Mixo
When I was younger, I dreamed of being an investigative journalist. I would write articles for my school newspaper, collect articles from journalists admired, I would do "deep dives" on conspiracies around my high school (always finding the truth) and I would write about it. If there was something suspicious going on around the school: like books in the library gone missing, art supplies being stolen, teachers fornicating with students; I would be the one to get to the bottom of it. Everyone agreed I would make a good detective one day, but I didn't care for police work, I wanted to write. I dreamed of travelling the world as a freelance journalist, uncovering all the secrets that governments tried so hard to hide.
I had a really big social circle, a lot of friends who were well-known and well connected. At that time, I was really materialistic. I grew up in the private school system, connections were very important. Everything was all about your family, who your family was and what they did. My dad was a widow, a businessman, so I grew up as the only child of a very wealthy man. I was spoiled and was the apple of his eye. I knew I was everything to my dad, so I walked through life with that security: knowing I was the most important person to one of the most powerful men in the country. People were drawn to me because of who my dad was. So I attracted a really big circle, most of my friendships were superficial, but I didn't mind. I didn't need friends, I needed allies, people who came from backgrounds as affluent as mine. Anything less I couldn't stand.
That being said, I wasn't always like this: so fixated on one person. I used to be the type of person who was good with people, people listened to me and my name had influence. I was well liked, respected and popular. There's a version of me, before Ade, that I don't remember that clearly. A version of me that he took from me. You see Ade did things to me, and I did things with him, that ruined my credibility. Ever since what happened between the two of us, people don't respect or like me anymore. Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed with him, I want me back. Me when I wielded power like it was a second arm, when the world seemed like it was at my fingertips. Now, I'm so consumed by my anger and personal shame that I can't see beyond Ade Orifa.
In the aftermath of our breakup I was so focused on not failing, not falling apart, that I laser-focused on my academics. I became obsessed with school work, studying 24/7, writing articles and getting internships at local newspapers. For months that was all I did, I didn't realise in the process that I was losing other parts of me. I didn't realise I was pushing my friends away or abandoning my hobbies, or maybe I just couldn't bring myself to care. How could I? I was fighting really hard to keep myself together.
I wasn't always like this. I didn't always care so much about Ade Orifa. I didn't always invest so much time into him. There was a time when I was normal, a time before him. There was a time I didn't have so much anger. A time when I wasn't a ticking time bomb, a time when I wasn't so cavalier about witnessing other people be hurt, a time when I wasn't so eager to hurt too.
Once Ade touches you, you change. At first, it's like he's opening your mind up to a new world. He shows you a new way of living, a world where you don't have to put others needs before your own, or care about other people's opinions, or try too hard for anything. He shows you that you too can be as beautiful as he is, he tells you what you need in order to feel like the world is at your feet. When with him, you feel like you can do anything, be anything, say anything and he would still love you. He used to tell me that I could be as dark as I wanted when I was with him, and I believed him. I believed him, so I shared my most intimate secrets with him, and he used them against me.
After he ruined me in the eyes of everyone who knew me, I grew angry. All I wanted was to hurt him, I wanted to steal his reputation from him the way he had stolen mine. I wanted to make him hurt the way he had hurt me, I wanted him to know what it was to have people look at you like you were scum. So I started following him, collecting stories of Ade Orifa's vicious exploits. I would take pictures of him doing drugs, him cheating, any dirt I could get on him. I would take pictures and post it on an anonymous Instagram page.
At first, he would put on elaborate performances because he knew I was watching. He would pick up girls and he would make them do obscene things for him. The worst part, he would make Lesedi watch. Sometimes he would have Lesedi tell the girls what to do, it was like some twisted game that the two liked to play. However, even posting about that didn't deter people from Ade, it didn't cost him his reputation.
In the end, the Instagram page did nothing except help him get more popular, more notorious. The more I posted and wrote about him, the more people wanted to get near him. It was like, the more horrible the stories were, the more interesting he was to people. Lesedi, on the other hand, was vastly disliked by most of the students at school. Most people found him weird and off-putting, it didn't help that he was rude. (I know he tells himself that people hate him because he's gay, but really, it's because he's an asshole. Unlike Ade, he makes no effort to hide it.)
