Under The Umbrella
Author: God's Princess
Chapter Two: The Umbrella
---
It was Saturday morning. The kind where the dorm smelled like Omo and burnt eggs, and someone’s Bluetooth speaker was blasting Asake through the walls by 8am. No Dr. Iro. No lectures.
No twenty pairs of eyes deciding if she was brilliant or broken.
Josie was supposed to be studying. Thermo was open on her desk, pages drowning in yellow highlighter. Past questions stacked like punishment. A pen, dead in her hand.
She wasn’t studying.
She was staring.
The black umbrella leaned against her wardrobe like it paid rent. Frayed edges. Scuffed handle. Still damp from Thursday, even though it was Saturday, even though the sun had been out since 7am and Lagos heat could dry a river. Some things stayed wet when you wanted them to.
Josie sat cross-legged on her bed, chin in her palm. Not crying. Not pacing. Not fretting. Just _thinking_. The dangerous kind.
_How do you give an umbrella back to a guy who looks at you like he knows your expiration date?_
_Do you knock? Dump it at the department? Yeet it and run?_
_Does he even want it?_
The umbrella said nothing. Just stood there, judging her life choices.
The door creaked open at 9:13am — right when Cassie usually rolled out of bed to cause problems.
Cassie walked in with two apples and zero chill. She lobbed one at Josie. Josie didn’t catch it. It bounced off her knee and rolled under the bed to die with the dust bunnies.
“You gonna return it or marry it?” Cassie asked, crunching her apple. “Cause the way you’re staring, I’m about to plan the wedding. Vintage emo umbrella meets dying engineering girl. Tragic.”
Josie blinked. “It’s not mine.”
“Duh. It’s Orwell Ferguson’s. Course rep. Trust fund baby cosplaying as a broke mechanic.” Cassie flopped onto her bed. _Thwack._ The rubber ball was back, hitting the wall on schedule. “So? You giving it back? Or should I post it on Jiji? _Slightly haunted umbrella. One careful owner. Will ruin your life._”
Josie picked up the floor apple. Didn’t bite it. “I don’t know how.”
“You use your mouth,” Cassie said. “Like this: ‘Hey Orwell, here’s your umbrella. Thanks for not letting me rust.’ Boom. Done.”
_Boom. Done._ Like it was that easy. Like Josie could face him again and not short-circuit under _that look_. The one that would be the death of her.
“I’ll return it,” Josie said. It sounded like a promise. To the umbrella. To herself. To nobody. “Monday.”
Cassie snorted. “Right. And I’m Beyoncé.” _Thwack. Thwack._
---
Monday came with 8am traffic and students running for 9am classes. Josie didn’t go to school.
Tuesday rolled in with Thermo by 10am, when the lecture hall still smelled like detergent and ambition. She sat through it. Didn’t see him.
Wednesday hit with the 2pm lab, when the sun turned the workshop into an oven. No Orwell.
By Thursday evening, around 6pm when the mosquitoes started their shift, the umbrella was a roommate. It had vibes. Judgy vibes.
_This is stupid_, Josie thought, slamming Thermo shut at 7:42pm. _You’re dying. You don’t have time to be scared of tall guys with savior complexes._
So Friday, during the 1pm rush between classes when everyone was buying gala and Coke, she went hunting.
Problem? Nobody knew Orwell Ferguson.
“Course rep?” The girl at the front desk didn’t look up from her acrylics. “Oh. Yeah. He exists. I think.”
“Where’s his next class?” Josie asked.
Shrug. “He doesn’t do class. He just submits assignments and fixes the printer when it eats someone’s project.”
_Fixes the printer. Fixed my circuit. Fixes everything except himself._
She asked three more people. Got four answers before 3pm. _He’s always in the library. He’s never in the library. He sleeps in the workshop. He has zero friends._
That last one stuck. _Zero friends._
Nobody knew anything about Orwell Ferguson except his name. Full stop. A few girls in 300-level had clocked that he was good looking — like, stupidly good looking — but none of them actually crushed on him. Because he dressed like a hobo who lost a fight with a laundry basket. And girls, as a general rule, don’t write love letters to hobos. Even hot ones.
So at 4pm, when the admin left for break and the student records office was empty, Josie did something dumb. Or brave. Thin line.
The computer was unlocked. _God bless lazy civil servants._
Her hands shook at 4:03pm as she typed: _Ferguson, Orwell_.
His file popped up. ID photo. 21. Engineering. GPA: criminally high. Address: No. 14 Ikenegbu Extension, G.R.A.
_G.R.A. The other side of town._
Her stomach dropped. That was 1 hour by bus. 2 hours if Lagos traffic decided to be toxic today.
She scribbled it on a receipt and shoved it in her pocket like contraband. Because it was.
