By Prisca
I can’t do this anymore, I’m sorry.
Goodbye Jayeola.
I read and reread her text and it still seemed like a dream. “Tosin is breaking up with me?” How? Why? I thought we really had something going. I thought I had met the one, someone who finally understood me and accepted me for who I was but it turned out to be false.
I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and as they began to roll down my cheeks, I heard a car drive into the small compound – Sam’s car. I wiped them off and hid my phone under the pillow. Not that my friends would know Tosin had broken up with me by seeing the phone but I felt it was better that way.
“My guy!” Dozie exclaimed as they stormed into my small rented one-room apartment just a few blocks away from the school’s gate. “How far na?”
“I dey oo.” I shook hands with the four of them and they got settled in the room like it was theirs. Well, it was theirs in a way since the five us spent most of our time there. I was the only one in the group who lived off campus and alone. We ‘crashed’ there after parties, brought girls over and did all sorts of things. There was no need to offer them anything since it was their “another home”.
“How far na guy?” Sam asked again.
“I dey na. I don talk am already.” I plopped down on the bed beside OT and put on the smile I always had on when I was around people (well, except Tosin). “Why all of you dey ask me like this?” I began to get tensed. Had they heard about the break up?
“We heard what happened bro,” E-money said. “I told you that girl was useless at the very beginning but you were forming stubborn. Shebi you can see now.”
“It ended in tears!” Dozie blurted out and they burst into laughter.
I joined them to laugh and even beat the pillow hard as I did. I was very good at it – acting. My friends always fell for it. Not once did they suspect that it was a facade. Not once did they think that my smile never came from the heart, that I attended those numerous parties just to please them and other students, just to keep up with that ‘hard guy’ image I had created when I resumed as a fresher. They did not know of the battles I fought within myself day in day out. The number of times I needed someone even when I was surrounded by hundreds of friends all the time. They did not understand how I felt like my life was a play and I would wake up each day, put my ‘hard guy’ character on like a costume, walk to school like it was the stage and perform to my friends, the audience.
“This one no be small tears oo,” I said still laughing at the joke I did not find funny in the least bit.
“But that girl stupid sha,” E-money said shaking his head. “How can she break up with a whole you? Does she even know who you are? You that many girls are dying for.”
I remained silent then. One thing I could not do was insult Tosin. I loved her too much to do so, she meant the world to me because she was the only one who knew the real me, who understood the language I spoke and who saw the pain behind my smile. “Why did she break up with me?” I asked myself again and was not able to think of an answer.
OT went to the freezer and brought out canned coke drinks for all of us. “The mumu girl had the guts to start telling everyone she had broken up with you.”
“She told you herself?” I asked too quickly but they did not notice.
“No. My babe told me she heard it in class this morning. So Tosin had obviously told some people already.”
Not my Tosin, she could not have done that. She had probably told her lousy best friend who might have been the one to spread the news. Tosin could never do that.
Sam hurriedly got on his feet. “Abeg I dey go. I just wanted to come and confirm the news. Who is riding back with me?” The three guys join him on their feet, ready to leave too. “Jayeola there’s no wahala na, before tomorrow you go find another babe. Or no be you again? Na you na.” He nudged me on my shoulder and I laughed and nudged him too.
“I don’t know why you guys are bothering yourselves oo, I’ve totally forgotten about her. It’s you people that came here to remind me.” I spoke as I walked them to Sam’s car.
E-money gave me a loud hug I had not been expecting. “My surest gee, I no say you no go fall our hand!”
“Party tonight oo! We’ll come to pick you up by ten oo!!” Dozie shouted through the window as they drove away. I gave him a thumbs up and immediately I turned around, the smile disappeared.
I walked into my room and got out the phone. I unlocked it and it was still on our Whatsapp chat page:
I can’t do this anymore, I’m sorry.
Goodbye Jayeola.
I read it again and I wanted to text her, I wanted to beg her and ask her what I had done wrong but I did not. I lay down thinking of how I would live without the only real and true person I had in my life. I read the text again and the delayed tears spill out of my eyes.
