Nate and Jully; A Campus Love Story.

Life can be messed up. Life can be sad. Life can be good. Life can be great.

Saying all this reminds me of this one time my friend Jully called me.

’’Hello, Owen what you doing on Saturday?’’

‘’I’m busy for the most part of the day, but I think ill be available from 4pm.  What’s up?”

‘’Theres something, I wasn’t us to talk about. I feel like you’re the only one that can understand me the way I want to be understood.’

This was one of those weird talks but I acted all calm so as to not bother her peace.

‘’Where should we meet?’’

‘’Amm……” she hummed with no certainty of where we would talk. I was really curious. I wanted to know what it is that we were to talk about that was so important, so important that she’s call on a Friday morning to just book my time.

“Is Red Liquor, okay?’

“No. I don’t feel that place. I have a lot of memories that are bad there.”

‘’What about Executive Longue?’’

‘’Mmh… I don’t really fancy that place.”

“Then we can go talk in some random joint that will interest you in Kisumu town maybe.”

“I don’t really want to be out on Saturday.”

“Then Ill come over to yours if that’s fine by you?”

“Perfect. Don’t fail to come.”

 

After the call, I had a lot going on in my mind. What does she really want to talk about? I tried remembering if we’ve ever had an encounter that I can’t recall and such stuff, but It wasn’t like I even knew her beyond her social media profiles. She was one of those females that I became friends with because of us being mutuals on social media then we started talking in hallways around school when we bumped into each other. So, what really does she want to talk about?

 

 

I arrived at the apartments she told me to come and went straight up to her door. The door still had fresh blue marks of the enumerators chalk from the 2020 census. I paused before knocking and asked myself questions. Questions that I knew had no answers but anyway I was there and there was no way I was leaving now.

I knocked on her door.

“Owen,heey,how are you?” she said hugging me tightly as if we were the best of friends.

“Hey Jully, Im cool. You?”

“Same. Come in. Hope you found this place easily.”

She had her bootyshorts on and a light blood top that allowed me to peek through and see her nipples with ease. But that’s not what we were here for.

“You have such a nice place. Damn.”

“Thanks Owen. “

“What will you have? Tea Coffee, Juice?” She asked while smiling.

“You don’t have anything stronger?” I joked

“Oweeeeen” she squirmed while pulling that silly laugh.

“I fancy tea for such an hour Jully.” I spoke.

She headed off to her kitchen that looked cleaner than the cleanest place I’ve been to lately.

She poured water into her kettle and put it on for the water to warm. She asked

“Green or Purple?”

People have options for tea? With the kind of suffering, we were going through as students in this university as this time?

“Purple please,” I said.

She got 2 mugs and added two tea tents in them. The water in the kettle was rumbling, meaning it was now ready. She added the water into the mugs and carried them to the table. I had never drunk purple tea so I was really eager for the tea to get to the table so that I could peep into the mug to see what purple tea looked like. It wasn’t even purple. She never used sugar so I was the only one who added sugar into the mug and stirred my mug of purple tea.

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

Jully’s place was like paradise. She had all her stuff well arranged. In her toilet that also served as her bathroom, her thongs hang on that string on the toilet decently. The toilet was so peaceful. I just wished I had Wi-Fi there. Trust me, I’d stay there the whole fucking day. I finished whatever I was doing and headed back to the sitting room.

“So, what’s up Jully?”
“Its nothing much but I’ve always wanted to talk to you. Like I feel you’re the only person who can understand what I’m going through.”
“Tell me about it.”

“It’s a lot but lets start from the start.”

“Okay, go ahead.”
“In 2018, we were new in school and I wanted it all. My dreams, my ambitions and just a life I was denied under the care of my mum and dad. I used to party a lot. Every Tripple T goer knew who I was then. I was their part favorite. Men loved me. Men drooled and men did a lot of things just to get to me. I was naïve so I just hanged with them but never did I ever sleep with any of them. Till I met Nate. Nate was different. He was very calm, composed, not all over the place and knew what he really wanted.  He was also the alpha male. He was like the leader in his friend group and that really got me hooked to him. I mean, he was sooo manly. His physicality is what I wanted.”