She didn’t tell Cassie. By 4:30pm, Cassie would’ve screamed, teased, followed her, and live-tweeted the whole thing with hashtags. _#UmbrellaChronicles #HoboHeir #JosieIsUnwell_. No. This was hers. Her dumb, dying, umbrella mission.
---
Saturday came again. 10am, when the sun was already rude and you could hear students arguing about who finished the last sachet water.
Josie told Cassie she was going to the market. Cassie didn’t look up from TikTok. “Buy me plantain chips. And don’t die.”
_No promises._
Two buses. One keke. A lot of sweating. By 12:47pm, she was there.
No. 14 Ikenegbu Extension wasn’t a hostel. Wasn’t a flat. It was a house.
A _house_ house.
White walls, two stories, big glass windows that didn’t have curtains because why would they? Floor-to-ceiling kind of windows. Black gate, the electronic slide-y kind.
Paved driveway. The garden was stupid — manicured lawn, actual flowers, a jacaranda tree that looked like it got haircuts.
The place whispered money. Old money. The kind that didn’t need to yell. _Fancy_. The kind of fancy that made Josie’s dorm look like a carton.
And he dressed like a hobo. _Make it make sense._
The umbrella was heavy by 12:50pm. Or maybe that was her heart.
She stopped at the gate.
And stared.
Same way she’d stared at the umbrella all week. Not crying. Not pacing. Not fretting. Just _looking_. Really looking. At the house that hid the boy who saw her. The boy with no friends. The boy who walked into rain with no umbrella so she wouldn’t have to.
Her knuckles went white on the handle. 12:52pm.
_Knock, Adebayo. One foot. Then the other. That’s engineering._
She didn’t knock.
Not yet.
At 12:53pm on a Saturday, Josie Adebayo stood there, black umbrella in hand, staring at Orwell Ferguson’s front gate like it might stare back.
Wondering if he’d open it and say her surname again.
---
12:53pm.
Josie’s hand rose.
It shook. Not from fear. From weight. The umbrella in her left hand, her own pulse in her right. The gate was black iron, tall enough to make her feel twelve again. She could see the intercom button. Small. Silver. One press and this would be real.
_Knock, Adebayo. One foot. Then the other. That’s engineering._
Her knuckles almost touched metal.
A hand tapped her shoulder.
Josie jerked like she’d grabbed a live wire.
The umbrella hit the pavement with a clatter that sounded like a gunshot in the 12:54pm G.R.A. silence. Her breath caught. No — not caught. _Snagged_. On something jagged in her chest.
She spun.
Orwell Ferguson.
Too close. Too tall. Hoodie the same faded black. Eyes the same pale, tired gray. He wasn’t smiling. He never smiled. But his brows were pulled in. Not at her. _For_ her.
“Didn’t mean to—” he started.
The first cough ripped out of her.
It wasn’t polite. Wasn’t the little cough you do when water goes down wrong. It was a body revolt. A full mutiny from her lungs. It bent her in half.
Then another. And another.
The sound was wet. Ugly. Like her ribs were trying to turn themselves inside out to evict whatever was killing her. The taste of iron flooded her mouth. _No. Not here. Not in front of him. Not on his fancy driveway._
She staggered. Her vision went spotty at the edges. White fence. Black gate. Gray eyes.
“Adebayo.”
His voice cut through the coughing. Not loud. Just… certain. Like a command typed into a console.
Her knees buckled.
He caught her.
Not graceful. Not romantic. Physics. One arm around her back, the other under her arm, keeping her from eating pavement. His hoodie smelled like laundry detergent and engine oil and rain, even though it hadn’t rained today.
“You’re okay,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It was engineering again. _Statement of fact. Make it true._
The gate buzzed open behind him. He must’ve had the remote in his pocket.
Josie couldn’t answer. Couldn’t breathe. Each cough scraped her raw. Her hands fisted in his hoodie. _Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t let go. He half-carried, half-dragged her through the gate. The umbrella stayed behind on the pavement, forgotten.
Inside was cold. AC. Marble. The kind of cold that lived in houses with money. It hit her sweaty skin and made the coughing worse for three awful seconds.
Orwell kicked the door shut. He didn’t set her on a couch. There wasn’t time. He eased her down right there on the floor, her back against the wall, his arm still behind her so her head wouldn’t knock tile.
Then he was gone.
Footsteps. Fast. Not running. Controlled. Like he was calculating the shortest path.
Josie curled in on herself, forehead to her knees. _Breathe. You know how. In. Out. Don’t die on his floor. Cassie would never let you live it down. Ha._
A glass was pressed to her lips. Water. Cold. Real.
“Small sips,” Orwell said. He was crouched in front of her. One knee on the marble. His hand was steady on the glass. The other was flat on the floor, braced. Like he was ready to catch her again if she tipped.
