She’s just my BFF
Wangeci left the room so heartbroken. How could she be so stupid? How could she have fallen in love with him? Was he fake all along. She had believed him when he said he loved her. When he kept spoiling her. She remembered him now with a new resentment.
They had been classmates for more than five years. Meeting him again was so exciting. He had grown cuter than before. She had never liked him before but seeing him now brought new possibilities her way. This could be the start of something new. She always moved fast so before long they were dating. They were the perfect couple and she felt so happy to know she was dating him. He was the ultimate catch.
There was one catch though. He had a girl best friend. “Why does this bother me so much?” she always wondered. But, feeling bad about it did not make it easier for her. She still hated that little reality. “We are just friends,” he kept explaining, “there is nothing going on between us.” How she wished she totally believed it.
Wangeci was yet to learn the hard way to always trust her gut. She was happy in the relationship though. She liked how they constantly called each other on the phone. That warm constant assurance that someone gave two f**ks about her. The comfort that he was on her side. It was great. She had risked sneaking from home twice to go meet him at their place. There was nothing that felt more adult to her.
“I love you so much Wangeci!” he had written to her on their first Valentine together. It was the first Valentine that ever mattered to her as it was the first one she had someone to be lovey-dovey with. “Every February you will be my Valentine,” is what she had written back feeling like Katy Perry’s song was talking about them. She also keenly noticed how he shrugged this aside and had not focussed on it.
There were a few red flags she decided to ignore. They were not all about his best friend though. “Stop talking to that boy,” he ordered her one day, “I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.” “Why the hell would I do that?” she remembered saying angrily, “He is my friend.” It was one of the biggest fights they had had. More fights were to come.
The last fight came up. She couldn’t remember what it was about. He was about to go to college a little earlier than her. They had been disagreeing a lot during those days. Had they been scared of the upcoming distance between them? They had argued a lot that last day. In retrospect, she would wonder if all those issues were engineered so she would snap and end things with him. Of course, it was what he had planned. She would come to learn later how cowards of men would try to piss a woman off intentionally just so that little by little they get a way out.
“I was friends with her before I met you!” she remembered his words clearly, “I knew her longer than you.” The words had crushed her into pieces. How could he say that to her? After all, they had been through? It was her longest relationship. She had no idea that life had just started and more crazy was bound to hit her. “Maybe we should end things!” the words shuttered her. He had broken up with her.
She was so heartbroken and she cried a lot those days. “Why are you crying Wangeci?” King’ori her little brother asked her when he found her sobbing in her room. “Don’t tell mother!” she warned. She couldn’t imagine how her mother would react to the news that she was crying because of a boy. “Boyfriend” was not a term entertained in their household. It took her a long time to heal her broken heart. She was determined to be okay somehow. She soon started exploring her options with the boys who were hitting on her. It made her feel wanted and worthwhile. However, this never helped. She began to get okay. One day she was okay and on top of the world and the next, she would fall into the same rut of feeling lonely and longing for him. Every break-up song somehow spoke about them. Pink would not have gotten a better time to release “Just give me a reason”.
She had gone to buy a book to write notes for a fellowship she was attending. There he was standing by the counter. He had been selling at his family bookshop. She had no idea he was still in town and that he would run to him. She bought the book and remembered him saying hi to her and asking how she was. “I have been good,” she said as she left the room holding back tears from falling down. Her life had become this. How could a single person have so much power over her? She remembered crying profusely when she had gone back to her sister’s office.
She remembered the number of times she had tried to make him jealous. Wangeci would smile thinking about it. How stupid she had been.
She would then fall in love later. The new love was so pure and great. It made her forget all the messes of her past. All the bad guys. She was glad that even her exes were now a distant memory.
The BFF boyfriend had later on contacted her. Telling her how sorry he was and how much he regretted his actions. Weren’t human beings just funny? How would they thrive for validation by pushing people away just for their sheer insecurity and immaturity? How they easily pushed someone away and when they think they are needed they even push them further? How it hurt them when the person ignored them entirely? He had told her how he had contracted a chronic disease and for that reason could not risk passing it on to her. Just how stupid did men pick women for? The thought of it always fascinated Wangeci. Who sells in a shop streaming in with customers and then claims they dumped their girlfriend because they risked them contracting the infection the had? Of all illnesses TB?
She decided not to pay attention to it whatsoever and like many of the nuisances in her life blocked him. She was happy now. Her life was exactly how she wanted it to be. There was nothing better in the world.