 

She sipped her tea from her pink mug that had ‘’YOLO’’ inscribed onto it.

“He approached me one time and offered to buy me a drink to which I agreed. We had tequila shots and a couple of mocktails and chatted the night away. He told me that he was talking his masters and that he had just graduated the previous year and stuff. I told her about myself and just talked lightly till 3am. I told him that it was now time I left. He asked me if I had a means to get home and I said no. He told me that he’d drop me off then come back. I didn’t even doubt him. I stepped into his AUDI and he drove off.” She recalled.

“Wow, that’s the day you talked to him for the first time? Like you had never talked to him ever before that night?

“Yeah. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“At the school main gate, he stopped. He opened the car door for me and I got out. Just when I wanted to utter a word, he kissed me. He handed me some money and he made me wear one of his jackets and told me to take care and call him tomorrow. He was so sweet. In the days that followed, we talked a lot. He convinced me to move out of school into one of those hostels outside school which I did. I moved to some fancy hostels around school.”

“That’s in first year.”

“Yes. I moved out nikiwa year one” she said.

“Anyway, so Nate and I used to meet on weekends at first. He could come over, wed just have drinks, talk and have the nastiest sex. I was becoming an addict. I lost my virginity to him. He used to come over on Fridays, sleepover and leave on Sundays. He did this for the first 2 months. He always left me his expensive caps and watches. I don’t know why he did that but I enjoyed every fucking moment. I was so proud, I mean, I bagged someone no one else in my class would every bag. I mean, they were all nowhere near where I was. I stopped talking to people who were my friends. The only name that was on my mind was Nate.

“I was mad over Nate. I even don’t know how to put it. He was so all in my mind. Like I was overwhelmed by him. I f he told me to follow him to hell, I’d do that because it was Nate that has said. You understand?”

“Not really. I don’t think I do.”

The Next weekend Nate calls her and asks her out. He invites her fr dinner and a couple of drinks at Buddy’s in Kisumu. He like Buddies because of its unpretentious and laid-back nature. She thought it was a date but it wasn’t because Nates friends were there too and they too had their girlfriends. It was more of a fun hangout.

“What’s something you discovered about him after that dinner?”

“He most definitely was like the one that controlled things there. You know like Eli from ‘The Originals’? Now that was him. He was like the alpha in that pack.” She laughs while I roll my eyes.

“He was in his mid-20s and his friends looked like guys in their 30s. But he was the one in charge. Like he controlled the place without even being pushy.”

It was time to leave and as they were walking towards his car, at the parking lot, He didn’t tell her “I had a great time today” or dilly dally or those “You’re beautiful type of stuff”. He didn’t hold her hand and stare long into her yes like in those Soap Operas, or pretend that he was hugging her. NO. That’s not in the book of alpha males, “He held the back of my neck with his big hands and kissed me, he didn’t say anything. It was a deep kiss.” She said. “I honestly didn’t see it coming. It took me by complete surprise and what happened after this even confused me more. He hails a cab and from there I don’t remember anything but how hot my face was, how my neck seemed to be on fire. He just told me “If you get home safely, let me know.” And walked off.

She looks deep into her cup and reminisce as if she’s seeing how the events took place on that day in her cup. The tea tent with purple tea that isn’t even purple. That encounter started for Jully what she thought was a relationship. A confusing one.
“It wasn’t exactly a relationship like that, but more of us having sex and thinking that were in love. They’d listen to music and have sex.” She said “He had fine taste in everything: music, clothes…everything he owned was nice. He loved those fancy caps of his especially. The caps that people love stealing.”

