I don't dwell on it anymore, but I certainly feel I could have handled the situation better. There's a popular saying that "20 children can't play for 20 years," and it's true. Not all childhood friendships are meant to advance into the future, and it's perfectly okay.
I had my first boyfriend in SS3, and it was a relationship built on real, pure, unfiltered communication. I wish we could bring back those days of "extra cool"; I'm sure some of us still remember it. Let's make a toast to the good old days, shall we? No offense, but the Gen Z's can't relate.
My boyfriend and I used to talk far into the early hours of the morning, and I usually ended up dozing in class after. I don't know if it was worth it or not, but sleep is a small price to pay for love. At least, I thought it was love then, but now, I'm not so sure.
Let me back up a bit. I mistakenly dialed a random number on a certain day, those days of multilinks phones and it was his; believe it or not, it was just pure coincidence. Even more coincidental was the fact that he graduated from the same secondary school I attended, as the head boy. Big flex, right? It was in those days, the days when your status was measured by your brain and not your TikTok or social media content.
Moving on, I had a seatmate named Rebecca, my childhood friend from way back in primary school; we were as thick as thieves. She was a boarder, and I was a day student. I used to gossip with her about him, how we always used to talk, how close we were, and so on. How deep into each other we had gone and so forth. Hold on, I don't mean the kind of deep you're thinking; I was so innocent and didn't have the practical experience of how the human private parts worked. Theory? I knew, thanks to biology, but practical? Dem no born me well, lol. Forgive my pidgin.
Whenever we quarreled over the phone or course, I used to update her, and we would joke about how nasty he was. Turns out the joke was on me. I had no idea that she actually knew him in person because he was a boarder too before graduation.
We had a big fight once, and I ranted to her as usual, insulted him, and made some embarrassing comments about his family and their funny surname. Wait, don't tell me you were expecting me to tell you the surname because I won't. smiles It's a really funny surname, a mixture of Ghanaian and Nigerian names.
Okay, so she called me in the middle of the night during the "extra cool" hours, and we resumed talking about him. I said all sorts of things, out of anger, of course, and told her I was breaking up with him the very next day. She subtly prodded me about the surname remark I made earlier, and I repeated it, to hell with him, I said.
I heard my phone beep, but I didn't pay any attention; I was ranting, I didn't bother to check. By the time I finished ranting and decided to take a break, I heard someone clear his throat. Guess who? Yes, it was him. The beep from my phone earlier was a notification that the call had become a conference one; she added him to the call, and he heard every single thing I said. Damn!
That was my very first experience of betrayal. I never spoke to her again, even though she tried to explain that she didn't know what I was going to say, and she added him to the call because she wanted to play mediator. I changed seats that morning immediately I got to school. "Rebecca, koni dafun e nibi to ba wa," translated from my Yoruba native dialect, to mean "Rebecca, you shouldn't have done that," lol. I know you know it, but I'm sticking to the community rules, ya get?
The most annoying part? When people noticed we stopped talking, probably cause she opened up about the issue to someone; everyone went with the narrative that we quarreled over a guy. That was silly for real, plus it was ludicrous and funny though I didn't find it funny then. I hated that label, but who would I explain my side to? Definitely not our mothers that tried to intervene and mend the friendship. None of us could tell why we quarreled and they eventually gave up after several trials.
The highlight of the story was, we made up, my boyfriend and I. Man literally begged me to get back together. I did because I loved him, and I wanted to spite Rebecca for whatever reason she chose to throw me under the bus.
Just last year, she sent me an invite to her wedding, and I replied in my native Yoruba dialect, "Ori e ti buru, tie ti ta," translated to mean "I won't be coming." winks I'm sure you got it.
I'm still not sure if it was a silly reason to cut ties with her or not, but maybe, just maybe, I should have given her the opportunity to redeem herself. We were childhood friends after all I don't know if a wrongdoing was a valid reason to throw away all our years of friendship and the sweet childhood memories we had.
Sometimes, I feel like I should have forgiven her and moved on, especially since the irony was, I didn't end up with the guy. He turned out to be a loser.
I didn't even congratulate her when I heard she delivered a baby. I didn't want to have anything to do with her. I have no issues with her baby; I love babies, but boya ko koshi danu, Rebecca I mean. Sorry, I won't be translating that one.
Anyway, it's been years now, and we have both matured as adults, a long way from the teenagers we used to be. The one thing I've never and would never come to terms with is betrayal. Or is it different in her case? I'm fairly certain I don't care.