?? MY BESTFRIEND MY LOVE ?
?Season 1 Episode 3?
A Story by Oluwatosin Odebiyi
Stanley said ‘okay,’ and turned to tell me he was leaving before walking out. He left me alone with my mom. I knew she wasn’t done talking so I just stood there and waited to hear her say something. Then she said, ‘Bola, tell me the truth. Did you ever sleep with Jide? I asked you already before and you said no. But now, knowing that you are having s*x, I think you lied to me so tell me the truth.’
Then I said, ‘mom, I never lied to you. I’ve always been a virgin until today. I can even show you the blood stain on my bedspread mom.’
She smiled, and I knew she believed me. She then said, ‘so do you love him? I’ve always had my suspicions but all the time, you tell me you are just friends.’
I wanted to be honest with her so, I said, ‘I’ve liked him for a while now. Mom, Stanley is a great guy. He’s always been there for me and I couldn’t help but fall for him. I told him I loved him some weeks ago and he told me to stop joking. He always brushes it off anytime I brought it up and that’s because he was hurt by his previous girlfriend, just like Jide hurt me. And so he doesn’t want to date again until he is ready. And he also thinks that whatever I’m feeling for him is something normal. He thinks it’s because Jide left a void in my heart and because he’s the one who comforted me and helped me get over him, I fell for him as a means to fill that void. Mom, he just sees himself as a rebound, and that’s not true. I honestly don’t know what to expect tomorrow because we’ve not spoken about it yet. I don’t know what to expect, because what happened was unexpected. We both got lost in the moment and did it.’
My mom told me not to worry and said she completely understood. She asked me to go to bed and not worry about it that much and wait till Stanley called me so we could both be matured about it and talk about it. I said ‘goodnight mom. I love you and thank you for being the best.’ She said she loved me too and I left to my room. When I got there, I soaked my bedspread in soapy water and I left it there to wash it the next day. I used a new spread around my bed, brought out my laptop and played music. I played Justin Bieber’s “Fall.” It was a song about two best friends that were in love, but the girl had already had a broken heart. So it made her blind she could never believe that love would ever treat her right and that hurt the boy and he kept wondering what was going to make her fall in love with him. The story wasn’t exactly like ours but the fact that it was about best friends, made me cry. I waited patiently to get a text from him till I fell asleep.
I was woken by a call. It was Stanley and when I picked up, he said, ‘Pearl, how are you? I’m sorry about what happened today.’ “Why is he sorry?” I said to myself. Then I said, ‘Stan, we both wanted it and we couldn’t resist the urge so we fell for it. So, please stop blaming yourself and like my mom said, we need to discuss what to do next. We need to define our relationship.’ He said, ‘yeah! You are right. But can we do that tomorrow? I don’t think it’s good to do it on phone. I have a lecture at 1:30, so I will be at your end at 9, so we can get the drug and talk about our relationship. Goodnight!’
I was secretly hoping to hear him say, “I love you” but he didn’t. But how did I expect him to even say that? He was confused and didn’t want to take any rush decisions. I just hoped in my heart that he will admit his love for me and ask me to be his girlfriend. I said a prayer to God after. This was my prayer:
“Dear God, how are you? Please don’t be mad at me for breaking the vow I made to you to stay chaste till I got married. Please forgive me and forgive Stanley as well. We didn’t plan it, we were tempted and we fell for it. Please forgive us Lord. And now that the harm has already being done, please soften his heart and make him ready to date me tomorrow. Please speak to him in a dream. Tell him that I’m the girl for him and that he can’t run away from the love he has for me so he should man up and ask me to be his girlfriend. God, please do that for me and I will be forever grateful. Thank you so much for an answered prayer. Amen.”
I believed in my heart that my prayer had been answered and in a few minutes I fell asleep.
As usual, my mom woke me up the next day and reminded me to get the drug and also study for my upcoming exams. She left afterwards and I checked my phone to see if I had gotten any message and there was none. I got up, went to the bathroom and washed my stained bed spread, and then I showered and sat behind my study desk. I was busily studying when Stanley called that he was at my gate and so I stopped and went to meet him. He didn’t want to come in and I understood every reason why. So, we walked to our junction to get the drug from the pharmacy.
As we walked, he asked how I was doing and how my mom was. I told him she was okay and asked him not to worry about her. We got to the junction and realized the sales girl at the pharmacy was someone we both knew and so we couldn’t go in to buy the drug. How were we going to stand in front of her and ask to buy an emergency contraceptive? That will make her know we had had sex and she would definitely tell other friends of hers who always assumed Stanley and I had something going on between us. So, we both agreed to go elsewhere to get the drug. We had to go to somewhere far from our neighborhood, where no one knew us.
We picked a cab and asked the driver to take us to the mall. The mall wasn’t that far from our neighborhood so going there was the only option we had if we didn’t want to meet anyone we knew at the pharmacy. We got to the mall and we got the drug. I was too shy so Stanley got it himself and then we went to get ice cream. There, Stanley began to talk about what we were going to do next.
‘Pearl, I don’t want us to rush into a relationship now. What we did was amazing but I want us to wait till we are sure we are both ready for a relationship before doing anything we might regret in the future. So let’s focus on your upcoming exams now and make sure you pass the papers. Thereafter, we can talk about us.’ What he said wasn’t what I wanted to hear. So I was disappointed but had to pretend; I had to be okay with it and so, I nodded and said, ‘fine.’ We took the ice cream and left after. We didn’t go home together from there, he had to leave for school and so I got a cab and he got his and when I got home, I cried. I cried because I thought God had disappointed me. I really loved him and wished he would k!ss me again. I had missed him already.
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