This is not a confession. Maybe it is, I don’t know. That’s left for you to decide.
“Make good friends.”
“Join a fellowship.”
“Be careful.”
I think I was remembering this just a little too late. My friends and I sat on the balcony of our hostel, smoking weed. It wasn’t unusual for me to remember these sort of things but I couldn’t comprehend why my mother’s voice would be speaking to me in this state and at this time. I couldn’t remember what we were talking about because my mother’s voice kept ringing in my ear.
“MAKE GOOD FRIENDS!” Well, that I didn’t do. My friends were all good for nothing outcast who barely went to classes.
“JOIN A FELLOWSHIP!” It was my final year now and I can’t recall when last I’d stepped my foot in a church in four years.
“BE CAREFUL!” Careful? “Mike, please pass me a cigarette.” I dumped the weed and lit up a cigarette. It was too late to be careful now. I was in it, there was no way out for me. It was so late in the night, a little unsafe for a girl like me to be smoking in the midst of boys but did that stop me? Nope, It didn’t.
Well, truth be told, it wasn’t always like this. My first day in the university, I made a promise to myself to serve God, and ignore every other side attraction. But my side attraction had come as a tall slender girl with nice curves who I couldn’t believe would even talk to me because I was a pathetic loser then. She’d been so nice to me, helped me with my clearance and offered me a place to stay since my hostel accommodation didn’t pull through. My mom at first was reluctant but she finally agreed so I moved in with her. At first she was normal, she didn’t go to church but she wasn’t much of a bad person. Or maybe she was but I didn’t know. I only noticed how much money she was always having all the time and I grew really curious and interested. I approached her and asked where she got her money but she just laughed and told me to forget it. When my dad died and my mom started having difficulty sending me money, I asked her again. This time, she asked if I really wanted to know and I told her yes, then she said we were going to go out that night and I should put on my best outfit.
I know it’s going to sound cliché when I tell you she took me to a sugar daddy but that is not what happened. She took me to a fellow girl’s house and left when I wasn’t observing. The girl she’d left me with looked so pretty, she was the kind of girls you see on the cover of magazines. I felt intimidated by just staring at her and I decided to sit quietly and wait for ‘money to come’. A pretty naïve reasoning, don’t worry, I’m aware.
“Are you okay?” the girl had asked me
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Things are going to get really scary…” immediately she mentioned that, I started to get really scared. I wasn’t that desperate for money, I mean a meal a day was okay.
“Relax,” she held my hand, “just relax. Here, this would help,” she brings out a stick of cigarette.
“I don’t smoke.”
“This isn’t cigarette, it’s something else, it would make you feel relaxed.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Just. Do. It!” she yelled and goose pimples formed on my bare skin. I started to beg,
“Please, just let me go, I don’t need the money, I don’t need anything. Just let me go.”
“It’s too late for that.”
I can still remember her face, even though she’s long dead. And my tall slender roommate, dead? Not dead but in a mental home. I am going to end up like one of them soon enough and maybe that is why my mother’s voice kept replaying in my ear.
Maybe I should’ve done something different.
Maybe I wouldn’t be on my path to doom if I hadn’t been so money crazed.
Maybe I should have made the right choice.
But now, it’s just a little too late. Just like those other two, I was on my path to destruction as well.
Whoever you are reading this, don’t be fooled by that pretty girl who seems to be having everything she wants, it isn’t what it seems. Stay away from bad company.
I guess this was a confession after all.