It’s been seven months since Larry left, but the sting in my heart still feels like it was just this morning. Larry was Shan’s boyfriend and Shan was my former best friend. They had dated for over a year before we got together and our friendship went down the drain.
Honestly, I wish things had panned out differently. Not for my selfish gains, but for my sanity. Because losing my best friend and now, a boyfriend was too much to bear.
Larry was such an easy man, I guess that’s why Shan liked him because she could toy around with him as she pleased. I should have known this, the night we made out in the car.
“Joy? Are you okay?” He asked, rushing in to hold me.
“I’m fine. But you are a fine one. I’ve been meaning to tell you that”, I said.
“You are drunk. But thank you”, he said. His hands were shaky, and I could feel his heart beating.
“Do you have a crush on me, Larry?” I slurred.
“I don’t know why you’d think that, but you are a fine lady, just way out of my League”.
Such a coward. Such sentiments boil up my anger.
What league? How in the world did he rank women? I find it amusing that men have a calibre of women they prefer. What I can’t wrap my head around, is how these calibres are designed. Shelving these thoughts has kind of been the norm for me, but now, I wish I had evaluated the whole league issue before I got involved with Larry.
“Do you need me to help you to the car?” He continued.
“Sure. Then you can tell me why you think I’m out of your league”.
He chuckled, held me by my waist, so innocently, and I heard this heart drumming again.
He opened the rear door, ushered me in, closed the door and rotated to open the other door.
“Here, lay your head on these sweaters, let me get you some water, it’ll help”, he offered.
He was gently holding my head, trying to place it strategically on this sweater that was serving as a pillow.
When he turned to close the door, I held his hand, and faintly opened my eyes.
“Please stay”.
I had been very intentional about having a one-night stand that particular Friday. My therapist had advised I don’t get into any relationships just yet. Well, at least I was over my light-skinned, lying ex. He is the reason I went into therapy.
My sex toys got lost during my hectic moving-out process. My stepmother must have found them in my room when they were packing up and disposed of them. Still, I was glad that no one had brought up questions about them if at all they saw them. I wasn’t going to ask if anyone had seen them either, in case no one had seen them yet.
Larry was silent as if he was trying to number the beats in his heart too. I was sceptical about starting a conversation when in all sincerity, all I wanted was a night of pleasure.
He laid my head on his lap, and when I opened my eyes, he was looking at me. It was such a picture-perfect moment. Almost as an emotional connection, and in that moment, I wanted to feel something other than the resentment I shouldered for my lying ex.
I replayed the question in my head a couple of times before I finally uttered the words.
“Can I kiss you, Larry?”
There was an awkward silence. Our hearts beat rhythmically. A poet would have gushed over this moment, of how heavenly it was, but no, curiosity was surging up in my mind, and my eyes flickered a few hundred times, hoping that his answer wouldn’t jeopardize the beating in my heart.
He seemed terrified, almost as if I was asking him to do the worst, and I regretted it. Silently, he looked at me, through his thick lashes. He had the most defined, thick, dark lashes I’ve ever seen. His eyebrows were thick too, perfectly matching the innocence of his eyes every time they flickered open. At that moment, he looked, like a baby, so defenceless, yet, irresistible.
He looked out of the dark car windows as if trying to see if someone was watching, then back at me. Into my eyes, and then rolled his eyes at my body, lying shamelessly on the car seat.
His breath smelt like gin. He kissed me, slow and steady, and took his time, to feel the taste of my lips. This, his intentional touch is what opened this can of worms.
We lived close to each other, that’s after I moved back home to live with my parents. Life on my own had become unbearable. Between my therapist and the lavish lifestyle I had gotten used to, I soon was unable to pay some bills and had grown unproductive over the few months after the breakup.
Junior, my light-skinned lying ex, had me sharing tweets and threads by Nigerians of how men will show you shege. He had this unexplainable fetish for sex that involved chaining me up and having me beg for my life as he tortured me. At first, I thought it was sexy, extraordinary and movie-class type of shit, until the night he left him chained up in the bathroom, because he was angered over the new tattoo we got with my girlfriends, and I didn’t consult him.
My days at the therapist were full of tears, because every day, I realized how he had been emotionally abusing me without my knowledge. How, my abuser, was the man I called home. He belittled me. Every time I didn’t rise to the occasion and get freaky as he wanted, he’d compare me to some of the girls he had been with, all of whom were better than me by the way.
