Chapter {10} Destiny

A week had passed as smoothly as swans glide over the lake, my assignment was submitted and the results had come back better than expected and I had to thank Nio, for that. The dinner proved to be a great success not only academically but also spiritually. God really did work in mysterious ways, he gave me the boldness to tell Nio about him.

But anyways today was a Saturday also known as the wash day. My laundry was sorted out by colour, first the whites, pinks, reds, blues and blacks and put securely in a basket.

I tied my hair with a flowery doek and plugged earbuds into my ears as I listened to my gospel playlist.

"Tats, I'm going to the laundromat!" I shouted, patiently waiting for her reply. Hoping she could hear me as a vacuum ran loudly from her room.

"Okay!" She shouted back.

I toke my basket and held it against my hip, whilst simultaneously trying to hold on to my fabric freshener and laundry soap. I then squeezed past the mid-open door and walked into the hallway, which was always empty, and deserted too. I had never met anyone which made me think that no one lived on this floor except, of course, Thato and I, despite this building being a student accommodation. My paranoia would just arise when I was walking alone, especially during the night but now that weeks had passed I felt better and I would just repeat Psalms 23:4 which went as follows;

Yea, though I walk through the

valley of the

shadow of death,

I will fear no evil

for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

And now I was just giving him the praise he deserved, "If creation sings your praises, so will I. So... Will I. God of your promise, you don't speak in vain, no syllable empty or void. For once you have spoken, all nature and science follow the sound of your-" I stopped my soft singing as I jumped, startled by the sound of a door opening.

A man dressed in joggers and a t-shirt, looking all too familiar from his side view, stepped out of the door on my left.

When he turned around I was surprised to see my good friend Samuel, standing in front of me also holding a basket with a few clothes.

"Destiny?" He smiled, his blue orbs glowing with surprise.

"Hey, Samuel. What are you doing here?" I had not been expecting anyone to be living here, least of all him.

Smirking, he walked up to me, "Shouldn't I be asking you the same question?"

"Well, I have been living here for the past two almost three weeks now and I always pass by this way but never saw you or anyone else for that matter," I explained as I felt the laundry soap start slipping through my fingers. Argh...

"Do you need any help?" He asked.

"Yes, please." I watched as he toke the soap that was about to touch the ground and held on to it. "Thank you," I smiled. I'm sure all my soap would have spilt on the carpet and I would have to buy another one, with my non-existent money and to make things worse I would have to scrub all the power from the carpet. So I was highly grateful.

"I moved in just yesterday and saw no trace of anyone living on this floor. It was dead silent," Samuel said pressing the call button on the elevator.

"Thato and I must've been at the campus at that time," I explained as he nodded in understanding.

We stood in good silence before the elevator dinged to alert us of its arrival before swiftly opening up, and letting us in.

"So, how has college life been treating you?" I broke the silence, as the elevator made its way to the top of the ten-floored building.

He sighed, running his hand through his stumble, "I cannot complain, though the assignments can be quite daunting."

"I guess we have to grow accustomed to university life as we have more work than we had in primary and high school combined," I agreed with a nod.

"Yeah, but look on the bright side, no parent supervision, which means more freedom," He smiled.

"More freedom to do what?" I curiously asked ad the elevator dinged once again, opened and we stepped out.

"Party and explore of course," Samuel said with a shrug. The way he said it made it seem like a normal, casual thing, to party, get drunk and make irresponsible decisions.

"I'd rather stay at home than party and explore and I did not mind my parents' protectiveness cause it shielded me from the dangers and evils of this word," I truthfully said.

"Evil? Dangers? What do you mean?" He furrowed his brows.

"Well..." I left the word hanging as we walked side by side in the medium-sized room filled with washing machines and dryers lined up in order. About five people were doing their laundry as well. We shared pleasantries with each of them as we walked past them, till I recognised a girl from business studies, and we stood for a few minutes, just having a polite chat till Samuel sighed as a means to show me his tiredness.

