I was unable to absorb the whole thing being that my Mom called out to me to get prepared for church.
When I took a break from my church preparations, she angrily snatched my phone from me and said she wouldn't return it until the end of the day.
𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐘 𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐘?!?!?! ／(≧ 𝐱 ≦)＼
At noon, while I was home with my family, in my room, Aisha abruptly barged in with Remi.
Before I could ask any questions, she raised her hand and smacked my face, even before Remi could stop her.
"How dare you! Why did you do this to me?! What demon has possessed you, Temitope?!" She hurled in tears.
Remi stood by. He didn't utter a word. I could see his eyes flaming in furiousness behind those glasses.
Aisha's wailing drew the attention of my parents and they entered my room to frain about the drama. Aisha showed them a video.
"Ha! Temitope, explain this please," my Dad said. "In fact, both of you have a lot of explanations to do."
"I was set up by Temitope with this guy I met. It wasn't intentional, believe me. She set me up in order to put me to shame online.
Sir, your daughter has been posting whorish contents on social media for a long while now and pornographic clips and strip-dancing. As a good friend, I wanted to make her ways known to her and correct her but she got resentful and did this to ruin my reputation as payback. Now the video has gone viral!"
"I am finished. This girl has killed me!" My Mom cried.
My father grabbed his phone to call Aisha's father and that was when I knew that the matter had gone out of hand. (¯ . ¯;)
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"Amara and Amanda are cousins. I should have told you this at the beginning. And she's a fake, she's nothing like Amanda, though she tries so hard to be."
If only I had seen that text on Facebook from Oliver just when he sent it, if only my phone hadn't kicked the bucket that day.
We resumed chatting on WhatsApp after that day that we both forgot about it.
Amara had left for Abuja few hours after the deed had been done.
She took my phone without my consent and edited the video. She uploaded the video to my Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and TWITTER!!!
I never knew.
In the video were just two teenagers all alone in a room, about smooching then getting interrupted by two other teenagers.
Amara edited the video so well that everyone who watched the video had the impression that Aisha was alone in a room with a guy that she almost made out with and possibly would have gone deeper if she wasn't interrupted. She had this expression of guilt on her face for confirmation.
The caption on the video said, "HERE IS OUR BELOVED AISHA, THE CONTENT CREATOR WHO ENLIGHTENS A WHOLE BUNCH OF YOUNG PEOPLE ABOUT IMMORALITY, NOT PRACTICING WHAT SHE PREACHES.
SHE ALMOST HAD S3X WITH A GUY SHE HAS ONLY KNOWN FOR DAYS.
IT'S SO SAD."
Due to how amiable and popular Aisha was, the video leaked to other accounts and pages in less than twenty-four hours; thus I gained a million interactions only on Instagram. It was trending!
Even those who barely knew her were keen to see the video. More and more viewers turned in by the second; her father's status added to it.
My heart was heavy and depression was slowly eating me up. It felt as if killing myself at that point in time was the best way to end the chaos.
How could I bear the burden?
So many opinions were given on the video. Some people were rejoicing at her sudden downfall:
"I've always known that this girl is so good to be true. I never even go through her contents 'cause I've always known that she's pretending."
"Aisha is so downbeat about her standards that she could literally be awarded for 'Most Holy Human On The Planet.' Now you just shamed yourself."
"Finally! I've been awaiting the moment when y'all would see that this girl doesn't practice what she preaches! I've always said it!"
"Hmm... Mr attractive show us the way."
"Miss Perfect gets caught in an immoral act."
"The end of your career, fame and success—who would want to listen to you after this?"
"No one is worried that you wanna enjoy life as a teen or do crazy stuff. What we are concerned about is how you wear a disguise and condemn these same things that you practice!"
"Hypocrite!"
"Dumb teenager."
On the other hand, her fans refused to believe it:
"Well, you need to be questioned miss detective. How did you get this video?"
"Something is not right. Was she set up? Does anyone else think she was set up?"
⤷"I do too. 𝐼 𝑛𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑚. Aisha was set up."
"Not my Aisha. Aisha cannot do this, not like this."
"Aren't you Aisha's friend?! Haven't you posted pictures together with her?! Guys, check this girl's Instagram, she's a friend of Aisha!"
⤷"EXACTLY! What sort of a friend is this? Envy made you do this huh?"
"Well, I don't really think anything's wrong here... This is just some youthful exuberance. How can anyone be so sure that she was going to have s3x with him? They didn't look like it."
⤷"It is wrong, do not make every single thing a norm! Especially for one who condemns these very things. But at the same time, I can't believe it. Plus, how else could they have looked like it? I get your point but man, they were ALONE in a dim room on a windy evening, flirting with each other, what else do you think this would trigger? Lol."
The video continued to circulate all around town.
Aisha was nowhere to be found and I had to attend school in shame, with the turbulence getting heightened by the second!