 

This went on for months. Nate would come over in his fancy hats, spend the weekend over there. He left his clothes there on every encounter and they kept on piling. “ I went with him to his place  like a few times.” She says “other than a toothbrush that looked feminine, there was nothing to show that he lived there with any woman.” She says before getting up to add more tea. Feminine toothbrush? Which one is that now? I wonder. “He was one of those guys that evaded some questions he thought were fishy.” She says as she sits down with her cup of tea. “I guess he wasn’t used to being questioned. Its just how he was. He was so self-assured.  He made me shy away from asking him some questions that were really burning me deep within.” Often at times, he’d be offline for a whole weekend. He never enjoyed using his phone. It was like it bothered him.so he’d live it in the car and forget about it. So, I got used to going for long number of days without even knowing how he was and what he was doing or going through.”

They enjoyed activities that involved road trips and camping. One time they decided to go to Takawiri Island . One of the many islands in Lake Victoria when her phone rung. It was a new number and who picks calls from callers they don’t know? They went for candle lit dinner, by the beach overlooking the vast lake Victoria , the sound of the waves slapping the shores was just therapy in itself. The sky was lit with a galaxy of stars. Everything was okay till she received a call and this time, she decided to pick the call. The voice on the other end belonged to a lady. She said “Hi am I speaking to Jully?” she said “Who am I speaking to? The lady said “This is Leona. May I speak to Nate?”

She was so decent in the way she spoke and sounded so kind. I didn’t even think twice about handing him the phone. Puzzled, he took the phone and pressed it on his ears. Suddenly, he looked like all the air in his lungs had been sucked out of him. He walked away. She sat there staring at the candles and wine for what seemed to be eternity. When he came back, he looked pissed and didn’t speak for a minute.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“The mother of my child.”

This was after some months into the relationship and she had never heard about a baby. She brings her cup to her mouth with both hands.

“I have a 3-year-old kid Jully.”

“Are you married to the baby’s mother?”

“Sort off’ he says.

“What does that mean Nate?”
She slumped back in her hair with disappointment. But what could she do? He wanted to hold her hands but she pushed him away and kept them under the table. She stared out into the darkness and wondered how such a perfect moment turned sour so fast. She drowned all the wine in her glass in one gulp and before he could barely say a thing, she cut him short “I’m going to catch some sleep.”

She stood up dropping her napkin on her desert and stormed away from that location they were having their dinner at. A waitress walked behind her to show her where her room was. She had packed flimsy stuff. Stuff whose main purpose was to elite desire. Things you could see through.  Thing that would bring the bushman out of a person. Instead, she wore to bed what Americans wear when going to work on a winter snowy season.

“If I could leave that hotel that night even if I was to swim across Lake Victoria, I would have fucking done it.

“You said you went to his place though, right? Where was the family when you were visiting them?”

“Imagine what he told me, he said that since his kid was at school going age, now he let they move in. They didn’t move in till recently. But he insisted that he was only there for the baby. That he never even loved the mother.”

They came back and she neatly packed his stuff for him and she told him to get lost into the sunset. But the next day, there he was with apologies. And the next day, same. The next week, same. He kept assuring her that she’s the only one he loved. I was already in love with him and he was a good guy plus our sex life was through the roof, so I eventually took him back.”
“But how did her baby mama find out about you?”
“ Relax Owen. I’ll get there.”

Before she accepted Nate back, she told him that she wasn’t ready to share someone with another woman, She grew up in astable family. Order, no drama, family time, bile, the church and she wasn’t ready for unnecessary drama.

“There was never a doubt that I wanted what my parents had.”

Nate promised that he’ll be with her and only her forever and so they dated again until a year later when a friend called her out of no where to break the news to her. She had seen Nates wedding photos on Instagram.

“I was getting my hair done when a friend of mine called to tell me that she saw my boyfriend somewhere. She told me to check my inbox.”

“When I saw the photos, I said that that’s not possible. The photos are photoshopped. Nate was in a seminar in MOMBASA. So, what do you mean he’s having a wedding? From the pictures I saw Nate and really tried convincing myself how that wasn’t Nate. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even finish getting my hair done. I just left.”