"So, you were saying?" He attentively looked at me, his gaze not wavering.

"Well, I was saying that this world is filled with deceitfulness and you can easily find yourself in a sea of-" I was cut off by my ringtone blaring from my earbuds.

"One minute," I said raising my longer finger at Samuel.

I removed my phone from my shirt sleeve, the name Nio flashed as an automatic smile touched my face and for a moment I forgot I had to answer my phone until Sam cleared his throat.

I finally answered the call, we had exchanged numbers during our project hangout and had been talking till the dawn of mornings on most occasions.

"Finally, for a moment I thought you would not answer the call, amore," Nio's deep voice filled the speakers.

"Oh, I was just... busy," I said, leaving out that I was in the middle of a very important conversation.

"Okay? Nevertheless, how are you?" He asked, breathing in and out, seemingly out of breath.

"Good thanks, how are you?" I smiled though I knew he could not see me.

"Fine, so what are you doing?" He said before something abruptly dropped, causing rather colourful words to slip out of his mouth.

"Ephesians 5:4!" I snapped, no matter what happened I believed that the tongue held a lot of power and the word uttered from it could be used as a weapon to destroy or a weapon to build and heal as Proverbs 18:21 said.

"Excuse me?" I could detect confusion from his tone.

I sighed, "Ephesians 5 verse 4 says, And let there be no low behaviour or foolish talk or words said in sport, which are wrong but in place of them the giving of praise. This means that in all ways we should resist the urge to swear, no matter how angry and sad we are. Now when you are swearing I have to tell you or anyone else if something is wrong as I have been appointed as a watchman."

"Do you have a bible in your brain by any chance?" He asked with amusement clouding his voice.

"What kind of a question is that?" My brows were now furrowed.

"Well, you seem to know the bible like a calculator knows how to calculate," He started laughing at his own joke which by the way, I found beyond lame.

"That's not even funny," I scoffed making him laugh even more, that I was sure that his stomach hurt from all the laughing.

"Whatever you say, amore," He said sobering up.

"Okay, I will call you back later on." I did not want our conversation to end but I had to cut it off because Samuel was waiting on me.

"Why?" I could aware I heard a whine coming from him or maybe my ears were deceiving me.

"I have to do laundry and there is someone who has been waiting for us to finish the call," I explained looking at an irritated Samuel, leaning against a washing machine, with his arms crossed over his chest. He must have been annoyed with me as we were talking and I just had to cut our conversation short.

"Who? Thato?" He questioned, his accent making Thato's name sound like Tehto, which made me chuckle inwardly.

"No Samuel, a friend of mine." Samuel's head jerked up as I said his name.

"Samuel? Who is this guy?"

"As I said, he is a friend of mine," I reiterated.

The call suddenly started beeping to indicate the end of the call, I stared down at it, asking myself if maybe his airtime had finished or I had dropped it unknowingly, maybe I had been the one to drop it. But at least now, I could talk to Samuel, without any hindrances or disturbance, the call, however, was at the back of my head and that's when I realised that the call does not beep if you dropped it, only if the other person did. But why? Maybe he was busy?

"I didn't know that you had a boyfriend," Samuel's voice broke me out of my internal turmoil.

"I don't," I replied, and indeed I did not have a boyfriend, what Nio and I had was a friendship, nothing more and nothing less.

"Okay," There was a bit of disbelief in his voice.

"Okay, so as I was saying we live in a-" I trailed off as he himself disturbed me by putting up his right hand this time around.

"Listen Destiny, I need to get going but I'm sure we can continue with this conversation on another day. Okay?" He left without sparing me a second glance as I replied with an 'okay', which went into thin air.

I toke my laundry basket and that's when I noticed that he had left his laundry basket with clothes inside but I couldn't stop him by now so I decided to wash his alongside mine. I'd give them to him later on when he had returned from wherever he had gone.