I have always been a very self-conscious person. I am well aware of what is going on within me and around me, although it may not seem like it, but nothing could have made me self-conscious enough to know that my so-called friends ganged up against me to label me a thief at the start of my first year in school in the Department of Plant Biology.
I am a graduate of the University of Ilorin, and I started by getting into the department of Plant Biology. I spent my first year there and later redid an entry exam, which qualified me to start over in the Physiology department the next year. If you noticed from my previous stories, I seek friendships. As a person who sticks with whoever I am with, I give my absolute trust to my friends and expect the same in return.
I had three friends that you could associate with me that year. There was Abraham, Love, and Beauty. I chose to use their English names in this story to preserve their identity. Usually, I spend most of my time with Love and Beauty, as they are females. I didn’t want to be too close to Abraham because I didn’t want any sort of sexual attraction between us, as everyone seemed to be getting physical during that period. Despite this, we were still good friends.
On this particular day, it was the last day of school before the start of the Christmas holidays, and we had a few lectures in school. We three, Love, Beauty, and I, went out for lunch, and I spent all my money feeding myself without anything left to transport myself home with. Around 4 p.m., Love asked us to follow her to the bank to withdraw money that her sister had sent for her transportation from Ilorin to Akure the next day. I was happy and asked that she and Beauty help me out with some money for transportation home, and they agreed. We went to the Zenith Bank's ATM gallery to withdraw, and they both went in while I waited at the gate for them. After that, we went to a gathering where there was a talent show for the faculty of science students. We were there for a really long time and decided to leave school late, around 8p.m. On getting to the school park, there was no direct vehicle going to my part of town, and I had to join them in a bus that was going a shorter distance from school to a place called Tanke. I knew that I would be able to get home easily from Tanke.
We got into the back seat of a minibus, which could contain only three people, where I sat at one end and Love sat on the other end, with Beauty sitting in between us. I was happy, and we were all talking about how we'd spend our holidays and how we’d miss each other. Everything was fine until we got to their bus stop. We all alighted, and I stepped back for Love to pay.
‘I can’t find my money’, was what I heard next. I was like, ‘What? How did you do it?’ and then we started to search her bags and the bus as well with the aid of a flashlight, but we couldn’t find it. We could not find the entire amount of money she withdrew from the ATM gallery. I was still trying to think about how we would pay our transportation fare that night and how she would be able to go home to her family in Akure when I heard Love say, ‘Thief! Open your bag and let me search it!’. I was shocked because I had never thought about taking someone else’s things before. I hadn’t even set my eyes on this money since she withdrew it. Beauty turned to me as well and said, ‘If you didn’t take her money, let her search your bag’. I didn’t know what to do as my so-called friends and other passengers were staring at me. Embarrassed, I opened my bag and let them search, but they didn’t find anything in there. Beauty ended up paying our transportation fare and giving me enough to get home.
On getting home, I told my mum about the events that happened that day, and she asked me, ‘Where did you meet this sort of friends? Don’t you know you aren’t supposed to keep friends?’. I could only look at her, crestfallen. ‘After all you’ve been through in your childhood with your friends trying to hurt you, I thought you would’ve learned. It is still easier to get along with a male friend than a female friend. Female friends would lie to you and tell you that they have done something they have actually never done, just to get you to do it. They’ll plan to hurt you and betray you, and if you have a boyfriend, they will set him up against you or take him from you. Don’t let friends ruin your name, Seyi’, she chided me. I could only cry out of the pain of betrayal I felt.
The next day, Love called and threatened me to refund the money I stole; the amount was four thousand naira. I told her that I had nothing to refund because I didn’t steal anything from her. She kept calling me to threaten me for the next three days. My step-sister sent me three thousand naira three days after the incident to get myself something for Christmas. I called Love and told her clearly that I didn’t steal her money and that my sister gave me some money, so I’ll send her two thousand naira so she’ll be able to travel home to see her family and that she can look for the rest. I had done what I could as a friend.
I kept my mum abreast of all that was happening. On December 28th, at 8 p.m., I got a call from a strange number. I picked it up, and it was a man speaking to me. He told me to return the money and the MiFi, which I stole from Love, and if I didn’t, he'd hurt me and my family. ‘MiFi? What MiFi?!’, I shouted and cursed at him over the phone until he dropped the call. I was scared, worried, and relieved at the same time. I was relieved because I never brought friends home, nor did I tell them where I lived.
The same person called me again the next day at the same time, but this time my mum answered the phone, she cursed at him and defended me. After that call dropped, she dialed Love’s number with my phone and told her to stop threatening me, that her daughter’s not a thief, and that I’d proven myself many times and she could lay down her life to prove that fact. Love was quiet all through, and I stopped receiving calls from anyone as regards the matter from that moment on. I cried all through, and I was sad that I had to put my mum in such a position.
We resumed two weeks into the new year. When Love saw me, she whispered, ‘Thief!’. My heart skipped a beat because I thought we were past that. I decided to avoid both her and Beauty at the same time because none of them trusted me. That incident was probably planned, and I fell right into the traps they had set. I just stayed alone from then on and spent time with Abraham sometimes.
When our coursemates asked why Love, Beauty, and I weren’t talking anymore, I said nothing. Because there was no point to it. I am not a thief, and I don’t want people to think that I was one, nor do I want to paint my old friends in a bad light. It’s also why, until this day, I might seem close with my friends, but I can certainly say that it’s not that deep because I expect my friends to betray me at any time.