Chapter Fifty-Two – Did You Miss Me?

Dear Reader,

Hello. Did you miss me? I am sorry I have been away so long. I cannot promise to be better but I promise things get juicier. Now I know human beings are such fickle creatures and for this flaw I have made provision. Before I tell you, what is to come, I must remind you of things that have been.

First, we know Kwame and Lara had been hooking up even though Kwame was in a loving, though sexless, relationship with the holy Nana Yaa. Then this truth was exposed by Mara and their worlds came crushing down. By some heroic intervention the two found their way to each other and made things official. All was well until certain questionable sexual preferences led to unwanted consequences and an abortion later, their relationship reached its effective conclusion. Lara’s parents cut her off financially and so she rekindled things with a previous financier – what we call a sugar daddy, Peter. Meanwhile Kwame asked if they could be friends again. Here we go again, I suppose. No one is learning.

Then there’s Boateng the promiscuous Casanova. That does seem like a bit of tautology but I am only seeking to amplify the severity of his condition. Boateng’s parents’ marriage descended into the depths of hell, ergo it ended; as do most marriages in this age. He handled it poorly and attempted to profess love to me even though he didn’t feel that way. It caused a rift in our friendship. Then he started to hop and skip with Marilyn until that fell through and as if that wasn’t enough, he thought he might become a father. All is well that ends well. It was a false warning and Boateng reasoned to start counselling and sort through his issues. Then he declared that he loved me which caused serious problems in my relationship.

Then there’s Mara. Mara failed a paper as do several university students. What’s new? She got into a sexual harassment situation with the lecturer that ended in seeming victory for her. Except her parents thought it was in her best interest to send her to a Christian university. 

Carl besides having a mouth too big for his own good is relatively drama free. Except he met a fresher named Angela and maybe he will be exploring his musical prowess soon.

Then there’s me, the main character, lest you forget. I had been going sturdily with my future husband Sly for a good minute now. Well, things were going great until I got insecure and asked him to have sex with me. He said no. We worked through that and things were great. All until Boateng became too much of a problem for Sly and so the ultimatum was given to me to choose either Boateng or him. Obviously, I chose Sly and so Boateng and I parted ways much to my chagrin and discomfort.

Sly run for president and won but the election was petitioned. Sly was still to be sworn in as president in spite of the petition and I was preparing to take my Michelle Obama role quite seriously having expressed interest in heading my own committee.

Now here’s the kicker. Last time I saw you guys, we were in the first semester of second year. Well surprise; it’s third year baby! Now you might be wondering, how? Well, a girl is living in the real world, okay? So now let’s bring you up to speed in this new forth season which is really a fifth season but that doesn’t matter.

 Where to begin? Okay. Let’s start from my favorite storyline, Lara. Well, Lara got into a whole mess with Peter who turned out to be a manipulative scumbag. That’s really not shocking as no well reasoning twenty-six-year-old would want to be involved with a nineteen-year-old. I know y’all are mad I said so but I did.

If there’s one thing an older man can smell, it’s desperation and Lara smelled like a whole lot of it. Peter took advantage of this. You see for a long time he had been stuck in the realm of occasional beau. He was not the one calling the shots. He took the crumbs that Lara gave and said thank you with a nice smile. With Lara’s parents cutting her off though, the power dynamics shifted. He was now the one saying when and where and boy did he have a good time doing so.

I mean he was searching through her phone, demanding that she cut people off, confronting certain men in her life, withholding financial aid at the least sign of resistance and doing the absolute most. I mean it was crazy from jump but it got crazier when he tried to make her cut ties with me and the rest of the crew and then locked her up in his house during the Christmas vacation, refusing to let her go out.

I have faced scary things with friends before but that terrified me to the core. I mean this guy had my friend locked up in his house with no access to a phone. In all my years on this earth, which really is not a lot, I have never seen such abuse happening in real time.

We panicked so much that I had to tell my mum. My mum told my dad and he sent some “boys” to go pick up Lara so she came live with me through the Christmas vacation.

Her sister eventually learned about how truly terrible things had been and came in to support Lara – her parents wish be damned.

Kwame felt personally responsible for the whole mess and rightfully so. I mean he was so bothered by the whole affair that he joined Nana Yaa’s church and started playing the drums there. We all thought it was not really going to take – the whole church boy gimmick, I mean, but to this day, Kwame continues to play the drums in church.

I mean he proudly posts pictures of himself at church and even posted one picture with his pastor. The caption read “Thank you to my father for all the guidance”. Granted it was a WhatsApp status update that vanished after twenty-four hours but nevertheless this was too bold a statement and it had carried on for too long to be a joke.

I am indeed happy for Kwame. I have always said he needs Jesus. To be very truthful, I do feel a bit envious of him now. I used to be the reasonable one in the group but now I have been dethroned. I mean he doesn’t drink when we go out. He doesn’t smoke or womanize. He’s just better.

Boateng and I reconciled, thankfully. Boateng helped uncover the plot to destroy Sly’s presidency and the two boys developed a mutual respect for each other. Sly and I promised each other full transparency and so he started to trust me again. Lara’s situation with Peter also helped him to see that he didn’t want to be the boyfriend that called the shots on who I could be friends with.

It was such a beautiful moment when we had that open conversation and determined what we wanted our relationship to look like. We were sitting under one of the benches at the hostel compound under the starlit sky. He looked deeply into my eyes and said “I want this to be a forever thing and that means I need to trust you and I do. If you want to be friends with Boateng again, then I want that too”.

I loved that man.

Boateng and I were back to what we once were – good friends. There was no mixed emotion or mixed feelings there and throughout the exam season of the first semester and the entirety of second semester, things were so good it was scary.

Then there’s Mara. Jean managed to get Mara into the right rooms and give her a platform as a sexual assault survivor. I mean the PR was so strong this girl traveled to the US for a speaking engagement. Now with all this in mind, Mara’s parents quickly dropped the idea of transferring her to a Christian university given that it was lesser known and generally not in her best interest in respect of her new advocacy career.

I’m particularly excited about Carl’s story. So, Carl recorded a song with Angela’s uncle as producer and the song blew up everywhere. He was now granting interviews and performing at big concerts. All through the Christmas vacation, it was just us hoping from one Carl concert to the next. The same thing continued for the long vacation too.

Now obviously, with everything happening and on such a large scale, best believe the group study fell through and most of us were barely studying. I don’t need to remind you, dear reader, that we are students of course. So, as you can imagine, within the group were several failed grades. Wait, that’s a gross exaggeration.

Lara went through so much psychological warfare that it only stood to reason that she would have to resit two papers. Carl too was now so busy being a superstar that he had three. Mara was not going to be the proverbial fool so she and I sailed through with excellent grades and so did the new saintly Kwame and Boateng.

Now, reader, here comes my story. As I mentioned earlier, Sly and I sorted through our issues beautifully. We always did. He appointed me as head of the publicity committee and together we were the IT couple of the Economics department. I helped him with his presidency and he helped me with my grades and all was so perfect. Well, until it wasn’t.