Chapter One – Side Chicks and Needy Boyfriends.

University; a place where children come to shame their parents, contract STIs, break hearts and occasionally bag a degree.

This is certainly not the beginning, but it's a pretty good place to start.

Lara and Kwame lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Kwame and his roommate had decided to switch their white lights for a yellow tinge because they are whores who never study. Lara spent several minutes staring at the lights before she leapt out of the bed. She pulled on her pants and picked her shirt from over the chair.

Kwame took that as his cue to also get out of bed and put some clothes on. “Where’s Matthew?” Lara asked, realizing he’d been gone for a while. “He’s gone to the library” Kwame replied. “Matthew, your roommate? He’s gone to the library?” Lara asked in shock. Kwame chuckled. “He has a test tomorrow I hear” Kwame replied.

Lara walked over to the mirror to check herself and straighten her hair. “Will you come for group study?” she asked while picking her phone.

“Yes. But I’m going to see Nana Yaa first”.

Lara quickly turned around so Kwame wouldn’t see her face contort. The sharpness of the turn was enough for him to know that she was upset and was trying to hide it.

“I’ll see you” she said without turning around.

Lara arrived in the room with a frown on her face. “How was Kwame” I asked. “He’s fine” she said, a bit too quickly. Her bag must have been begging for dear life as she slapped her books in there. I watched her quietly for a while. I knew why she was upset but it’s one of those things you don’t talk about.

We walked to group study in painful silence. I’m talkative, you see. Silence feels like such a terrible punishment to me. As we walked, Lara drowned herself in thought. Why was she upset? She had no reason to be. She didn’t like Kwame and she had made it abundantly clear that she was not looking for anything serious.

Alas, reader, feelings are like fire, it catches. You cannot mix bodily fluids with someone and not expect to mix emotions too. The only thing that is harder than not catching feelings is a good girl trying to change a bad boy. They are both hopelessly impossible situations to which we subject ourselves.

I deviate.

Kwame made the journey to his girlfriend’s room as he had done since they started dating. Nana Yaa opened the door in a see-through spaghetti sleeve dress that was a little too short. The cold air was not doing her any favors in protecting the contents of her chest. He did his best to keep his eyes on her face.

Immediately he entered the room, he was greeted with the heat and noise that often comes with a 4-in-a-room. One roommate was whispering on the bed with a guy, the other was fast asleep while the movie she was watching still played and the last one was on the balcony cooking, no, burning stew.

Nana Yaa took her seat at the corner of the bed, placed a pillow in front of her and picked up her phone. It wouldn't take a psychologist to know she was upset. Kwame took a seat at the other end.

“How are you doing?” he asked. Silly question. Men have an annoying way of beating about the bush when it comes to these things. It is so annoying. If you’re a reader of the male inclination, please stop this barbaric behavior.

“I’m fine” she replied. She intentionally didn’t ask back because she wanted to make a point that she was in fact upset.

“Are you upset?” he asked. Finally, he was asking the relevant questions. It was not much better but at least there was some progress.

“No.”

Obviously, it took three asks before she finally admitted that she was. Is it really a relationship if you don’t have this classic back and forth of terrible communication? I think not.

“Is this about what I asked you? Did you think about what I said?”

“Yes, and the answer is still no”.

“Nana Yaa, I’m a man. I have needs. That is why you are my girlfriend.”

“Kwame, are you serious?” she blurted at a volume that surprised the whole room.

The conversation was moved to the balcony and the stew burner was forced to commit her crimes against food elsewhere.

“Before we started dating, we talked about this. I’m a Christian girl and I’m not ready to be doing 'things'”.

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

“What sort of silly question is that? If I’m not doing anything and I’m still alive, so can you”.

“Yeah, but I’m a guy. It’s different, okay. I’m not even saying sex but like at least ‘stuff’”.

Nana Yaa’s eyes became watery. Kwame instantly regretted. Crying made him very uncomfortable.

“I really don’t want to do anything. Please don’t make this difficult for both of us”.

She burst into tears and retreated into a corner. Kwame stood contemplating. He did like her. He had struggled to get into a relationship with her and even though he knew she didn't want anything sexual, at the back of his mind, he thought she would come around.

He wasn't a bad guy. He was just human.

“Okay. I’m sorry” Kwame said while embracing her.

As she lay on her bed thinking, she was relieved. She was afraid that today’s conversation would end in a breakup but Kwame had been understanding and they would be fine. Sticking up for God was not so terrible after all.