When she got home with her half-done hair, she picked her phone and with her shaky hands called Nate. No one answered the calls. She tried again and this time a lady picked the phone and told her that Nate  was busy greeting his guests in the just concluded wedding.

‘Listen Jully, you would find out later either way but I hate to break it to you that Nate is now a married man. Sorry.”

‘You know I don’t know what I was thinking when I asked where Nate was when I just saw the photos of him and his bride on socials. I was really convinced that they were lies. I just lay in my bed and cried myself to sleep.”

She was sick for the coming over 5 weeks. She never left her bed. She just cried. She didn’t care if CATs were given in class or that Notes were piling up. She just didn’t care anymore. She only woke up to drink water that she later cried. “He betrayed me. He broke my heart. Am I that worthless?”

After  a week she started attending classes. One of her friends had told the lecturers that she was depressed so they knew her case. Everyone in class now treated her like a child.

“I waited for Nate to call me. I waited for him to get back from Bali, I saw in his many posts that that’s where the honeymoon was at.” She shakes her head in disbelief.

Time flies. Months pass. No call from Nate.

“It was really unlike him. Did he really not care about me anymore? The only things that I could use to convince someone that I knew him with, were his clothes which were in my suitcase like some 2 weeks ago before I donated them to charity. Nate had just vanished with no trace.”

“I got into a period that we call whore phase.” She speaks. She finishes the last drops of tea in her mug. “I was just drinking and sleeping with men. One-night stands were my specialty. Nate had ripped my chest open and stole my heart. I was bitter. Picking my schoolmates from clubs was the easiest thing I’ve ever done In my life. I would sit at the counter and flirt with any man I found attractive. They’d ask me what I wanted to drink but I would tell them, “No what are you having? Then we would drink and if we vibed, id invite him home with me. I did for like 3 semesters in campus, I even don’t know. I think its in that time period though.

 

One da she was heading back home on a Bajaj motorbike from Triple T when the bike lost control and they rammed into an oncoming car.

“I woke up at Aga Khan hospital. I had tubes in me.”

She didn’t even know that she was in a comma for 6 days. All that time she was at the ICU. She had blood clots I her brain. Her parents were there when she woke up. Everything smelt like Methylated spirit in that room. She was covered in bandage.  She was awake for what wasn’t even longer than a minute before going back to sleep.

When she woke up again, she was in another wing. Not where she had woken up at the last time she woke up. She slept again. When she woke up again, her mom was holding her hands, she looked up at her for a minute then went under again. When she came back on again, there were relatives everywhere.

I couldn’t recall a thing; one moment I was on a bike and the next I’m here at the hospital.    The next day of here complete consciousness, she talked to friends and relatives for some time then as she was being prepared to sleep, she had a little knock on the door and guess who was there. Yah. Nate. He sat on the bed besides her and was like “Uswaitushtua hivi tena.” Because that’s what a drowning man trying to stay afloat would say anyway. In her head she was like “Nikushtue na nani?Bibi yako na mtoto ama?”  but I was tired. “I just remember staring at him the whole time. I didn’t even listen to whatever he was saying.” Nate made it a habit coming over every evening to see me. He usually came with chocolates, pieces of cake, Lucozade and Ribena on some days and on some, he’d bring sweets. He’d tell me that he did that because I was very important to him.

She grew fond of him again in the hospital because of the near-death experience. He visited daily and she looked forward to those daily visits. After she was discharged, he kept passing by her house to see her, bringing her groceries, making her meals.

“Did you ask him about the wedding?” I ask

“Yeah. We talked about it. But you should know that I was vulnerable and weak at the time. I was just recovering plus the fact that he was there meant a lot to me. We started seeing each other again. I cant even explain why. This was totally against how I was raised and what I wanted. Remember when I told you that I wasn’t going to be his other girl? LIFE, I tell you because there I was.”

‘Now that marked the end of whore phase for you?”

“Yeah sure.” She cringes. “An accident that nearly got me killed changes you. I stopped drinking and just fucking random boys from the club. Except one boy that we had an on and off thing. He was called Jude.”

