Betrayal landed her into my arms

There I was, minding my own business when a text came in from a girl I had long given up on. Long, in that I had even deleted her number and literally moved on to other fish in the ocean. So, that Friday evening when a text came in at about 10pm, I had no idea who it was from. It was a simple message, just hi.

I was with a girl I was then pursuing, we were out having a few drinks. I read the phone, imagined it was one of those random bored people I hardly knew, reason I did not even have the number saved, and promptly forgot about it.
Fast forward two days later, I was scrolling through my phone when I saw the message. I still could not figure out who it was, so, I called the number. She picked up on the second ring, with a ‘hi’, and I immediately recognised her voice. So I made up a quick lie, “I had been down with a fever, sorry for getting back to you late blah blah...”

She listened quietly, and said, ‘it is alright Eugene’. And she went quiet again. So, I asked her if all was well, and she said it indeed was. Not missing the opportunity, I asked her if it was too busy for me to ask to see her. “But you are sick”, she said. “No, I am recovering”, I corrected her. She went quiet for a few minutes and then said, “I could come and check on you, if that is alright with you.”

Yes, it was more than alright, problem was, I was not sick at all. I told her, “Sure. I am going for a checkup but I should be back home by evening.” She said she would come see me at about 6pm. Now this was a lot of things happening too fast. Above all, I was perplexed about what exactly was going on with this girl. She had made me run around in circles, I had given up on my own and out of pure frustration I had deleted her number.

That was the only way I would be able to break that vicious loop that was doing me nothing good, just endless grief. And now here she was, asking to see me, at my place.

Well, one could explain that she was just being kind, I was ‘sick’ after all. But before, even if I had told her I was on my deathbed, she probably would have told me she was busy for the next two weeks.

I am not one to question my good fortunes. I wrapped up my work, and heading home, I passed by a pharmacy and got a bunch of placebos; vitamins, supplements, and magnesium tabs. I had to have some meds around the house, in plain view for her to believe that I was actually sick.

I put all these things on a stool near the sofa, got my blanket and made myself comfortable watching TV series. And waiting.

Presently, she arrived. And it all came back, the reason I had got so maddeningly crazy about her, the endless texts she hardly replied to, all those phone calls, all those heartaches. She looked simply awesome, I nearly forgot I was ‘sick’. I struggled to stand, shook her hand and asked her to make herself comfortable.

She had brought me some juice, which she put in the fridge. And she made me some food. Then she left. We did not even talk much, she seemed to prefer silence, and I did not know what to say to her because I did not know what she wanted. She came back the next day and the next and the next. I had to feign a gradual recovery.

It was on the third day that she told me the reason she was here; her boyfriend had betrayed her, he had made some other girl pregnant. She was hurting, and very lost, she needed to clear her head. How I fit into the picture, I still do not know up to now. But she kept coming to see me for the next week until I was ‘fully recovered’. After that, when I asked her out on a proper date, she said she would love to.