BOTH SIDES OF FATE (cont.)

CHAPTER 3 = BAYO

Standing from his balcony, Bayo could see the beautiful sunrise, but it wasn’t to see the sunrise that kept Bayo up this early… for Bayo was many things but not a lover of nature or the beauty of the sunrise.
Bayo only had one thing on his mind, one thing that had kept him up all night… Sandra!
What had she seen in that little speck Desmond?
Why had she chosen Desmond over him?
What could that rat offer her that he couldn’t and more?
All his life he had always had anything he wanted. Standing at 6ft 4inches and built like a power lifter, Bayo had always been bigger than most of his peers. From his early school days he always bullied his peers to get anything he wanted. He was also handsome so girls were easily drawn to him. It also helped that his father was one of the top politicians and money never seemed too far from his reach…
What Bayo lacked in intellect, he gained in athletics, for Bayo was the fastest runner back in his high school days. In his first year in the university, he started playing basketball, and by his second year he made the school team. Girls fought regularly for his attention and Bayo prided himself about it… but then came Sandra.
Sandra was a fresher when he first met her. Freshers were his easiest prey, and he assumed she {like other freshers before her} would easily fall for his charms, but all attempts his attempts were refuted by her.
Sandra wasn’t the prettiest girl he had ever seen, nor was she the most endowed. But Sandra carried herself with such guile that she was almost impossible not to notice. She was always elegantly dressed and spoke eloquently with a nice touch of British accent to it. Very few girls could command as much attention as she could each time she walked into a gathering.
He remembered the first day he had seen her, it was at a birthday party and he was hanging out with a couple of his basketball buddies when she walked in. The party seemed to stop for a very brief second as she made her way through the hall. She radiated such confidence and grace, that the MC {master of ceremony} couldn’t help but give a shout out to her. But Sandra had been quite used to stares and flattery that it never seemed to affect her countenance. She always took it all in her stride and with a smile developed after years of practice, walked on to her seat.
Bayo, who had watched her walk in and had observed how she neither blushed nor appeared shy at the amount of attention she had just gathered, instantly made her his next target {as he often referred to girls he wanted to date}.
When the dance floor was opened, he walked up to her and asked her for a dance. She politely refused and continued sipping her drink, while looking away from him, and at the dance floor. At first that action had irritated him and he felt offended she hadn’t even given him the courtesy of retaining his eye contact. But then he knew she probably wanted to play hard to get. So he asked if she wouldn’t mind if he sat next to her. She accepted with a shrug that had implied she didn’t care what he did and continued sipping her drink. What followed was the most embarrassing attempt he’d ever had at wooing a lady, and by the party’s end, he hadn’t even scratched the surface of the wall Sandra had put between them.
From that moment on, she had become his obsession. He had tracked down her department and had regularly visited it with the intension of running into her. At many times they had met and his offered to take her to lunch but she had politely always refused. Then him tracked her down to her hostel and discovered her room number, then had pretended to have coincidentally been there. But she neither welcomed him nor accepted his offer to go out with him. And as time went by, all he seemed to think about was her.
Then Desmond started appearing on the scene. Regularly as he stopped by her department, he had noticed she been keeping this particular guy as her company. And then he noticed she seemed to laugh a lot around him and could see she was fond of this guy. Then he had noticed them start, walking from back from school together. This infuriated him. He then tracked down Desmond with the intention of intimidating him to stay clear of Sandra.
One day he had {along with some fraternity brothers of his} laid wait for Desmond close to Desmond’s hostel. When Desmond had walked into the scene, he had planned to rough him up but as it turned out, a higher ranked member of his frat group had coincidently been Desmond’s cousin and on discovering the victim to be was his cousin, had warned Bayo never to touch Desmond. This had further frustrated Bayo, who now seemed helplessly lost in his attempts to win Sandra’s affections.

Standing on his balcony this morning, pure hatred for Desmond brewed in his heart. He goes back into his room and then gets ready to hit the gym for his morning practice. He would one day get his pound of flesh, he reassured himself.
After training had took his shower and headed home, as he walked home he suddenly heard the screams of “OLE, OLE”, {thief, thief, in the Yoruba/Nigerian language}, and then sees a small group of people chase down the alleged thief. Normally he didn’t care; it wasn’t his business, so he would simply have walked on but not today, not when the alleged thief was Desmond.
Filled with hate, Bayo immediately joined the chase, and because he had always been an excellent runner, soon lead the chase. He ran with a determination from hell and with the full force of his weight slammed into Desmond, almost knocking the wind out of him. Bayo had not cared to know what happened neither had he cared to show any atom of mercy, his sheer jealousy had driven him on and immediately rained punches on Desmond. Then the crowd joined in, but they soon went overbroad and it got out of his hands. It was never his intensions to have Desmond killed. A simple beat down would have sufficed, but in jungle justice; things always got out of hand.
He watched in shock as clubs struck Desmond from all sides, and then the worst happened… someone had gotten over excited and smashed Desmond’s skull.
He turned and started running from the scene…
This was not his plan…
This was not his intension…
Not over a girl…
These thoughts ran through his mind even as his feet beat the asphalt in his flight.
“His blood is on my hands”…

P.S
If you could be kind to drop your thoughts on my writing which am still looking to polish up, that would make my day. Thank you so much.