“Like Jude from the bible?”

“Yeah. Btw what’s something big that Jude ever did I the bible?”
“Come to think of it by the way. Ha-ha. I even don’t know. He’s like Obadiah. Nobody really knows what that Obadiah guy really did.”

We share an illicitly blasphemous chuckle.” Anyways, I regularly brought Jude back home because he was a demon in the sheets if you have to know Owen.” She chuckles.

Six months after leaving the hospital, she went for her routine checkup. It was on a Friday she remembers. The doctor stares at her results without saying anything and she immediately knew whatever was going to be said wasn’t going to be good.

“Results don’t mean the end of life. He started…. I didn’t wait for him to finish. I grabbed the paper of his hands and right there it was. I WAS HIV POSITIVE.”
She remembers her lips moving and herself slipping from the chair to the floor. She recalls wanting the ground o open up and swallow her. When she woke up, she was on the observatory table and the nurse was staring at her. Her feet were on a pillow.”

“When you’re diagnosed, you sort of are not yourself for some time. You don’t sleep. You just imagine the filth running through your veins. You’re just sure you are dead. You have nightmares. I remember one nightmare I had, I watched myself die, my mum was crying, my friends were touching my casket weeping. I dreamed of my own funeral many times. I lost weight because I wasn’t eating. Plus, I was always worrying.”

“Did you ever let Nate know about this”

“That’s the story now. I wasn’t sure where I got it from. It could have been Nate or Jude because we weren’t using condoms at some point. But it could have been a guy I slept with during my whoring days. He had lied that we used a condom but since I was drunk, I didn’t bother to confirm. I only discover it in the morning when I decided to look for a used rubber and I didn’t get one.”
“ So Nate…”

“Yeah. I never told him.”
“Why?”

“I don’t know how he would’ve taken the news. I didn’t want him to leave me. That would mean me being alone “
“But there are other boys in this school?”
“Who would date a 22-year-old with HIV and fears of having sex/ you know you boys are just dating cause you’re horny. Right?”

So, she kept her status to herself and when Nate came to see her that day, they had sex and they continued having sex. She kept lying. She continued going for her counselling and tests to see if she could start on ARVs, her health improved.”

“Did you just keep having sex with Nate because you were mad at what he did to you and wanted to punish him in a less miserable way that he wouldn’t know?” I ask because that question was burning my soul.

She looks at me for a moment , “Owen” She calls em. Shes quiet for a while. She gets up, takes the cup to the sink where she washes them, drys them and puts them on the rack. She might have OCD, I think, looking at how spotless everything is.

“You think that’s what that was?”

“I don’t know. I was just wondering.”
She’s quiet for a while. “Yes maybe, I don’t know. He has a family, a wife he goes home to. What do I have? A moment, 3 hours with him in a week? What do I have?”

“Do you love him”

“Of course.”
“So why wouldn’t you tell him?”

“Its not that simple Owen. It may loo simple but its not.” She says. We sit there for a bit. I’m thinking about Obadiah now because I’m too tired. I make a mental note to see if I could meet that guy.

“Is keeping the secret from Nate burdening?”

“Yes!” she says “Oh yes. It is. Sometimes I hear of his plans for the future, things he wants to do, he’s very ambitious and I think to myself, you have HIV, I hope you live right to see those plans happen.”

“How does that make you feel? Does it make you feel like it’s your small win?”

“Win? No. I just feel like he has to be responsible for where we are.”
“How”

She crosses she arms across her chest and thinks. “Sometimes I want him to share the kind of worries I have. I think he sleeps soundly next to his wife yet he doesn’t know the full story of his own life.”

Remember that smile, she flashes it again as I walk out. She walks me to the gate downstairs. I tell her, “One last question.” “Who’s the father of your child?”

She laughs and ask me “Is that important?”

“Only if you say it.”

She looks at her feet and says “Only a mother knows the father of her child.”

“Okay.”

I bid her goodbye. As I leave that gate all I can think of is Obadiah.

…….

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