Ukighostiwa Ghostika!

I hope all avoidants get who they deserve; someone exactly like them.

When someone comes to me swearing their love, calling me their soul mate, telling me we are meant to be and basically twin flames, I take ten steps back and turn to the nearest exit. You're doing too much and probably won't be able to handle what you're asking for.

I was finally healing from being ghosted when, three months later, he texted me talking about this isn't working. It was around noon during the pandemic lockdown. I tried peeling green bananas for lunch and couldn't ignore the feeling of my heart sinking. I paused, went to bed, and stared at the ceiling in pain only for my sibling to come yelling at me, wewe unajua mum anasikia njaa na hujawasha jiko bado. I didn't even have the time or privacy to grieve, my mum's hunger was the priority then the dishes afterwards.

I had known him for more than seven years. Same primary school, same neighborhood at one point. I even held his newborn brother in my arms when I was twelve. His mum liked me, or at least that is the impression I carried.

With him it was different though. I could never tell what he thought of me. The only clue was catching him glancing at me in class during afternoon classes when we were fourteen. I used to wonder what was up with him. I even wrote him a note during our final primary school party asking why he stared at me and if he liked me. He said no. I used to be quite upfront before highschool.

I moved on. High school swallowed everything. I barely saw my primary school friends again and was in a house arrest kind of situation during the school holidays.

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Years later we bumped into each other at our siblings’ Thanksgiving Day. We exchanged numbers and didn’t talk much until a year later. Somehow he shifted from childhood classmate to boy best friend.

It was platonic, or so I believed. We talked late into the night about how high school traumatized us. He told me how he always admired my academic performance and lone wolf tendencies in primary school, but I was now a different person, highschool and adolescence had broken me, so, I ate it up. I needed the validation.

It felt nice to reminisce. Maybe that is why our conversations never ended. Five months of talking. I told him about people I was seeing, I told him his crush was beautiful. He would send me pictures of her and I'd say she was a cute light-skinned, she was probably who he always eyed but because I never get cues right, I never quite figured it out.

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During the four month long break, he started visiting me at my mum’s retail store where I was basically slaving. He’d pass by in the afternoons with his Miles Morales looking head, smelling nice and looking fly. He would said hi to my parents if they were around, and stay for a while. He kept coming back more often.

Sometimes we sat in silence listening to music on shared earphones. Other times we talked for hours, we were basically bonding. I like deep conversations, and that's my weakness!

One day when he came to hang out , he greeted me then we hugged and didn’t let go. We stayed there for an hour, just hugging. Something shifted. His scent stayed on my blouse and mine on his hoodie.

We were nineteen, still teenagers, still learning what closeness could do. It ignited a spark in me, I found myself smelling the top I was wearing afterwards, inhaling his versman cool edp that traumatised me way afterwards.

My mum saw us and told me when I got home, wewe, nilikuona na huyo Miles Morales( not his real name). Next time nitakuja na kiboko niwachape wote wawili. I didn’t mind. All I could think about was seeing him again.

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Things got sneaky fast in June. Small towns make rebellion feel like oxygen. One day we were best friends. The next we were soul mates, love birds, friends to lovers. Walking hand in hand. Sneaky picnics. Leaving the shop even though I wasn’t supposed to. It was good for the little while it lasted. Taking my bike for a repair so he could go on a ride with it on the weekend because it was just rusting in my backyard.

After high school I had stopped obsessing over romance. He hadn’t. He loved labels, rom-coms, crushes, pet names. He dragged me into it. I was fine with platonic. He burst my bubble. Calling me love, babe … telling me about our songs, basically romanticising everything but not quite being able to keep up with it.

I'm not one to get into things half way in, he probably knew it and took advantage of it.

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A month later in July I started seeing him less. He stopped texting for hours. Sometimes he’d disappear for three days. Then send happy birthday babe and vanish again. I would send him songs I thought he would like in an effort to cheer him on and he'd just be indifferent, like who are you? He went offline before his birthday and replied a week later!

I should have taken that as a sign. The holidays came to an end. I went back to uni and him to his. We barely spoke in September and October. I would have emotional breakdowns at night, asking if I had done anything wrong. I even slept late one time, missed a 7am class with a random test which ended up with failed a unit. I was also experimenting with blunts and edibles. Everything felt unstable.

We never really quite argued, never once. It was all just a cold war and then random awkward calls on the weekend where he was “just checking in.” Then when I'd start opening up he'd hang up then send a text “ sorry I've run out of credit but I'm glad that you're okay”.