I can’t tell if she was just naïve or downright stupid. A man who keeps talking about doing ‘stuff’ only accepts that he can’t do anything with you when he’s doing it with someone else. But here you are, being the butt of the joke and rejoicing that you are the joker. How funny. How sad.

*

Boateng and I had been friends since SHS. I always remember how we met. It’s one of my favorite stories actually.

It was a visiting back in secondary school and Lara took me to go meet her friend. I think her friend’s name was Henry or some other irrelevant name. It’s definitely not important to this story. There was this handsome boy standing next to Henry. He didn’t really talk, but my word, was he beautiful! That boy was Boateng.

When Lara had been writing to her friend, I decided to feature and write a note to Boateng. I am pretty, but my sense of humor is divine. He found the note funny and we wrote to each other often. As you can imagine, all the other girls were green with envy. Well, black people cannot be green so let’s say they were black with envy. We found out that we lived not too far from each other and so spent vacations together. We even went for those unnecessary SHS vacation classes where they don't teach much except bad morals.

I will admit that in the beginning, I thought romantic feelings would blossom but after talking, I realized a platonic friendship was better. Statistically speaking 90% of relationships in SHS, don’t make it out anyway.

I had been finishing an assignment when he knocked on the door. I could tell from the way he threw himself on my bed that there was some new relationship drama in his life. He and Farida had begun a relationship right after we were done with WASSCE and it was rocky to say the least. I think they had broken up at least twice and it had just been 6 months.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Farida is not talking to me o. I don’t know what I’ve done now. She said she didn’t like the way I was talking to her friend the other day. I don’t even understand. Today, she’ll say I’m mean to her friends. Then tomorrow, I’m talking to them too much. She’s so insecure.”

“Like the series” I joked. His face told me he wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“I’m sorry. Did you apologize to her though?”

“Yes. But she’s still not minding me and I saw from her snap that she’s gone out with her girls”.

Her girls. That couldn’t be good. Farida was a typical party girl and the two of them had met at an after WASSCE jams event. He had just ended things with his last girlfriend and so he wasn't in the mood to talk to any girls. Farida approached him and asked to dance. She was pretty, confident and interesting. Since Boateng couldn't be single for more than 2 seconds, the two of them started dating after two weeks.

He handed me the phone and I saw Farida screaming to some Burna Boy song with her two best friends. The next snap she was taking a shot and then shaking her bones, since she has no backside, to something from King Promise. I was certain that if she were to only bend over slightly, her Victorian secret would be on full display.

“Maybe you should call her. You know how she gets when she goes to these places. Call her and go pick her up.”

Boateng called six times but she didn’t answer.

I saw from one of her friend’s snaps that she was grinding on one tall gentleman. I couldn’t tell Boateng. I didn’t know how. I didn’t even have to; he had already seen it. He pursed his pretty lips in the way he always did when he was angry.

Farida was the type of girl to go big and never go home so we knew it wouldn’t be till 2am that she returned. Boateng fell asleep on my bed while I studied. At about 1am Lara burst into the room startling us both.

She was just coming from the kebab joint downstairs when she spotted Farida at the front of the hostel making a complete fool of herself.

When we got downstairs, my earlier suspicions about Farida’s skirt were confirmed while she struggled to stabilize herself. The tall gentleman was doing a very terrible job of helping her to walk.

“Boateng!” she squealed running over and throwing herself on him. She reeked of alcohol and Boateng turned his face away in disgust.

When I had decided never to drink, I was little and only did because my Sunday School teacher said we shouldn’t, but people like Farida and the countless other drunk university students, reminded me everyday just how terrible it could be.

Boateng was struggling to hold his anger in.

“He looks cute when he’s angry” Lara whispered into my ear. I felt guilty that I agreed.

“Farida, what is the meaning of all this?” Boateng asked angrily. It’s a wonder whether he expected an actual answer. His pause suggested that he did. Farida was far too drunk to give an answer. With the help of her friends, she was carried to the room and sobered up with a cold shower.

I have no idea why Lara and I followed Boateng there but we did.

“I saw you grinding on another guy at the club. What is that? Every single time we fight, you go and get drunk and do stupid things and then come and say sorry. Do you have any idea how stupid I look to my friends? It’s like ‘yo bro, do you know your girl is at the club doing this or that?’. We’re done okay. This disgrace is enough”.

Boateng stormed out of the room and Lara and I followed.

We were both wondering how long this breakup would last. It's interesting to watch someone's relationship drama but I can say first hand, it's not as interesting experiencing it.