Chapter Nine: Posters On The Wall
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3:12pm. Madam Bi led her upstairs with a towel and a knowing smile, pushing open a heavy door at the end of the hall, and Josie’s breath caught because _of course_ she was bathing in his bedroom.
Orwell’s voice called from downstairs, “I’ll be in the study,” flat and fast, like he needed her to know he wouldn’t be anywhere near the second floor while she was wet and vulnerable.
3:13pm. The room hit her first as _quiet_. Soundproofed quiet. Floor-to-ceiling windows let blazing sun pour onto dark oak floors, but the glass was tinted, privacy-smart, the kind that cost more than her semester fees.
The bed was low platform, charcoal linen stretched tight as military corners, and one wall was all built-in shelving: first editions, leather-bound law texts, and mechanics manuals with dog-eared pages on thermodynamics and torque ratios sitting beside Nietzsche and Baldwin.
3:14pm. A matte black desk dominated the corner, three ultra-wide monitors dark but humming, cables managed into art, and next to a mechanical keyboard was a soldering station, tiny resistors and circuit boards laid out like he’d just stepped away mid-project.
On a floating shelf sat gadgets she’d never seen him touch: a dismantled drone frame, a VR headset still boxed, a vintage Braun calculator, and a 3D-printed prosthetic hand prototype, fingers articulated in perfect, eerie detail.
3:15pm. Bible verse posters were framed clean against the wall—_
Isaiah 41:10_ in minimalist type, _Psalm 23_ handwritten in ink—hung beside the drone parts without irony, and on the nightstand sat a worn leather bible, edges soft from use.
Next to it was a personal journal, unmarked black cover, pen clipped to the spine, and the whole room carried a presence she couldn’t explain, heavy and still and familiar, likened to him, like the air itself remembered who lived here.
3:16pm. The bathroom was en-suite, all black marble and frameless glass, rainfall shower with digital temperature control and towels so thick they felt like clouds, and nothing was personal, nothing messy, like a showroom version of a man.
Except the nightstand. One photo facedown. One paperback of _The Prophet_ cracked open at page 47, spine broken from reading, and a single gray henley thrown over the chair like he’d just changed.
3:18pm. She came out scrubbed clean, hair dripping, and Madam Bi was there with folded clothes: soft black joggers, a cream t-shirt that felt like butter, and underwear still in the packet, all of it exactly her size.
Josie froze, the fabric cool in her hands, and her stomach dropped because _how_, because _why_, because this was not normal and her brain was screaming.
3:22pm. She found him downstairs in the living room, leaning against the bookshelf like he hadn’t been pacing, and the words tore out of her: “How do you have clothes my size? Upstairs? In your room?”
Orwell went ruffled instantly, a hairline fracture in his calm, jaw tightening and gray eyes darting to the window before landing back on her, caught and embarrassed and completely unprepared for interrogation.
3:23pm. He rubbed the back of his neck, a tell she’d never seen, and muttered, “Madam Bi handles… logistics,” but his gaze flicked over her, taking in the joggers, the way the cream shirt sat on her collarbones, and something hot and silent passed behind his eyes.
Josie couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed because she looked prettier than he’d expected in his things, or because he’d known she’d need them after football, because he’d planned for her comfort like it was thermodynamics, and both options terrified her.
---
3:24pm. The living room was too quiet.
Sunlight slanted through the curtains in thick, golden bars, catching dust motes that hung suspended like unanswered questions. Orwell was still leaning against the bookshelf, but his posture had changed. Shoulders locked. Jaw a hard line.
He looked like a man bracing for impact.
Josie clutched the hem of the cream t-shirt. It smelled like nothing, like clean air, like him. “Orwell.” Her voice was smaller than she wanted. “The clothes. My size. Even the…” She couldn’t say it.
Underwear. New. In a packet. Her exact size.
3:25pm. He didn’t look at her.
His gray eyes were fixed somewhere past her shoulder, on the wall, on the door, on a timeline only he could see. He rubbed the back of his neck again. Once. Twice. The tell was becoming a language.
“I see things,” he said. Flat. No preface. No apology.
The words dropped into the room like stones in still water.
3:26pm. Josie blinked. “See things?”
“Visions.” He said it the way someone else would say _migraines_. Clinical. Burdensome. “Flashes. Moments. Before they happen.”
He finally looked at her. Direct. Unblinking. That Orwell stare that stripped her down to bone and truth. “You, on the patio. Sweaty. Asking for a bathroom. Madam Bi with towels.”
A pause.
“I wasn’t sure if I should include underwear or not.”
3:27pm. The sentence hung there.
Josie’s mouth went dry.
He said it with the same tone he used for _hydrate_ and _thermodynamics_ and _first to three, loser does dishes_. Matter-of-fact. As if debating the logistics of her dignity was just another variable in his equation.
Orwell-ish to the marrow.
3:28pm. “You’re telling me,” Josie whispered, “that you saw me needing a change of clothes… before it happened?”
“Yes.”
“Because… God told you?” It came out incredulous, but not mocking. She was too stunned for mockery.
His head tilted. A fractional movement. “Just like all the other times we’ve met.”
3:29pm. The floor tilted.
_All the other times._
The umbrella in the rain. Him tapping her shoulder at his gate. Her running into him at Dr. Iro’s class, her black journal. The water before football. The bathroom offer before she asked.