I really had a lot going on that semester and he wasn't making things any better. He was probably the one making me spiral. ( For more context : Alcohol brought me back to reality.)

It didn't help that we were both romanticising sadness. Listening to Julia Michaels, Sasha Sloane and Alessia Cara. Which begs the question why were we so obsessed with feeling sad, lonely and lost?

This is solely another reason why till date, I refuse feelings of sadness and making sad song playlists. It's simply not who I want to be.

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When we went home for Christmas, he waited for me at the bus stop and walked me home. For a moment I thought we were fine. I thought we stood a chance.

By then I was anxiously attached. His pattern of appearing and disappearing turned me into someone who anticipated absence and overcompensated when he was present. Long paragraphs. Dropping everything to talk to him. Giving him my time because I never knew when he’d ghost again.

Everything but leaving.

I never imagined leaving my soul mate. I often catch myself smiling when I listen to SZA’s Nobody Gets Me, because I really believed nobody got me like he did.

We loved the same music. Shared the same childhood. Same birth month. Same cultural references. I even started using his lingo. So you’d understand why I thought he was destiny sent. I was basically morphing into him, thinking that would make him less unpredictable.

He promised we’d hang out more over the two week holiday. Lies! I ended up looking for a waitress job in my hometown over the Christmas season. Money over love, has always been my motto.

When the semester resumed, things seemed better for a month. We talked more. We planned visits. We made them happen. Had the best time of our lives, walked in the rain, fell sick together because we both had sensitive tonsils and even had our signature tea, Earl Grey. He'd draw love hearts on the foggy window and we'd spend the weekend watching Marvel’s Runaways and The Magicians.

Then he ghosted me again for three months. Damn!

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COVID lockdown made everything worse. With nothing to distract me, I obsessed. I texted him almost every night asking if he was there. Asking for a sign. Until one day I got tired and stopped. He would later on ask me years later why I stopped, that maybe if I pushed on , he would've “come back!” He loved the idea of someone chasing and pursuing him, classic avoidance!

Ukighostiwa ghostika! If someone decides to leave you on read, just gather your losses, block them and move on! There's no such thing as patience, don't be a slow learner, leave with your dignity intact!

I started moving on without an official breakup. April workouts. Duolingo. Learning to code. Eating better. Learning chess. The things we do to forget people. I started feeling better. Deep down though, I was still in denial, hoping secretly that he'll come back, so I just deleted our chats and his number but never blocked him. I left the door open, incase he wanted to come back and pick up from where we had left it.

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Then in June he texted Hey, then said, this isn’t really working out for me. I gasped, but I should have really seen it coming, I guess I thought it would never really come down to this. But then again why would I think he was the exception?

It had never worked out. I was probably a second piece in his puzzle. He claimed years later to have been overwhelmed by my affection, but how is that even possible? Was he looking for someone to play chase games with and I failed to follow the script because I thought it was for real and not just an episode of Friends?

I went about my day. Struggled to prepare green bananas while fighting tears. Did the dishes. Fed the chicken. Watered vegetables. Then did some Hiit workout for an hour, Burpees hit hard when you're fighting invisible demons.

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Predictably, I blocked him everywhere. Uninstalled Instagram. Did some soul cleansing. Everything that reminded me of him had to go. My mindset. My music taste. My hips (I shed a lot of weight afterwards) My movie taste. (I hate The 100.) I had a no trap, no hip-hop period. Started listening to reggaeton and latin pop, then slowly found m'y way back to afro music and eventually Kenyan music. I never wanted anyone to say, “ you got your tastes from …” It all needed to come from me.

My sister still reminds me how I gave him my mountain bike and lied to my dad that I forgot it at the repair shop. Everytime I'd feel less motivated to become the best version of myself I'd pass by Naivas and smell the versman perfume and suddenly I'd get my fire back.

Infatuation is stupid, I get second hand embarrassment when I think that this really was my Roman empire. That months afterwards my life turned for the better and all it took was a hot and cold situationship.

Except I still wonder why someone finds you whole, tricks you into loving them, then flips the script.

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A year later in June, because it's always in June! He came back asking for forgiveness even though “ I know you'll never forgive me for betraying your love” . I wasn’t moved. I wasn’t touched. I wasn’t even mildly inconvenienced. I just thought, ah, the seasonal migration of avoidants. Let me wear my mask and sanitize!

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