“Romantic love, Eve… I pride myself on not knowing what that feels like.
I heard it’s warm and fills you with good feelings, makes every day your best day, and can turn even the blackest hearts a pure snow white— okay, maybe not snow white, but a tad brighter.
I heard it’s the best thing that could ever happen to you. It made me wonder if I’m missing out on life because I haven’t had that experience.
I prefer friendships; the smooth ones, the rough ones, the new ones, the old ones, and the distant ones. Friendships are exhilarating at every corner, and it gives me the greatest pleasure when someone opens up to me like the bright purple petals of Morning Glory to the warm sun.
While I’ve had a lot of friends, one has stayed with me for years. And to think it was the one that left.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
2017 had to be the worst year of my life. It was the year I did not meet academic expectations and shamed my entire family. I fell into a pit, and let’s just say crawling back out was hard. But amidst the chaos, I found a friend.
Benjamin was the best thing that happened to me pre- and post-chaos. We met on Wattpad. If you’re unfamiliar with Wattpad, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Let’s just call it the OG place for readers online.
Every other platform is a counterfeit. On Wattpad, you can read millions of novels, chat with the authors and other readers, fangirl all you want, and guess what? The books to read are endless.
What I liked about Wattpad was that the community and connections were real! Many people didn’t put up a farce there. Why should we? We had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
The networking capacity of Wattpad is over 10 million readers, which means the possibility of forming a real connection with a random person is 1(this is a math joke. Boo hoo if you don’t get it).
Followers, random commentators, mutual fangirls… all these people could somehow become your actual friends, or better yet, Penpals. This was the allure of Wattpad.
So, back to the story.
I can’t remember the book I read – it could have been mine – but it started with a random comment, followed by more comments, a private message, and that’s how I met Benjamin.
He was a weird boy, in my definition. Didn’t quite fit the description of the guys I roll with in real life. He was a bit of a hippy, wore his brown hair long, lived in a trailer park with his parents somewhere in Texas, and had really weird taste in music.
If we had met at school or a party, I wouldn’t have given him much of a glance, and it’s because I’m rude. A certain kind of person just gravitates towards me. Know those high-achieving, perfect-looking, best-of-the-best-in-everything type of kids. Yeah. That’s the type that gravitates towards me. Because I am one of them.
The only thing Ben and I had in common was God. We both believed in God, and we loved reading. That was all we needed to form a relationship.
Pre-chaos, we talked about everything, from food, to book recommendations, to schools, to culture. It was pure bliss to take off my mask and talk to someone in an unhinged way.
We didn’t care about time zones. I was always up at night with my hand-me-down phone, talking to him. He did the same for me, too.
After a few months, the tone of our talks changed.
We started talking about how uncertain our futures were–we were both in high school (secondary school for me). We talked about home; his was way more unstable than mine. We talked about meeting each other one day (oh, I was so excited about this), and how he was moving to Maine in his last year of high school.
I had no idea where Maine was, but we had an old world map in our house at the time, and I spent time just looking at Texas, and then Maine, which was on the East Coast and was all about the marine lifestyle.
Before he moved, I entered my WAEC, NECO, and JAMB era, and I was online less frequently because I was trying to study for my exams.
After my exams, I was back, but by then he had moved to Maine and was adjusting to marine life. Texas and Maine were worlds apart for him, but Miane was more like Bayelsa, where I grew up, so it was more fun for me.
Random conversations were about fishing, seafood, and swimming. Serious talks were about college and marriage, and well…everything in between.
I remember telling him one time that I wouldn’t mind marrying him. We had so much synergy, it was crazy. He told me he wouldn’t mind either. It was smooth sailing until WAEC came, and I didn’t get a C in math.
All my plans came crashing down. I couldn’t move forward into the university. I couldn’t take another step in my life, and I had failed my parents.
I had never been so devastated in my entire life. I withdrew from everyone, including Ben. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I had failed.
That’s when the depression came.
I’ve never been a crier, so my tear ducts were dry but… I wouldn’t talk, or laugh, or text.
He texted and texted and texted. Sometimes, he would ask how I was doing. Other days, he’d fill me in on what was going on in his life. In my depressed era, he graduated from high school and well… I had to congratulate him, right?
But I couldn’t, and I think that hurt him. It almost drove me mad.
I put my feelings aside and sent a text. Took a few days, but he texted back, asking me how I was doing. I deflected, and we spent days discussing random topics.
About a week later, I confessed to ‘failing’ my exams, and he understood completely how it feels to look like a failure. He was the one who made me open up about how I felt the whole time, worthless and broken.
It was then he told me that even if I were worthless, he’d still be my friend.
I know these were not his exact words. But this was all that my 17-year-old self heard. He told me not to cry or be sad anymore because I was worth more than my scores to him.
I believed him.
Our conversations began to flow as usual again, around the time they released Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I watched it and told him I was so drawn to the song that played when they talked about Peter Quill’s parents. It was so cool.
Remember when I said he had weird tastes in music? Yeah. Ben proceeded to give me a recommendation. “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass didn’t seem like the kind of song I’d like, but I gave it a try for Ben.
It was the perfect song for a girl who thought life was moving without her, and the things she loved were beyond her reach.
I loved it.
I had never been so excited about an old song as I was about this song. Of course, I shared my excitement with Ben, and he laughed (LOL had to do, right?) and told me I was Brandy, and if he were her sailor husband, he would never have left her.
It was then my heart cracked open, and I felt romantic love.
I had never wanted to be hugged and held by another man like I did at that moment. But it could never happen.
We were an ocean apart.
All we had was ‘our song’. God knows I played it nonstop, swaying slowly in my room, eyes locked with an invisible man who had captured my heart.
He played it, too, and thought of me.
This moment in time will always be framed with bliss.
The euphoria continued for months, until I got back on my feet and accepted I was going to have a gap year.
He graduated from high school, got a job, and became busy.
We still talked all the time, but he was the one who wasn’t online anymore.
Wattpad became boring without Ben. There was no one to chat with. No one to laugh with. No one to share love with.
We didn’t fall out of love with each other– can’t say we were ever in love either– but a big part of our relationship hinged on constant communication.
He wasn’t online.
I wasn’t online.
I sent texts, and he didn’t reply. I double-texted, but he just wasn’t available.
Time zones began to matter, and well… we lost touch. It was as if he never existed. All I had were chats dating years back and a song I couldn’t part with.
It’s crazy that we never shared contacts or other social media handles. We never needed to talk somewhere else. Wattpad was enough. Until it was not.
The last message I ever sent to him was my phone number and how he could find me… if ever he opens his Wattpad, I pray it’s the first message he sees.
Sometime ago, I was logged out of my Wattpad account, and when I recovered my account, all my chats were gone. There was nothing at all to prove that my heart almost belonged to a pen pal– well, no proof except my memory. I mourned the loss of his words and text for weeks.
And well, here we are.
I put our song on a loop as I wrote this and even went to Wattpad to find his account. It’s still there, but has been dormant since 2020. I read his posts and books, remembering how he typed and sounded. It felt like 2017 again, but this time, I’m a woman who was willing to love and be loved deeply.
My heart still races whenever I think of him, and a sheepish smile always graces my lips. The most bizarre realisation, though, is that I’m not afraid to admit that I can’t even remember his name.
I think it’s Ben.
I feel it’s Ben.
It has to be Ben, and I am Brandy, who never got to marry the sailor she loved.”
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