Chapter Ten – Energy Switches and Oh Moments

It all made sense now. Boateng had been denying his feelings for a long time. His parents’ divorce was eating him up but he wasn’t ready to deal with it. So, instead of facing up to it he had enveloped himself in this toxic cycle with Farida. Now that it was unraveling, he didn’t have anywhere else to bury himself. I felt sad that he thought getting high was what he needed to feel better.

I understand that in uni, getting high is like some kind of rite of passage. It’s one of those things that people tell you to do before you leave. I don’t agree though. It’s very problematic. At the risk of sharing spoilers, I will list a few.

First, you could literally go insane. Second, you have no regard for your own safety. A student once threw himself off a balcony while high. Fortunately, it was on the first floor and he escaped with a broken leg. That could have been so much worse. Third, you might say something you regret and finally, you will have no regard for the safety of others.

I could write a whole paragraph but I suppose experience will have to be the teacher.

As it turns out, Boateng had been lucky. A couple of the boys decided to go on a drive and ended up crushing into a tree on campus. All of them were alive but they were stuck in the hospital. We had no way of knowing how bad it was.

Boateng had completely forgotten the things he said the night before and I wasn’t sure the best way to bring it up. I guess I could go without talking about the whole Farida thing and focus on the real thing; his parents’ divorce.

I had managed to keep Mara’s secret under wraps for as long as possible. In a way I felt like I had betrayed Lara but I didn’t want to create more unnecessary tension in the group. Besides, the only thing that would result is that instead of Lara facing up to the fact that she was at fault, she would confront Mara and make her look like the victim.

I call this trick ‘the switch energy’. It’s simple. Nana Yaa never did anything to Lara and Kwame had been staying away. This meant that Lara had to sit in her guilt but in the event that she had someone to blame for all of this, she would channel her anger there so she wouldn’t have to accept being the bad person. The energy of shame would shift to Mara who would gladly welcome it.

I had constantly evaded conversations about how Nana Yaa could have possibly found out about the affair but today I couldn’t.

“Araba, I’ve been thinking about it. There’s no way Nana Yaa could have found out on her own. At first, I was thinking she may have read Kwame’s chats but I texted him recently and he said that he never left his phone around her. Which means someone must have told her. Who do you think it could be? The only people that knew were you, me, Kwame, Boateng, Carl and Mara. There’s no way it was Boateng or you. Who do you think it was?”.

My mind was racing. Should I tell the truth or should I not? Lara noticed my hesitance and picked up immediately that I knew. She demanded to know and I couldn’t lie. I told her it was Mara but I begged her not to say anything. Mara was friends with Nana Yaa and felt bad about the whole thing. I also told her how guilty Mara felt after snitching.

Lara didn’t say anything and just walked out. I knew she was mad at me for keeping this from her. Especially because I knew Nana Yaa knew and didn’t give her a heads up. I tried to explain that everything happened so fast and I planned to tell her after the party.

The switch energy activated. Now, I was feeling bad for something that in all honesty was Lara’s fault entirely.

I knew Lara was going to confront somebody but I was definitely surprised by who. She paid a visit to Kwame. He hadn’t even bothered to check on her throughout all this ordeal and it upset her more than Mara’s snitching. Even though she wasn’t afraid to check Mara, she wasn’t ready for that conversation just yet and she knew that the true villain in her book was Kwame. He was the one who made the first move and when she wanted to end things, he had pursued and begged her to continue and now he had completely ghosted her. She felt so used.

Kwame was a little shocked to find Lara at his door and many thoughts played out in his head. He knew her enough to know that the expression on her face meant she was beyond angry.

“When were you going to talk to me exactly?” Lara asked without hesitation.

Kwame stuttered. There really was no excuse for his behavior and what made matters worse was that he hadn’t actually planned to see her. The look of realization on Lara’s face was gut-wrenching.

In "Doctor Strange, the Multi-Verse of Madness", Wanda had this moment where she saw her children’s faces and realized that she was the villain. She was the big bad wolf. Her. let's call it an 'Oh' moment. This was Kwame’s 'oh' moment where he realized that he was the bad guy. If you ask me, it took him an unusually long time to do this. He should have known from the very first day this mess started that he himself, and no one else, was the devil.

Lara and Nana Yaa were the two girls he cared about most, but ironically, they were the ones he had hurt the most. I don’t think he really intended to use this realization to change his ways. At this juncture I would usually break into a long rant about how men are trash and the patriarchy is a nightmare. But reader, sometimes you just know that the problem isn’t men, the problem is humans in general.

We swear that we love someone and then proceed to make a series of selfish decisions that put the person through hell. At one point we need to ask ourselves, “do I actually love this person or do I like the feeling I get from this person?”. I think the only way to know the answer is to know if we’d be willing to stop doing things we like if it would make them happy. If we find that we cannot make the sacrifice then we ought to know we don’t really care about the person.

Okay, now that I’m done with my impromptu counselling session, we can proceed to talk about the main issue at hand.

Kwame fumbled for words and after searching through his vocabulary the only words he could say was “sorry”.

“Sorry?”. Lara was flabbergasted.

“I don’t know what to say except sorry. What do you want me to say?”

That was an excellent question. Lara was not prepared for it.

“I don’t know. Anything but this. You didn’t force me to do anything and so I can’t blame all that’s happening on you but you can call me to check on me at least. Ask me how I’m coping. I’ve been the topic of discussion throughout the entire hall for a while now and you haven’t even offered any form of support or asked me how I’m doing. I want to know why. Sorry isn’t good enough for me. Why did you do that?”

This is just a side bar, but I think these two would make amazing interviewers. They ask the questions that we want the answers to – the questions that the slickest PR teams never saw coming.

“I don’t know and I’m sorry. I wanted to give you space to sort things out on your own. Remember the last time we spoke you said you didn’t want anything to do with me? And I’ll be honest, I want to work things out with Nana Yaa as well so that’s where all my energy has been focused so far”.

Lara was not enthused about this news. Why was she upset that Kwame was trying to fight for Nana Yaa. That was his girl. She was his girl. That feeling of disappointment was the final confirmation she needed to know that she actually liked Kwame and even if they wouldn't put a label on their relationship, she at least wanted to have him to herself.

***

While that was happening, Boateng wasn’t quite done spiraling. I had planned to pass by his room to talk things through but his Snapchat story informed me that he was on a drive to God knows where with his boys. They were blasting obscenely loud music and those in the back had some bottles in hand. I only prayed to God that the bottle wasn’t being passed around.

About an hour later I got a call from Carl that Boateng had been in an accident.