He hadn’t been guessing.
He hadn’t been stalking.
He’d been _seeing_.
3:30pm. Josie sank onto the arm of the couch, legs suddenly unreliable. “Orwell… who _are_ you?”
It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t teasing. It was raw wonder tangled with fear.
Because the man standing in front of her had a soldering station and a prosthetic hand and scripture on his walls and a journal full of God-knows-what. A man who engineered comfort before she knew she’d need it.
A man who spoke of visions like they were weather reports.
3:31pm. He pushed off the bookshelf. Slow. Deliberate.
Walked to the window. Hands in his pockets. Back to her. The sunlight caught the edges of his silhouette, turning him gold and shadow both.
“I don’t know,” he said. Quiet. Not flat this time. Something else. “What I am.”
He turned his head, just enough for her to see the profile of his jaw, the storm in his eyes. “I only know I’m shown things. And I act.”
3:32pm. Silence again.
But it wasn’t cold like when Madam Bi mentioned his mother.
This silence was thick. Sacred. Like the presence in his room. Like _Isaiah 41:10_ framed beside a drone.
Josie stared at her hands. At the joggers that fit perfectly. At the life she’d walked into wearing his clothes, after playing football in his sun, after bathing in his room.
3:33pm. “The underwear,” she said finally, and a hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. “You decided to include it.”
Orwell’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smirk. Not quite a smile. “Seemed… logical. In case.”
_In case._
Orwell-ish. Considerate. Terrifying.
3:34pm. Josie looked up at him, mesmerised. Completely, utterly mesmerised.
Because what do you do with a man who hears God and builds prosthetics? Who quotes law and prays Psalms? Who sees your future embarrassment and preemptively saves you from it with packaged dignity?
You don’t run from the goal post.
You sit in the wreckage of your logic and stare.
3:35pm. “Thank you,” she whispered. For the clothes. For the bathroom. For the seeing.
Orwell nodded. Once.
Then, because he was Orwell, he ruined the moment by saying, “You still owe dishes.”
And just like that, the mesmerising weirdo was back.
---
4:17pm. Josie shut the guestroom door.
_I was shown you._
The words still rung in her ears.
Josie stood in the lavender guest room, his t-shirt swallowing her, blanket in her arms. _Thank you for seeing._ She’d said it.
Voice barely there. He hadn’t answered. Just nodded once and walked out.
4:18pm. She sat on the edge of the bed.
Why _here_? Why not send her home? Why clear out his own room and lock the door like the world was ending?
The questions circled. But underneath them, the presence did too.
It was in this room. Fainter than his bedroom, but here. Cedar. Solder. Stillness. A weight that pressed against her skin without touching.
4:19pm. _He kept me here for a reason._
Not for jollof rice. Not for propriety.
_I was shown you._
4:20pm. The thought should have terrified her. It didn’t. It steadied her, like a hand at the small of her back.
4:21pm. She stood. Left the living room. Walked back to the lavender guest room, his t-shirt still swallowing her. She lay back. Pulled the gray blanket over her.
The presence wrapped around her like a second layer. Heavy. Guarding.
_Why did he keep me in the room for the rest of the afternoon?_
4:22pm. The question was still turning over in her head when sleep took her.
---
10:47pm. Josie woke up gasping.
Dark. Too dark.
She fumbled for her phone. The screen blinded her.
10:47pm.
She’d been out for hours.
10:48pm. Panic hit.
Cassie. Classes.
Notifications flooded in.
*Cassie* 5:02pm: _Babe where you dey? You good?_
*Cassie* 6:15pm: _Josie abeg reply me. You’re scaring me_
*Cassie* 7:30pm: _I’m calling your dad_
*Cassie* 8:41pm: _Josie._
*Cassie* 9:56pm: _If you don’t text back in 10 mins I’m calling campus security_
*Cassie* 10:03pm: _JOSELINE ADEBAYO_
10:49pm. “Shit,” Josie whispered.
Alarmed. Shocked. Heart hammering against her ribs. She typed fast: _I’m safe. Fell asleep. Long story. I’m so sorry. At Or-_ Deleted.
_A friend's place. Will call in morning_
Send.
10:50pm. The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Then she heard it.
10:51pm. A ruckus. Down the hall.
Thuds. Muffled shouts. Something hitting a wall.
Josie was off the bed before she thought. Heart in her throat. Bare feet on cold wood.
10:52pm. She rushed out of her bedroom.
Orwell’s door was open. Light spilling out.
Madam Bi was inside.
10:53pm. The old woman was at his bedside, both hands on Orwell’s shoulders, tapping him violently. Not gentle. Desperate.
“Oga! Oga, wake up! Wake up now!”
10:54pm. Orwell turned and jerked like he was having a terrible nightmare.
Sheets twisted around his legs. Head thrashing side to side on the pillow. Sweat darkening his hairline. His face contorted, wrecked, years older than the Orwell who’d said _I was shown you_.
10:55pm. Josie froze in the doorway.
Dread hit her bones. Cold. Sudden. Absolute.
The presence was there. The one from his room. From the blanket. From this afternoon.
But it was faint.
Diluted.
Drowned out by something else.
10:56pm. Fear.
It poured off Orwell in waves. Thick. Suffocating. Poisoning the air until the stillness couldn’t breathe.
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