I Should Have Ignored That Message in the Group Chat

I met Akos in our class group chat. Everyone ignored her message. I almost did too, but something in me refused. She was lost, confused, behind in everything. I didn’t know that one small act of kindness would drag me into a storm I never saw coming.

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From the moment we met, she drew me in without trying. She had reported late to school in our first year, clueless about labs, clueless about lectures, and somehow, she trusted me instantly to take her through and I did too. We studied together for a quiz she didn’t even know existed. Soon after, I started walking her home after class. It became normal, though it shouldn’t have.

Akos sat next to me in class. She held my hand after lectures like it belonged to her. She rested her head on my shoulder during study nights. People whispered, teased, gave us nicknames. That should have been my sign to stop. But I didn’t. Because Akos was my addiction.

When exams came, she studied at my place. One afternoon, after a paper, she slept beside me. She looked so peaceful, so innocent. I fell asleep too. When I woke, her hand was on mine. Her eyes met mine, and everything I’d been holding back broke. It felt like a scene from a movie—slow motion, her eyes like heaven, her lips soft. I couldn’t resist. I touched her gently, looked into her eyes again, and kissed her.

After that, there was no going back. I confessed, I was shy but very honest: “Akos, I like you.” She smiled and said she liked me too. From then, it felt right when people teased us.

But soon, I noticed she was always on the phone. Long calls filled with laughter, private jokes, soft voices. She told me it was “just someone disturbing her.” Yet whenever he called, she made keep quiet so that he didn’t know she had company. She even lied to him that she was alone.

By second semester, my Akos had changed. She became jealous of every voice near me. She would accused me, doubted me, watched me like I was the cheat, when she was the one disappearing at night.

Her uncles lived close to her hostel, and she often visited them late. One evening, I caught her returning with a guy beside her. She said she was helping him with herbal medicine, something she knew because her father was a herbal doctor. But instead of explaining, she tried to provoke me. Later she called, saying she had gone out to “find a girl” for me. I told her I had gone out to look for one myself. I know my reply wasn’t one she saw coming, because she was audibly shocked.

Then her old iPhone stopped supporting WhatsApp. So, she went home, got a new phone, and came back with a new attitude, suddenly attentive, suddenly sweet, suddenly wanting my eyes on her again. As if she was trying to erase everything.

I do not know if it is was my mother’s praying working or what but oneday she told wanted to confess something. She had a boyfriend before she met me. When she went home, she found out he had been talking to another girl, and now they were having problems, hence her change in behaviour towards me.

So all this time I was… what? A distraction? A replacement? A bandage for wounds I didn’t cause?

Is There A Perfect One Out There For Everyone?

It crushed me. She drained my mind, my energy, my peace. But, in the middle of all that chaos, she helped me pull through the semester when I was at my lowest. And that’s the worst part, because I feel indebted to her too.

Because I still love her.

She is using her woman prowess to get me back, but every time I look at her, one question burns in me:

Some days I really wonder… was any of this real, or was I just another thing she told herself so she wouldn’t fall apart?

–Kudjo

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