In a bid to grow his social media walls, James continued to brag about his hanging out with Aisha. He additionally posted some pictures of them and even screenshots of their chats. He claimed and confirmed that they were going to get intimate that day. He said a lot of nasty stuff, some of which were total lies and he succeeded in pulling attention to himself. People nicknamed him "Mr Attractive" and so many memes were invented out of those lines from James and Aisha. These memes and skits made in respect to the video made the story trend intensely.
Aisha's fans invaded my account and turned to attack me. They talked about my personality and envy towards Aisha that caused me to want to defile her name. They said a bunch of crude stuff in my name and criticized me strongly.
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"My cousin, Amanda wants to be a blogger and we had to to begin by creating an interesting topic. 🎙️
Amanda noticed how weak and insecure you've been and she thought that you'd make a good topic!😃
Things became easier when I had to leave for Lagos.
I was to expose the real you to your social media audience but when I learnt about your friendship with Aisha and the fight, we came up with a better plan. And FYI, I'm literally getting payed for this!🤩"
In two days, Amanda dropped the original video on her page and the truth was revealed to everyone, so was my identity as the culprit.
This totally increased Amanda's number of followers and that of Aisha as well. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠. Everything backfired.
I couldn't bear the pain any longer. I assumed that my whole life was over.
I decided that it was better to take a long break away from social media to safeguard my mental health.
I was overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow. I tried to stop thinking about Aisha and what she might have been going through but I just couldn't.
My parents gave me the silent treatment; the worst kind of treatment. They wouldn't even do the least thing by letting me know about Aisha's well-being and her father's opinion on everything. They treated me as though I was an alien. Ostracized me was constantly lost in thoughts and was deprived of rest.
For some days, I couldn't talk to anyone at school. They all pointed accusing fingers at me and whispered gossips to themselves each time I walked by. Remi gave me the cold shoulder but I often caught him staring at me. He would suddenly look away whenever I turned to him. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮.
At some point, I only smiled and shook my head; he was so bad at holding grudges.
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I walked into the school's compound facing the ground and holding on to one strap of my bag. (..)
As I entered, all eyes were fixed on me.
I had the intentions of heading straight to my class and reading a novel or making pencil illustrations when a student said, "Temi, Mr Isaac needs you in the teachers' office right now."
𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭.
I changed directions to the teachers' office and the inquisitive eyes followed with lots of kibitzing.
I went to Mr Isaac and immediately, five other teachers gathered around. With a muddled expression, I scanned their faces and Mr Isaac said, "Good morning, Temi. I hope you had a great night."
"Yes," tentatively, I replied.
"So what's going on? Why isn't Aisha in school?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean by you don't know? Aren't you guys close friends?" Another teacher meddled.
"I don't know anything."
Mr Isaac sighed and gave them a sign to leave. They ignored him.
He sensed that I wouldn't disclose anything to him with those teachers being so meddlesome.
I was cautious enough not to spill anything on an account of them taking the very information coming from the words of my mouth and posting it online. Some of those people simply wanted to get involved in the hottest trending topic and talk about it.
On the spur of the moment, another student walked in and asked that I see the principal in his office.
I sighed and walked off to the principal's office. There, I met few members of the school board.
𝐉𝐞𝐞𝐳.
They started of by inquiring about all that happened between I and Aisha then they asked of her whereabouts saying that her parents had refused to answer phone calls from anyone.
I gave them answers within my knowledge. Afterwards, they counselled me on certain things. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭'𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞. (¬_¬)
When I got dismissed, I wiped the tears off of my eyes and grasped the strap of my bag so tightly as I sluggishly walked off in sorrow. 𝐖𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐢'𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐦. ╰⁔╯
I went straight to the bathroom. I flung my bag in the floor, held on to the washbasin and looked into my sore eyes in the mirror.
Forthwith, someone flung the door open. 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐧! 𝐈 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫.
It was Remi. He stood there with eyes of sympathy. "Did someone order a warm hug?"
I nervously strode to him and embraced him. It was a gleeful feeling I had there. My best friend was there at just the appointed time.
"Hold on, we need to leave this place stat before one of those silly girls come in here and talk about us being alone in the girls' bathroom."
𝐎𝐡, 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭!
"I need to use the toilet though." I went into one of the toilets and he got out.
Just as soon as I got out of my class when school was over, eyes were on me all over again. 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭. The principal approached me with Remi. He took us with him to a private corner of the hallway.
"What were you and Remi doing in the girls' bathroom?" He asked, intently.
"Oh my God!" Remi fell on his neck.
"This is a school, do I have to remind you? Explain yourself!" He overreacted and drew the attention of the students walking by.
I didn't know why but I immediately broke into tears. "What are you inquiring about exactly? This same person you've asked of me if we're actual siblings. Now I'm guilty of every offense just because of what happened?" I hurled then walked out of his presence with tears dripping down my eyes.
I met my parents sitting on the couch, watching TV as I marched in in fury. My Dad stopped me as I was going through the stairs in a haste. He asked about my mood.
"The principal, the teachers, the school board, they've all been troubling me all day."
