Rafeed Chowdhury
It keeps your mind off troubles, though voluntarily. It drives away that stress you have been carrying around for a while. Most importantly, it gives you that inner delectation that you can hold on to. These are the common expressions which went to my ears when I even tried to slightly listen to justifications from people so addicted to tobacco. Anyways, this story is not sponsored by any cigarette manufacturing firm or whatsoever. This is not a love story. This is a story about silence.
I am Sakib Samee, a methodical loner. I apologize for uncanny start.
Recently it has been bugging the hell out of me. Her behavior. Her activities. Her everything, towards me. Oh by the way, I am talking about my best friend, Afia. I swear, I am not in love. Neither am I friendzoned.
Ever since grade 2, we have been best friends. Starting from the fight against every other classmate to choose the seat right beside her, to stealing food during lunch break, she was everything I ever had. In the era of Facebook memories, she was the diary I spoke my heart out to without any hesitation. And everything we had, dissolved with the snap of a fingers as a son of a delicate bitch entered her life. Farshed.
Let me cut it to the chase, I got replaced. (Wow it rhymes)
It was just another morning full of struggles to get out from underneath the blanket. That moment when you know that you can’t miss the classes even though if you are about to die, is the worst. You forcefully fight against yourself to get rid of the sleepiness. And then, when you finally think that you are about to meet the closest person to your heart, all of that wrath disappears. And so I entered the campus, and set my eyes on my soulmate, my best friend, Afia. The picture perfect scene got distorted as I noticed Farshed fucking Farshed beside her.
“Are you free after the management class?” I asked her.
“I am. What do you have in your mind?” she asked. Afia would raise her eyebrows, and the very next second lower it and immediately raise it again, when she asked me something.
“Movies?”
“No need”, the son of a bitch interrupted. “Finish your classes, go home, and rest.”
Now she was dominated by her ‘king’ so much, that I could not even watch a movie with my best friend. I asked her for a movie and he acted like I asked her for sex. And my Afia would disappear, without even grasping on to the fact that she replaced me.
I never complained about her having a boyfriend. Never will. (Actually I will, I am a hypocrite). But why replace me? Why can’t we practice soccer every evening? Why can’t we watch El-Classico matches together anymore, like the times we used to pray that Barcelona loses? Why can’t we take a huge bite out of each other’s food and not be ashamed of it? Maybe I was just overthinking.
I went home, took a nap, and put on a Arctic Monkey playlist while entering my Sherlock mood, so I could analyze things up a bit on my mind. But I was sure of the fact that there was no effing way that I was in love with her. I tried to be mature and finally, I convinced myself that maybe I am just hating Farshed for no reason, and she should get enough time to give to her boyfriend. And I knocked her like I was not even slightly agitated with her avoiding actions.
Me : Whaddup
Afia : Dude you gotta read this book- ‘They both die at the end’.
Me: What’s it about?
Afia : Later. This is Farshed. She will talk to me now over the phone and then go to sleep. Take care.
Now there were three people who had access to her account. She. Her boyfriend Farshed. And Mark Zuckerberg.
Later, I cursed myself for being fake and believing that I don’t hate Farshed. There was no more Afia I could do my class assignments with. There was no more Afia who would do my hair like a girl, and then take a picture and post it on Instagram. There was no more Afia who would say, “I’m here for you buddy.”
If you have read so far, you are either of these two people- 1) How badly is this guy friendzoned? 2) Dude why can’t you be happy for your best friend?
For people thinking number 2, dear piece of shit, what was the fucking use of all the growing up together? So I could give her hand to someone else who won’t even let me talk to her? What about all the memories? So I could listen to someone else making decisions for her? It’s hard when your friend replaces you with someone else. But it’s harder when your friend is happy after replacing you.
Amidst the set of the daily sufferings, there was this one last particular incident I will never forget. I came early for the statistics class, and saw that she came early too. And it was just us in the empty classroom. She smiled at me, like in those high school times, where we used to come early and write stuff on the board before the teacher comes. She patted on the seat beside her, indicating that I sit there.
“Hi.” I smiled.
“Hey” she smiled back.
“What have you been up to?”
“We are going to London for our masters together.” And that was the moment she fired a bullet at me. My clouds broke as all the thunderstorm fell onto the ground, causing catastrophe.
“Oh be right back, I got to fix my hair.”
You will probably make fun of me in your mind after reading this, but that was too much for me to tolerate. And at that point, two things were leaving me and letting go- Afia, and my tears. I felt like a one tree hill fan girl who cried over this simple thing instead of being happy for his best friend. After washing my face like a million times, I returned to my classroom, and realized that the class had already begun, with the room full of people. It took me a few seconds to notice that my bag was lying on the ground instead of the seat where I kept it (because Farshed motherfucker was sitting there instead of taking my permission to remove my bag. But it took me less than a second to take the decision of what I was about to do next.
I went near the back of his seat, grabbed the lower stretches of the chair, and pulled it while watching him fall like an idiot. The whole class stared, silently observing the loathe I had for him. As Farshed quickly got up, removing the specs from his face and preparing to hit me, I pushed him, took my bag, looked at my Afia for one last time, and left. Probably one of the weirdest last classes ever.
It was the end. The end of a friendship, the end of believing that there will always be that someone who will be there for you. A special fuck-you to those of you who are thinking that “You should really get a girlfriend”. No girlfriend, or nothing in the world can be compared to my Afia. She was my best friend. She will always mean more to me than any friend ever.
Several years later, I was typing an e-mail at my workplace when I noticed an unknown number calling me. After refusing to pick up the first three times, I finally picked up. It was Afia’s cousin Yasmin.
“Okay then, I am texting you the location of the hospital. I will let the doctors know that you have AB Positive blood. And hurry up, Afia is in labor.”
I cared about nothing at that point. All that frustration and disappointment for Afia vanished. I got into my car, folded my sleeves, already prepared to give blood, and imagined what my Afia would look like so many years later. Even though she replaced me, I could never, in a million years, do that to her. My Afia. My best friend. My everything. My Afia. She was my tobacco. Strongly addictive, hard to leave.
