I Lost A Friend, Lost My Side Chick But Saved My Marriage

Blaque was the guy I called a friend. If you asked anybody who my friends were, even my parents, they would call Blaque’s name first before they look up to the skies trying to figure out who the rest were. We were the Siamese twins who were unfortunately birthed by two different parents. Two peas in a pod, a candle and its wick, a nightingale and its song. On my wedding day, he wore the same suit as mine, stood by my side and walked me through the process of my wedding as the best man. My wife refers to him as my twin brother.

Apart from the friendship we shared, being with him was therapeutic. Blaque wouldn’t judge me. He won’t tell me I was wrong or right. He won’t even try to tell me what I should have done better. He was that guy who would listen to my story and ask, “So what are we going to do about it?” Even if I killed a person and narrated the story to him, he would ask me the same question, “So where do you think we should bury him?” To him, everything is about us because we were two peas in a pod, a nightingale and its song.

One day, Agatha came along. My marriage was only five months old. I told Blaque, “Charley there’s this girl ooo. She’s all over my space and I think she’s inviting me to hit on her.” He asked me, “Is she fine?”

“Oh, she’s gorgeous. The kind of girl you’ll see and think of me.”

“So what are we going to do about it? If we don’t take care and madam sees it yawa oo.”

“How would she see it? Would you tell her?.”

One day I took Agatha out. Blaque was with us. I introduced them and both of them started hitting it right from there. They talked as if they had known each other forever. When I couldn’t afford to take Agatha out on a date, I asked her to meet me at Blaque’s place and she always did. Two friends became two friends with baggage. Agatha was the baggage.

My wife got a hint of the relationship between me and Agatha. She didn’t come straight at me. She was sulking. She was keeping to herself. She was telling me something wasn’t right. I asked her what the issue was and she went straight to the point. “Who is that girl on your phone that you’ve been talking to every day and chatting with every night?”

She had been through my phone but fortunately for me, I deleted messages so what she saw that day wasn’t conclusive. I asked, “Who? Agatha?” and then I laughed. “You’re catching a cold because of Agatha? You have Blaque’s number. Call him and ask about Agatha and he’ll tell you everything. Just call him.” She sighed. “I knew that’s what you are going to say. I knew you would bring his name in because he’s the one who will rescue you from this.”

It got to a time it became very difficult to talk to Agatha or see her. She would miss my call and won’t call back. She would answer my text sporadically and give me excuses constantly. I sensed the change and asked if there was another man in her life. She answered, “Yes, there’s someone I’m seeing but we just started.”

My heart broke into pieces but it wasn’t her fault. It was part of the arrangement that when she meets someone she should tell me. I asked, “So what do we do?” Her answer was, “I don’t know. It’s all up to you.” I asked, “Does it mean I can continue hanging around until you’re sure?” She answered, “If only it wouldn’t worry.”

She kept giving me excuses but I was determined to hang around. I had a wife yet having relationship issues with someone else’s girlfriend. I got angry easily. I kept to myself often. My wife was asking questions and was thinking I was facing issues at work.

One Saturday evening, out of anger, I decided to go to Agatha’s place and look for her since she wasn’t picking up my calls. I got there and saw Blaque. It didn’t sit well with me but I could understand his reason for being there. He was in the vicinity and decided to say hello to her. I didn’t doubt his loyalty until it happened thrice. The third time, I was with her when I saw Blaque calling her phone. I picked up the phone and the first word he said was, “Babe!”

“Blaque, this is not Agatha but why do you call her babe?”

Silence…

“Blaque, is there something going on that I should know?”

Dead silence…

“Blaque…”

“There’s nothing going on. It’s just like calling her our wife.”

When Agatha came and I asked her why, she also got defensive telling me to go and ask Blaque because she wasn’t the one who said babe.

It looked like a lizard and walked like a lizard so I called it a lizard. There was no beating about the bush about it.

I confronted Blaque about it face to face and his defence was that he was helping her out of her confusion. He couldn’t even look at me in the eyes while talking to me. I’d known Blaque all my life and I could smell the lie he was telling like his fragrance.

I was the one losing a girlfriend and losing a friend. I begged him to tell me the truth. He didn’t. It was Always Agartha who was trying her best to drive me away.

READ ALSO: How Do I Stop This War Between My Mother And My Fiancé?

I was hurting and it was hurting my marriage. If anyone had something to lose, it was me. My wife was pregnant and it would be suicidal for her to know that I was cheating on her with a woman my very good friend also likes. I saw our friendship breathing its last breath but I couldn’t do anything to resuscitate it.

One evening, I decided to pass by Agatha’s place to apologize to her and also seek a way forward in your relationship. Her light was on when I got there. I could see two shadows moving in the room so I knew she was there with someone. She might have looked through the window and seen me so by the time I got there, she was there alone. I asked, “I thought you were here with someone.” She answered, “No, I’m the only one here.”

I sat on the bed but she insisted we should go outside since her boyfriend could walk in anytime soon. I said, “You’re driving me out of a room I helped you rent? Where was your boyfriend when we were paying for this place?” I cast my eyes around and saw a pair of slippers Blaque owned. It dawned on me that it could be Blaque I saw. “Blaque is here,” I said to  myself, “but where is he?”

There could only be one place he could be hiding; under the bed.

I sat comfortably on the bed while watching her pace up and down as if something of hers was missing. If I had my way, I would have spent the night there and seen what would happen but my wife started calling my phone. Before leaving the room, I told her, “Tell Blaque that I say thank you. We’ve seen a lot together as friends but it’s sad that it took a woman to break what we had. Tell him I’m not angry but he should learn to communicate no matter how hard the subject is. He never judged me so he should believe that I would never judge him too.”

I was angry with myself and how I’d used my own hands to destroy my friendship and also put my marriage on the precipice of destruction. I told myself there was no turning back to Agatha or Blaque and I kept to that promise.

They got married early this year, barely a year after I’d left the scene. All through those periods, they never spoke to me. Mutual friends even thought I was going to be the best man but they didn’t know the ugly story behind the beauty. My wife started asking questions too. They didn’t invite me to the wedding but because I didn’t want my wife to suspect anything, I went to the wedding with her. We went to say hello to them after everything and left. My wife saw the uneasiness between us and asked questions but I was quick to brush those questions aside.

How Do I Spend Eternity With A Man Like This? | Beads Media

Currently, we don’t talk to each other. I don’t hate him and I don’t think he hates me too. Maybe, that was the ultimate destiny of our age-old friendship–to hold his hand and walk him to the woman he would marry. If that was destiny, then I played my part very well and I know if he would be truthful to his own story, there would be no way he would tell the story of his love life without mentioning my name. I was the beginning of the end of his bachelorhood, and he ought to give me the credit for that.

After Agartha, I learned sense. I learned to water the grass where I stand to make them greener. I learned to enjoy the company of my wife and seek counsel from her words. I did that and I’ve never looked back. Side chicks look good but they are sinking sand. They make it difficult for you to walk faster to your destination. If I knew this earlier, my life would have been better than this.

–Obed