The weeks and and months following David's absence were some of the coldest of my life, and the reason behind it is something I still can't explain. What made it worse was the silence — his numbers were switched off, his social media accounts gone. I didn't even know if he was okay, and life began to feel like it had paused. I missed his voice, his presence, even the way he supported me. For the first time, I realized how much I had taken all he did for me for granted.
One of those bleak days, I reached out to Mike.
"Hello, Mike."
"Hi, Amy. Hope your boyfriend isn't around," he teased immediately.
I had found him again through one of his social media accounts. Since that night at the restaurant, we hadn't spoken. David had smashed my phone that fateful day, changed my line along with the device, and made sure I never retrieved my number. That was why I had lost contact with Mike.
Mike invited me to Port Harcourt that weekend, saying I sounded so worried and just needed to cool off. I wasn't comfortable going alone, so I called my friend Linda.
Linda and I had been friends since my first year in school. We met through a mutual friend in our department and grew close. She carried a kind of beauty that silenced a room — her ebony skin glowed like polished marble under the sun, her presence radiating both strength and grace. Linda was the kind of black beauty who commanded attention everywhere she went. Men, even lecturers, would have given anything to be with her. But behind her beauty was a reckless lifestyle I often struggled to understand. I once heard of an incident at a club where she left a friend behind without consent, and the girl was molested. I never asked her why — perhaps I didn't want to know.
Linda was older, bigger, and more experienced than I was. We lived very different lives, yet somehow, we clicked. She often told me I was too young to let David cage me. They never liked each other, and because David constantly complained that my friendship with her made him uncomfortable, I had gradually distanced myself from her.
"Hey, girl!" she answered when she heard my voice. Her excitement shocked me, considering we hadn't spoken in a while. We talked for long, and I told her how David had gone missing.
"Can I go with you?" I asked at last.
Linda immediately ran a search on Mike's social media profile after I gave her the details. That was Linda — I often called her the FBI because she always dug up information whenever I mentioned someone new, just like she had done when I first told her about David. After a few hours, she told me we could go.
That weekend in Port Harcourt turned out to be both exciting and unsettling. On the first night, Mike took us to one of the most expensive clubs in the city.
The night came alive the moment we stepped in. Colored lights darted across the room, chasing the rhythm of the music that thumped so hard it shook my chest. Laughter and shouts merged with the beat, bodies moved in beautiful chaos on the dance floor, and the air was thick with cologne and sweet cocktails. The DJ's voice rose over the crowd, and for a moment, it felt like the whole room was breathing together — strangers becoming friends, worries dissolving into the night. Every beat felt like freedom, every laugh like release, and I realized it was possibly all I needed. It was my first time in a club; David had always told me it was unnecessary. For the first time, I wondered if maybe he had been wrong.
From the start, I had made it clear to Mike that I didn't want an intimate relationship, and he said he respected that. Truthfully, I felt nothing for him. He was just a friend. But when I came to Port Harcourt, something shifted for him. He tried to push for closeness, insisting I should move on since David was gone. I told him I still wanted to wait and make every effort to hear from David before thinking about anyone else.
From that moment, his attitude changed. He stopped talking to me and instead grew closer to Linda. At first, their conversations were casual, but soon they deepened — a laugh here, a lingering glance there — until I began to feel like a stranger in Mike's house. I would sit in the parlor and hear their laughter echoing from his room. They cooked together, served me like a guest, and every small act made me feel more invisible.
By the third day, a Sunday, I knew I had to leave. As much as I didn't care for Mike romantically, I had expected some respect from him and from Linda. Instead, I felt betrayed. I packed my things quietly and insisted I wanted to return to Awka. Mike tried several times to convince me to stay, but I stood my ground.
On the way back, half-asleep in the bus, my phone kept buzzing until I finally answered.
"Hey, Amara," Mike's voice barked angrily.
"Did you or your friend take my phone?"
I snapped back at him, furious. I warned him never to call me again. When I told Linda why he had called, she was equally upset, insisting he was out of line. But deep down, I wasn't surprised. That morning, while we were packing, I had seen Mike's spare phone fall out of Linda's bag. She brushed it off as a mistake and returned it, but now the phone was gone.
Surprisingly, I didn't feel bad for Mike. If anything, I felt he deserved it after how quickly he forgot boundaries the moment Linda stepped into the picture.
When I got back to my hostel, a message from him was waiting:
"I'm sorry. I was wrong.
I know you are a good person.
Be careful with your friend."
I ignored it. One thing was clear — I valued loyalty, and Linda had betrayed me. From that day, our friendship was never the same, because loyalty was not her language.