Prologue
"How was your night?." Her work 'friend' Glory asked worriedly, Jasmine's dark circles were almost turning her eyes into panda eyes, she no longer needed to apply eyeliner with how dark her eye circles were.
Jasmine gave her an incredulous look, "really? Are you going to seriously ask me that when you can clearly see my state." It was palpable she was in a grouchy mood.
Glory laughed in devilish amusement as she regarded her fried headed friend, a teasing glint in her eyes, she wanted to poke more fun at her. "Yeah? You look so radiant this lovely morning, I don't see anything wrong with your state." She could barely contain her laughter at the venomous glare Jasmine was throwing at her. "Oh, come on, what's with that look? You'll ruin your pretty face if you keep frowning like that." Glory threw an arm over her shoulders, dragging her close in a bone crushing hug, which Jasmine resisted almost immediately.
"I'm too sleep deprived to respond appropriately to your digs right now, so please release me and depart from my work station before I report you to madam for dereliction of duty." In a different circumstance, she might have responded with a better attitude, but today she just wanted to get through the day and go back to her bed.
She could even sleep on her feet right now if she wanted to, but the catch was, she was at work and she would be fired without hesitation at any sign of negligence.
Glory scooffed in affront at her brash tone, clearly taking offense. "Whatever, it's not like I was the one that told you to bite off more than you can chew, don't go transferring your frustrations on me." she turned on her heel and stumped off, Jasmine's brows rose as she watched her go, her plump ass twisting violently like it was having a seizure.
With a roll of her eyes at the comical display, Jasmine hissed in annoyance mumbling inaudibly under her breath as she faced the next customer, "what a strong smell of jealousy, to encounter such a mood dampener this morning is just bad luck."
The customer gave her a weird look but graciously decided to mind her business and placed her order.
With a sigh, Jasmine calculated her total and gave her the POS so she could make her payment. After that, she was so busy she could barely stay on her feet, the day went by in a rush and before she knew it, the eatery closed for the day or should she say night.
Her lips finally curved into her first smile of the day, her feet heavy, she quickened her steps, she just wanted to get home to her bed. Even if she could only sleep for one hour, she would really appreciate it.
Today she ordered a taxi, which was super rare for her because she always saved up all her money like a hamster, saving for winter.
After a five minute wait, her cab arrived and she slumped into the back seat without another word to the driver, she might have engaged in a polite conversation on a different occasion and day but today her brain couldn't quite function well.
As if the day couldn't get any worse, they got caught in a Lagos traffic jam 30 minutes before arriving at her apartment, Jasmine was seeing dark spots at this point. She was so dizzy she was literally pinching herself to keep awake, and now this?
Who did she offend, what a day! She really couldn't be anymore frustrated.
She gritted her teeth with barely contained anger, repeatedly cautioning herself not to scream.
After repeating this mantra hundreds of times, the car finally started moving at snail pace.
A journey that should have taken 1 hour 30 mins turned into a 2 hours plus journey, with her dozing off on more than one occasion, how she got back home was a mystery, but she did and by that time, it was already almost 1am in the morning.
Immediately, she collapsed into the welcoming embrace of her bed, forgetting to eat, she gloriously fell asleep.
Okay, now lets shed a little light on her background; Jasmine was a Fine arts university graduate with high ambitions, she graduated two years ago with a first class degree in Fine arts, and like most Nigerian graduates, she was working in a field entirely different from her field of study as a cashier at a foreign and authentic local African Cuisine restaurant.
She had relocated to Lagos two years ago immediately after graduation to gather funds and further her education and ambition.
The goal was to graduate from Uni at 20, which she did, to work for a few years and scrape together money for traveling out and furthering her education, a goal that she had gloriously accomplished.
After two long hard years she had finally met her savings goal. She had finally saved more than enough money to further her education to the US and then some.
Six months ago she had applied for a Visa to the US to further her education in the arts, majoring in Art hi.
And after a period of interviews and tests she had finally gotten her Visa and was set to leave the country in a week.
So the last few weeks in particular had been brutal, filled with preparations upon preparations and endless paperwork. And she was drained as it was.
In all her stress filled years in Lagos these few weeks were the hardest so far, she always thought she had experienced all the stress and she was used to it all but these few months definitely took the cake.
She was almost second guessing her choices at this stage, everything better be worth it in the end!
The dreams and the future she envisioned for herself were finally coming to fruition after 14 long years, but she honestly had no idea what to feel at this point in time.
She had wanted and worked for this for most of her life, but now that everything was close at hand, she just felt empty.
Like the passion that fueled her ambition was slowly evaporating and she felt scared.
What was she going to do!