So when Larry came into the picture, pampering me up, respecting me and consciously asking for my consent before getting into anything, he made away with my heart. For two months, we had this whirlwind romance going on, and neither of us thought to ask about my friend, and his girlfriend Shan. Personally, I was too afraid to lose what was going on, so I hid in silence, dreadful of the day it would be shattered.
“What are you guys doing here?” It was Shan.
“Hey! Do you maybe want to join us?” I asked, trying to act calm.
“Hell yeah! Somebody make me understand why you are here, eating pizza, smiling ear to ear, without me”, she said, placing her handbag on the table.
Larry seemed unbothered as if we just hadn’t been caught, and I felt like he was throwing me under the bus.
“We are just chilling, Shan. I ran into him at the cashier’s and we thought we could grab some pizza together”, I lied.
“You know you just lied right?” She asked.
“Look at your nose, sweaty. Or do you think I don’t know you, my friend?”
I was quiet.
“You’ve been off the radar, and Larry has been acting all weird. Is there something I need to worry about? “
There was another awkward silence.
“Doris? Should I worry about you, probably dating him?” Her eyes were fixated on me and my voice stuck in my throat. No words could escape.
“We’ve been seeing each other for close to two months now, Shan. Two or slightly more. I wanted to tell you, but I thought your girl should”. Larry’s calmness while he broke this to Shan pierced through my heart. I felt awful.
Her eyes were fixated on his lips, reading them, as if his voice was faint. She stayed like this, for about three minutes and more, then asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Shan directed the question to Larry.
“You were a rebound, Shan. I thought we made it pretty obvious. You helped me out of a dark place, and we had fun here and there. We both know it was never serious”, he responded.
“Never serious? Are you kidding me?” Her voice was loud and shaky.
“Don’t be dramatic please, we are in public”, he said.
“Shan, can we please talk about this later? Just not here?” I asked.
“Didn’t you think you asked me first before you jumped into bed with my man?” She screamed and it drew attention to our table.
“Did you tell her that you kissed Bella too?” She asked, disgustedly looking at Larry.
“That’s my business Bella, and can you please stop creating scenes over here?” He replied, agitated.
“Bella?” I was surprised.
Shan picked up her bag noisily and hurriedly walked out. I was enraged, I wanted to know why he had kissed Bella, mine and Shan’s friend. Why he never mentioned it, and why had he dated three friends in the first place?
“Bella, just like you, made a move on me. We just hung out a few times, we were just having fun, it was never serious”. I should have spat on him, but I proceeded to ask a pretty stupid question.
“Do you regret it? At all?”
“No. Not exactly. Bella and I were just hooking up. She really didn’t care about whatever we had going on, she must have mentioned it to Shan, in an attempt to stop her from getting into it with me”.
” And why, didn’t you tell me that you have slept with my two best friends?”
“You’ve never asked until today. Besides, it’s not like this will last either”.
My heart almost drummed out of my chest.
“What do you mean Larry? Haven’t we pretty much been treating this as a serious relationship? ” I asked, tears forming in my eyes.
“I know, and trust me, I love you, but this can’t go on, even though I would love for it to.”
“Larry, could you please make sense of your words? For Christ’s sake!”
“I leave for the States on 24th June, that’s early next week. My visa was approved, finally. I hate to break it down to you like this”.
“Larry what the heck! Why in the world would you date three best friends? “
“No. It’s just you and Shan, with Bella it was a little fun”.
“That makes it even worse”.
“It was not intentional, Doris. Shit happened”.
“And by shit you mean? Are you acknowledging that you are a shitty human?”
“Why? What? No!” His responses staggered in with realization after every question he asked himself.
“It’s messy that I was going to leave without telling you, but dating all three of you? That’s on you girls”.
“What?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be friends?”
I detest him to this very second.
I Made My Girlfriend Quit Her Job And Then Dumped Her After I Found Out She Was Cheating
She Discovered That Her Boyfriend Was Cheating And Taught Him A Lesson
My Girlfriend Confessed To Liking Another Man And Cheating On Me
A Destination Wedding Turned Chaotic After His Estranged Wife Showed Up
My Close Friend Incited My Husband To Divorce Me
My Best Friend Used Me To Test Her Boyfriend And It Ruined Our Friendship
I Knew He Was Cheating On Me Which I Confirmed After Watching The Other Girl’s Instagram Stories
