Glitter and Grief
Chapter 1: The Perfect Cage If you told me back then – in the days of infinity pools, Friday spa appointments, and chauffeur-driven school runs – that I’d one day be eating noodles cooked on a stolen camp stove behind a mechanic’s shed in Obalende, I would’ve laughed and asked you what you were smoking. But here we are. My name is Tomilola Adebayo. Most people call me Tomi, some call me Lola. My daddy used to call me Pumpkin, like I was some porcelain princess he could protect from the rot of the world. Well, jokes on him. I was the rot. I just wore diamonds while I decayed. I grew up in Lekki Phase 1, in a house so big it had two staircases, five bedrooms, and a kitchen no one really cooked in – except the chef, of course. His name was Marcel. He made the best jollof rice in the entire universe. Don’t argue with me. My dad, Chief Adebayo, made his money in oil and politics – a deadly combo. My mum was a “lifestyle entrepreneur,” which is just Lekki language for I go to parties and post pictures on Instagram for a living. She looked like a goddess in heels but had the emotional range of a teaspoon. Our family wasn’t normal. We didn’t talk. We performed. At dinner, we spoke in polished British accents we’d acquired from summer schools in Kent. We smiled like politicians. We nodded like bobbleheads. But God forbid you said anything real. I was sixteen when I tasted my first pill. Pink, heart-shaped, handed to me by a girl named Serena at a house party in Banana Island. She said it would “help me float.” Float? Babe, I didn’t even know I was drowning. I just swallowed it – like I swallowed expectations, loneliness, and silence every damn day. That night, everything slowed down. The music pulsed like a heartbeat. My body felt like silk dipped in champagne. I remember lying on the marble floor of that mansion and laughing until my throat hurt. That was the first time I felt okay in years. But let me not get ahead of myself. Back then, I was still the golden girl. Head girl of my secondary school. Best grades. Most stylish. The one they all envied but none of them truly knew. I had a closet full of Zara and a heart full of bruises. You see, when your life is too perfect, people assume you’re too soft. They don’t realize it’s the perfect ones who learn to lie best. At home, things were… tense. My parents fought like boxers in designer robes. No shouting – that would be razz. No, their fights were quiet, deadly. Doors would slam. Eyes would burn. Whole rooms would freeze. And in between, I’d sit in my giant room, listening to Jhene Aiko and wondering why I felt like I was made of glass. One night, I tried to talk to my mum. “Mum,” I said, “do you ever feel… empty?” She blinked at me over her glass of red wine. “Empty? Like you haven’t eaten?” I laughed – a dry, broken sound. “No, like… inside. Like something’s missing.” She stared at me, her lashes long, her lips red, her expression unreadable. “Tomi,” she said finally, “you have everything a girl your age could want. Try gratitude for once.” I didn’t say anything else. That was the night I took two pills instead of one. I became a master of hiding. Not just my pills, but my pain. I smiled for school pictures. I aced my WAEC. I even gave a speech during our graduation, talking about “discipline and character” while high on a cocktail of Adderall and whatever-it-was I took from my mum’s medicine cabinet that morning. Something for “stress management” – hers or mine, I’ll never know. People clapped. My dad even cried. I remember looking at him from the podium and thinking, You’re crying for the wrong reasons, sir. He was crying because his daughter had made him proud, not knowing his daughter hadn’t felt proud – or anything real – in a long time. My addiction didn’t start in a gutter. It started on Persian rugs. In air-conditioned parlours with imported furniture. It started in the corners of silence, in the absence of love wrapped in the presence of things. I wasn’t looking for a high. I was looking for a hug. Something to hold me. By the time I entered university – a private one in Ogun State (you can probably guess which) – I was a functioning addict. No, scratch that. I was flourishing. Top of my class. Social media goddess. Boys wanted me, girls wanted to be me. I had over 30k followers and a skincare routine that involved a N30,000 serum. But I never slept. I never rested. I just performed. There was this one lecturer, Mr. Onifade. He always said I reminded him of his daughter. He’d call me “future minister of education” whenever I answered a question in class. One day after a particularly brilliant presentation, he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Tomi, you’re carrying something heavy. I hope you have people to help you carry it.” I smiled. “Of course, sir.” But the truth? The only thing I was carrying was guilt, and the only people around me were either fake or high. I had a small circle. Serena – the one who gave me my first pill – was still my plug. She knew how to get things. Pills, weed, coke. You name it. And she always had this scary, comforting logic: “At least we’re not sniffing gutter glue like those Ajegunle rats.” Classist, I know. But when you’re addicted, you find logic in the darkest places. Then there was Seyi. My on-again, off-again boyfriend. He was sweet when he wasn’t stoned, which was rare. We once lay on the floor of his room staring at the ceiling