I had this girl friend that I loved and the way that I carried her matter on my head, I have not even carried my siblings own like that. I have shared her story on my blog a couple of times but this prompt from the clean planet community about being betrayed by a loved one just took me back memory lane.
Her name is Mary and I met her during my service year. You see, Mary used to be the sweetest girl that I know and people tend to take advantage of her sweetness. One thing with me is that I hate to see people being bullied or oppressed. Being that Mary is from the northern part of Nigeria where the collective character, behavioural pattern and mindset of the people residing there or from there is humility, other corps members tend to want to use Mary's humility as an opportunity to get her to serve them in the most condescending of ways. There was a time one corp member had her boyfriend over and subjected Mary to house girl duties. Mary was cooking and doing their laundry till I found out and put a stop to it. Or was it when she was being bullied by her roommates who exhausts her toiletries and foodstuffs leaving Mary stranded and turning her to a beggar in order to feed and care for her hygiene before our next allowance comes in from FG?
I was always standing up for Mary and sticking my neck out for her, this earned me a lot of enemies and almost cost me my NYSC discharge certificate. At one time, I got in a fight with Mary's roommate over how they treated her and I almost got dismissed from service. In that fight, I got a scar and would have been killed because the girl came with really sharp scissors, that's much sacrifice I made for Mary.
Fast forward after our service year, she would reach out to me every now and then for financial assistance. I was still trying to get on my feet financially but I would always share the little that I have with her. When she resigned from her job because her boss was making advances at her, I was always sending her a part of my earnings till she got another job.
Sadly, when I got framed and went broke from exhausting all my finances at the time in clearing my name legally, Mary could not be there to comfort me like I have done for her all the years we have known. She stopped taking my calls and never called back as promised. Few times I begged her for five thousand Naira to get on by, all she gave me was empty promises. At a point I let her be and she just went ghost.
I shared my experience with Mary on connect and earn hosted by Pandax on twitter by Starstrings and he advised me to reach out to her because I never can tell what she herself must be going through. I listened and reached out to Mary. I called and she still wasn't picking so I texted her informing that I'm just looking out for her if she's ok. She finally called and told me she's been sick and has been out of work. I felt bad about how harshly I had judged her but still Mary felt distant and had this undertone of attitude going on as she communicated with me but I chose to ignore it. I asked her what's wrong with her and she told me that she's not in the mood to talk, informing me that she needs to rest and bade me goodbye.
Regardless of how distant Mary related to me, I kept reaching out to her via text since she rarely wanted to speak with me. Little by little, Mary started opening up and also warming up to me. One evening, I was home relaxing when her call came in, I picked and we spoke for hours. That call changed everything and how I saw her because in that call she told me how her boyfriend dumped her after all she did for him. From that call I learned that at the same time I was struggling financially and asked my friend Mary a few times to help me out with five thousand Naira, she was busy lavishing and pumping money on her boyfriend. My friend couldn't help me with a sum as meagre as five thousand Naira but she was paying for her boyfriend's car repair amounting to two hundred thousand Naira. I felt really hurt and betrayed because I would never do that to her but you know, I took it as life because people will most times not treat you as good as you treat them. I let bygones be bygone and we remained friends but I already had another girl close I was giving my attention to and this angered Mary.
So one day, we had a quarrel on WhatsApp because she felt I didn't have her time and was always thinking that my WhatsApp status is targeted at her. Mary felt that I replaced her with the new girl. I quickly brought to her notice that the new girl was there when she wasn't, I got really irritated with her confrontations and I asked her to stop, else I'll block her but she wasn't stopping. She got even more insulting and dared me to block her. She said to me, go on, block me after all friendship is not by force. Without thinking twice, I blocked her from all social media platforms and that was the end of our friendship. I had no regrets you know, just lessons. Despite how Mary and I ended, I will not hold it against any other person that I come in contact with.
Above is my response to the Inleo prompt from the clean planet community hosted by @nwothini335. You can participate in the Inleo prompt here and visit here to participate on the clean planet biweekly prompt.
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