She sipped. It hurt. Everything hurt. But the water was a path. She followed it.
The coughing slowed. Hitched. Slowed.
Silence, except for her breathing. Ragged. Wet. Alive.
Orwell didn’t talk. Didn’t ask _are you okay_ five times like people do. He just waited. Watched her face like it was a circuit board he was debugging. Not pity. Not panic. Just… assessment.
Josie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. It came away with a smear of red.
She froze.
He saw it.
His jaw did something tight. But his voice, when it came, was even. “Bathroom’s first door on the left. Or stay. Your call, Adebayo.”
_Adebayo_. Not Josie. Never Josie. Like her surname was the only safe thing to call her.
The house was quiet. No TV. No people. Just the hum of the AC and her heartbeat trying to relearn rhythm.
Outside, the umbrella lay on the pavement.
Inside, Josie sat on Orwell Ferguson’s floor, breathing, bleeding, and alive.
And he was still crouched in front of her, holding an empty glass, acting like this was normal.
Like girls just collapsed at his gate every Saturday at 12:54pm.
---
Josie couldn’t move.
Literally. Her legs forgot how. Her brain forgot how to tell them. She was still on the marble floor at 12:55pm, back against the wall, hands flat on the cold tile like she was grounding herself to the earth. The taste of iron was still in her mouth. Her cheeks were hot. _From coughing. From shame. From him._
Orwell stayed crouched for three seconds. Four. Then his eyes did a quick scan — her face, her breathing, the smear she’d already wiped away.
He stood.
“Glass,” he said. Short. Flat. Not asking. “Be right back.”
And he left. Just walked toward what had to be the kitchen, empty glass in hand. No fuss. No _are you okay_. No hovering.
Josie knew what he was doing.
He was giving her air. Real air. Not the kind from the AC. The kind that comes when someone stops looking at you while you’re falling apart.
The second his footsteps faded, she sucked in a breath. It rattled. But it was hers.
_Okay. Up. You’re not dying on his floor, Adebayo. Get up._
She pushed herself to her feet at 12:56pm. Her knees wobbled but held. _Engineering. One joint, then the other._
He said bathroom, first door on the left. Which left? _His_ left? Her left? The hallway had three doors. Her brain was still static from the coughing. She wasn’t about to open his bedroom by accident and die of embarrassment twice in five minutes.
So she didn’t go.
She walked instead.
Into the living room.
And stopped breathing again. But this time not from her lungs.
God.
The place was stupid.
Floor-to-ceiling windows where the G.R.A. sun poured in, but the glass was tinted so it didn’t glare. Just washed everything gold.
The floor was pale marble, veined gray, so clean she could see the soles of her worn trainers reflected back. The ceiling was high. Double height. With recessed lights that weren’t even on because the daylight did the job.
The furniture wasn’t loud. It didn’t scream money. It whispered it. Low charcoal couch, big enough to sleep on. A single armchair in tan leather that looked broken in, not staged.
No TV blaring. Just a massive bookshelf on the far wall. Real books. Not decorations. Some cracked spines. Some engineering manuals. Some novels.
The AC was a quiet hum she only noticed because the dorm never had it. It made the air feel clean. Untouched. Like no one sweated in here. Like no one coughed blood on the floor.
Heavy linen curtains, cream colored, pulled back with simple iron ties. The walls were a soft greige. Not white. Not beige. Something expensive she didn’t know the name of.
There was art. Not the generic kind. One huge canvas — abstract, blues and grays, like a storm caught mid-scream.
And photos.
That’s what caught her.
A side table by the couch. Dark wood. On it, three frames. Silver.
Two were landscapes. The third was a man.
In a suit. Charcoal. Sharp. Sitting behind a wide desk in an office. Leather chair. Bookshelf behind him. He was older. 50s maybe. Salt-and-pepper hair. Same jaw as Orwell. Same eyes, but kinder. Softer. The kind of eyes you saw on posters and Instagram Lives.
Josie stepped closer at 12:57pm.
She didn’t know his name. But she knew the face. She’d seen it on billboards along the express. On her auntie’s WhatsApp status. On social media clips where he was praying for crowds. A pastor. A big one.
She didn’t know why his picture was here. Didn’t connect it to Orwell. Just noted the same jaw.
Her gaze drifted past the photo.
There, on the bookshelf. Tucked between a textbook on fluid mechanics and a novel with a broken spine.
Something else.
Small. Out of place. A—
“Living room’s boring.”
Josie flinched so hard she almost tipped into the side table.
Orwell was in the doorway.
No glass now. Hands in his hoodie pocket. Leaning against the frame like he hadn’t just seen her cough her lungs out. Like he hadn’t just carried her inside.
His eyes flicked to the photo. Then to her.
Flat. Unreadable.
“You found the rich people stuff,” he said.
---
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