desperately trying to place it and failing.

“And before you freak out, my name is Philip Ansah-Gable. My friends call me Phil, I’d like you to call me Phil.”

Asheley smiled.

*"Kelewele" - Spicy fried plantains*

                                                                   ***

If you made it this far, thank you for your patience - I'll continue updating this series every Tuesday. SO look forward to the next post next Tuesday. Leave a comment if you liked it, if you think I need some encouragement or if you think this is trash - it matters to me.

Grace and Peace, fam.

Cece.