I hadn't realized the meaning of the phrase " backstabbing friends" until I met emmanuella Sunday. Emmanuella and I had met the first term of J.S.S 2, she was the new girl in class and we had quickly become friends after that first day of meeting. We sat together, played together, went home together and even shared each other's lunch money. By the time it was second term, everyone in school including the teachers had already tagged us as buy one get two. To me, emmanuella was my best friend in the whole world but I didn't know that I wasn't hers, and I found out the hard way.
It was during our promotional exam in JSS3 ( junior secondary school 3). As usual emmanuella and I had been reading our books like we always did before any exam during lunch at school. But that day, I noticed that she wasn't paying attention like other times but was rather staring at the book with a dry expression. I wanted to lighten her mood and so I closed the books we were reading which got her attention.
"Why are u sad" I had asked in concern. She just continued staring at the closed book with the same expression.
" I'm just hungry" she said
" Hungry ke! That is why you're upset?"
I got up and went to the school canteen to get her food but her mood still didn't improve.
Emmanuella kept sulking for days and slowly she began to stop reading with me during lunch breaks. I tried talking to her to know what was wrong but she just wouldn't say anything and would rather sulk. The next week I went to her house and I asked her mom if emmanuella was sick or if there was anything she was dealing with that I could help with because she wasn't saying anything to me and her mom assured me that she was fine and that she had been happy the whole day at home.
" It is just her hormones" she had said.
The next day in school, for the first time, emmanuella did not sit with me but rather sat with the back seat boys who were trouble makers. She didn't sit with me at lunch either and after school when I waited for her to walk home together she never showed up. I had wanted to give her space to deal with whatever she was going through since she didn't want to tell me, but I was feeling neglected.
On the day of the exam, I walked up to her and asked her if she was going to seat with the back seat boys during the exam knowing fully well they always cheated during exams.
"Stop acting like your better than everyone, go and look in the mirror with ur face that is like a monkey" she said in a nasty tone.
" Emma why would you say something like that to me?"
It was clear I was about to cry because of what she said. My voice was shaky and my eyes were already filled with tears that were ready to fall. The insult was more painful because I believed it. I was going through puberty and it wasn't looking well on me. My face had a lot of acne and my features were looking really ugly. If someone else had said those words to me, they wouldn't have meant anything but because it was from someone really close to me, it felt like being stabbed.
It turned out that emmanuella didn't want to be friends with me anymore because the cool kids in school thought I was way too ugly to be friends with emmanuella and they didn't want to be friends with her if she was friends with me. I couldn't believe that she could dump a friend because some kids that she barely knew didn't approve of them. That day I went home and cried for a friend that I had lost but on the bright side she showed me how vague she was.