I locked the door of my room, flung my bag, took of my jacket and threw myself on the bed to weep.
I made one mistake, just one. It wouldn't have harmed me that much if everyone wasn't making such a big deal out of it. Aisha was indeed peculiar.
In the middle of my weeping, Remi came in. He was still on his school uniform; he hadn't gone home yet. He rapidly removed his bag from his shoulders and poured out its contents—chocolates, a mini teddy bear, a ruined flower, more chocolates, cookies with chocolates, and more flower. He received a phone call.
"Hello. Yeah, you can come in. Come right away." He turned to me and took me by the hands to sit up. He wiped my tears gently with his hands.
"I got you a new friend, he's snuggles and he loves warm hugs," he waved the teddy in my face.
Shortly, someone knocked on the door. "Come in!" Remi said and Precious walked in. She sat athwart where I and Remi was, on a chair.
"As soon as I heard about everything, I tried reaching out to you but you weren't picking my calls."
"I failed her. I should have been there for her right from the start but instead, I was away."
"I hope you know that Amara is back in Abuja. The burial ceremony took place on Friday. I wanted to tell you about it but she didn't want you to find out."
"Precious, how did you and Amara meet?"
"Her grandfather and mine are friends. Several times she visited Lagos when we were kids. And yes, her grandfather is not from the Igbo tribe as you might suppose. He's a Yoruba man from Lagos."
"Do you know Amanda?"
"Chimmamanda? Of course. They all visited Lagos so many times."
I listened to them converse and I added no word.
Remi turned to me with eyes of sympathy. He took off his glasses so I could view them more.
"Please, say something. It's not the end of the world."
"Oh, yes it is. And it's the end of my social life. I'm never going back in there.
I don't go out, Remi, I'm usually stuck in this big house all by myself, and one might say that a person gets exposed and messed up when you go out there but I tell you that I could be locked up in a room for a month or more, still living, still breathing and I'd get corrupted even more by just having this device right there with me. People don't even have to go out there to be corrupted anymore. It's all right in here." I took my phone from my drawer and waved it.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
𝐉𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐑
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭; 𝐈 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞.
"Ever since I got there, it's been from one problem to another; dissatisfaction, discomfort, anxiety, sadness, corruption, addiction, and envy. I really did feel like I didn't fit in and I could not fit in. It all seemed so new to me and everyone seemed so perfect. So perfect! Do you know that feeling?" I paused and continued, "When I realized that I got more attention from giving out immoral characters from my imagination, I wanted more so I became immoral myself."
"I feel like you caused this whole mess."
"You think?"
"No, what I mean is: if you had continued with how you started, you know, posting your artworks with edifying contents, if YOU hadn't given your audience a picture of immorality from your end, they wouldn't have began to crave for more immorality from you this selectively interact on YOUR immoral contents more."
"Where is Aisha now? Do you know where she is?"
"They left for Kaduna already. She hasn't been picking my calls either."
"I'm such an envious friend, an ungrateful friend, a terrible, terrible friend," I broke down in tears once again.
"You should be happy. The matter is being allayed already. Soon, everyone would get tired of it and a new matter would arise—that's social media.
The conversation was abruptly discontinued by shoutings from my Father downstairs. We all halted to listen. He said, "You need to stop harassing my daughter! Tell your teachers, else I'll come there right now and tell them words that would linger in their brains for the rest of today. I've been intentionally keeping quiet for a long time now. Leave her alone! She's my daughter and I'll deal with her myself! I don't want the school's interference!"
I sighed and left Remi to play with my hair.
"Never be deceived; social media is great at deceiving people. Never be pressured; social media is great at putting people under pressure," Precious told me. "I once felt the way you feel but now I just do my own thing, not bothering about anything or validation. A bunch of people in there are not normal."
"Very true. You were focused on those who've built legacies online unlike you, forgetting that people don't build legacies in one day. Those people may have been on social media for years trying to accomplish what you see them accomplishing now. They may not tell you but it'll surely put you under pressure to assume that they just started and they're making it big While others like you try to make it big the fast and easy way—the way you went. While a lesser percentage aren't really bothered about all of that but it affects them little by little.
"You weren't patient enough. If you were patiently doing your own thing in determination, vision and passion, you'd have grown as time went by and learn all of social media's tactics to improve yourself and your accounts or legacy."
"I did a lot of bad things, Remi. I'm sorry," I let the tears drip increasingly while Remi patted me on the back. "I'm actually kind of glad that Amara came around to make my ways known to me."
"In every mistake, there's a MISS, TAKE—take sense," he whacked me on the back of my head with the teddy and I laughed.
"This is something you should have told me a long time ago, you know. I deserve to know about the things you feel. Well, there's also something that I should have told you a long time ago."
"What?"
"I'd rather tell you online."
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::♥• 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐉𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐒𝐎𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐀 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐓𝐀𝐆 "𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐌𝐂"
»» #𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐌𝐂
::♥•𝐅@𝐓𝐞𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐞