She sat on the sofa like it was her elevated tone, and her red fingers had a rhythmic tap to it.

Only a small gesture yet it rang loud like drums in my ears.

I scan the room to see my Dad wasn't home as I had hoped.

The door behind me creaks as I push it closed.

Immediately I turn my back to her so I can lock it, though thinking about it now having an easy escape would be heavenly.

The dstv she clearly hasn't been watching comes off and I hear her.

"You have finally decided to show your face."

Instead of the fear that had been running through my veins the past twenty four hours.

Nothing comes. I had risked everything to gain nothing, I was defeated.

"Good afternoon mummy."

"At five p.m? Nimi, at five p.m." she yells tapping the remote furiously on the couch.

The evening came by 6, but I dared not say that out loud.

I should've been home earlier, but the streets of Lagos had blessed me with the notorious third mainland bridge traffic.

Something I should've escaped on a Saturday, but the city never rests, and neither did the owanbes (party goers to weddings).

"Sorry mummy." I say, knowing there would be no reasoning with her tonight. This was only the first tip of the iceberg simmering under water.

"Oya, where have you been that you are coming at this ungodly hour." she demands.

"I went to Eko Hotel, you and daddy gave me permission." I say barely above a murmur but it must've sounded like a megaphone in her ears, because her eyes grew rounder and she jumped from her seat.

"Ehen, we gave you permission? And did that permission ever include going to the club to prostitute yourself? I don't blame you it's my fault I even listened to your father."

I only stare, she wasn't finished.

"...Yet when they bring shame on the family, then it will turn to 'my daughters.' Now tell me, why was Victoria in her mothers house by 12pm on the dot yet you're gallivanting your miserable self at this time?"

"Traffic." I lie through my teeth, omitting the scarier part of the truth.

She laughs, really laughs, and I start to get scared when her entire body begins to vibrate, her hand the most violent of them all.

"Do you take me for an idiot? Was there a spirit on the road that held your car specially on the read. See I know everything so you better confess." she says.

I only look at her, my face frigid as I reclined deeper into my shell.

Always I had done what would please her, just so I wouldn't feel like a bastard child whenever I slipped up.

Yet her respect and love had always felt so willowy, pushed to and fro by my performance.

No amount of, 'all the sacrifices I made for you', 'not every parent takes care of their child', 'everything is for your own good', or the favourite 'you will appreciate it when you're older and a parent yourself', could convince me she was capable of loving her own blood.

Fimi deviated and now she's as good as disowned, not that I'd be too far from it at this rate.

Do good get nothing. Do bad and barely survive it.

"Is it that you're deaf or you're too foolish to answer me?" She boomed, her words still able to seep through my bones after many years of scoldings.

"I was at a man's house before I came home." I throw carelessly.

"Repeat that sentence for me." she says slowly, her voice dropping near a whisper.

And I did, only immediately the word house left my mouth the slapped the remaining sentence out of me.

I stand absorbing the sting like I was used to.

She always beat the stupid and bastard out of me, sparing the rod was never an option for her.

"So you have been going around with grown men? Or maybe it is one foolish idiot boy at home that cannot even feed himself that you're dating. It doesn't even matter, see all men are the same they will use you and dump you then go for all the nice girls that keep themselves clean. They may not even be half as beautiful but those are the ones who will get good husbands, no one wants second hand goods." she says, repeating the mantra I had heard in the barely there sex talks to save myself for marriage.

Like I wanted a man like that anyways. Still I tried to remedy her 6 feet under view of me.

"I don't have any boyfriend, and I'm still a virgin."

My words barely hit the ground before her hand comes right for my face.

This time the force lands on my head and my ears ring for joy at her ifoti (slap).

Tears spill from my exhausted ducts and I stay there, face bent at the angle she had hit me.

"Still you lie when you're already heading for destruction. Oluwalonimi do you want to go to hell? After everything I had done for you you want to end up like your sister, God where have I gone wrong!" she exclaims, her hands beating on her chest fluidly.

The water on my cheeks isn't the only hot liquid from my body, and inside I feel myself boil.

I could die for all I care tonight. Heck I wouldn't mind it, but I would go cold without telling her just what I had thought of her for the past 18 years of my existence.

"Everything mummy! You did everything wrong. There was never a time I was good enough for you. Not my grades, or my clothes or how I lived breath and ate that book you don't even follow. What happened to parents not exasperating their children? All you care about is your stupid rules and the glorious image of two perfect daughters to boost your ego-" I scream my chest colliding with her as we fought neck to neck.

"No mummy I'm not finished, you're going to listening to every thing I have to say." I breathe down her face, the good 7 inches I had on her playing to my advantage.

Her hand rises and I catch it easily my fingers digging tightly into her soft wrist.

"So you want to beat your own mother Ehn? You want to beat me up abi?" She says but the guilt misses my heart this time, and fell flat against the floor.

"Never mummy dearest, wouldn't that be monstrous of me? Pummeling an elder to satisfy my anger and scare her into obeying my demands. I may be Satan's darling but I'm not that evil." I spit at her, knowing mine wouldn't miss its target.

For a moment I see defeat, but pride crushes it and I'm reminded in her own little bubble she would always be the saint.

"As I was saying. I in fact do not have a boyfriend, and the precious virginity you have been guarding is still intact. But I have done many unspeakable things, run off with him just so we could kiss in the back of a room for hours and I let him touch me mummy. Many times. Turns out the forbidden fruit is a lot sweeter than I thought..."

Her horrified look is enough to make me smile and keep going. "...too bad no one told me of the aftertaste. How it would never be enough and lust would become a drug. Instead of just shoving me some commandments and videos of hell I wish you'd have told me why. Why it was better to abstain, and how I could handle my desires instead of demonizing them. Not like you would care if I actually loved a boy, no boyfriend, no staying out late, no this. Maybe if you'd had cared about me and what I wanted, what I thought, what I hadn't known but you could have educated me about, maybe I wouldn't have turned out so rotten. Now your daughter is first grade okirika (used clothes), deal with it." I say breathing violently, the tears never stopping for a moment.

"Off course everyone will point fingers at me, me I know I have tried to show you all the way of Lord-" she says dramatically.

"Don't you dare say that when all you showed me was a religion, full of fakers and arrogance. I don't even know God if there even is one, yet I can recite every memory verse from Sunday school," I bite back.

The closest I had seen to Jesus was in Demilade's eyes.

"Since you have made up your mind to be wayward, I have nothing to say to you, just know that your father will hear of this and when we does we're going to rethink investing all that money for you to go abroad and come back like your sister." she says, shaking her head in disbelief that this was her reality.

I grind my teeth, stopping any more words from leaving me mouth.

I had nothing left to say to the woman I wish I never came out of.

"Now get out." she says, sentencing me with my room.

"With all pleasure." I mutter, slamming the door on my way out.

Her head flails out of the doorway, but the exhaustion in her eyes tells me she doesn't have the energy to argue that with me.

After, I keep pounding my feet on the stairs till I reach my room.

Inspire of my fathers nonchalant approach to raising children tonight I would be having it.

Lowering myself to floor I stay there for hours, zapped of my energy, and consumed with the pain of all the destruction I had left in my wake.