The things I posted about both of them always resulted in Lesedi receiving heavier backlash than Ade. People would call Lesedi names while praising Ade. They would say Lesedi was the villain, the bad influence, but Ade was innocent. The more I tried to show people who he really was, the more Lesedi became the scapegoat. I think, that this is when I became obsessed; when I realised that the only way to nail him was to find something really really bad. I needed to find something that would show what a monster Ade was. I told myself that I wouldn't stop trying to expose him, no matter what.
Ade had had very few "serious" relationships, although in his case a serious relationship was just a relationship where he hid his other exploits. I knew about every girl Ade Orifa had ever seriously dated. There was Ruth, the girl who loved him so much that she hated herself for it, the girl who would never betray Ade or his secrets. There was Angel, the girl from Mamelodi who had just gotten in way over her heard, too scared to say anything. Then there was me, the girl who had been so arrogant I had thought he wouldn't be able to hurt me. I had thought I found my match, a partner, someone who could rule over our society with me. However, where I saw partnership Ade had seen competition. He had taken me for an enemy, and destroyed me like he would one.
Ayo was supposed to be different. Everyone said she was, everyone had said that Ade was different with her. He didn't take her to all the same places he had taken the rest of us, he was kind to her, he lived with her, he treated her like a person, like someone worth respecting. So, she was supposed to be different, but I knew Ade well, and I knew that he could get a completely different girl, and he would stay the same depraved lunatic.
When Ayo and Ade broke up, rumours spread all over campus. People said there had been some kind of an argument between the two of them, that Lesedi had had to intervene. Some said that Ade had been caught cheating, others said that it was Ayo. But I knew that if I wanted to know the personal details of their breakup, I would have to go straight to the source. The girl who so many around our campus envied; the girl who had earned the love of Ade Orifa.
So I turned my efforts to Ayo. I befriended her. I figured if I earned her trust, she would tell me what happened between her and Ade. When I talked to Ayo, I could tell why Ade liked her. She was different you know, from the rest of us, I get why people always said that about her. It wasn't some cliché line people said to make her seem unattainable, she really was different from everyone in our world. She was very open to new people, she was kind, and you could tell she had a very gentle demeanour. She reeked of goodness and love. You felt small around her; not because she made you feel that way (God, no. She was incredibly accommodating) but because everything about her was so good and you were just darkness.
I couldn't understand how Ade hadn't corrupted her yet, or how he even loved her. I could see why she loved him, she was that type who wanted to see the good in everyone. However, seeing her character, how it fascinated and made me sick at the same time, I didn't see how Ade loved her. She was everything he pretended to be but wasn't. She was light where he was dark. She was genuinely a good person, there was no ulterior motive or agenda to it, it was just who she was. Knowing Ade, he would have envied her, hated her even. But love her? He wouldn't know how.
Me, on the other hand, I found it easy to love Ayo. She was going through her first breakup and she needed someone to help her navigate it. I helped her delete his number and burn his clothes, I helped her delete their pictures on her phone, and was there when she blocked his contacts. I had approached her with intentions to end Ade, but I had grown to actually like her. Our friendship somehow came easy to me. I liked her quirky way of looking at things, I liked having her around so much that I tolerated her talking about Ade as "my first love, the man I love more than my father". I would comfort her when she called me in the middle of the night crying about how much she missed him. I was a really good friend to her, and for a while, I forgot how much I hated Ade because I was too busy loving Ayo.
It didn't last, because one day she called to tell me that Ade had come to her parents' house. He had met her parents, brought a bottle of Macallan (very expensive whiskey) for her parents, and a bouquet for her. She had sounded excited, it was the first time her father had liked any guy that was around her. He had apologised, she unblocked him and they were talking again. Imagine that, I had spent over two weeks nursing her, trying to help her heal and move on. All it had taken him to win her back was flowers and a few nice words. I was disappointed, but I had expected it.
I tried my best to dissuade her about the idea of getting back together with Ade. I tried to tell her it wasn't a good idea, he had done bad things, hurt a lot of people. I told her about Ruth and and Angel, I told her about all the other girls he'd played with. However, she insisted that she knew about his past and she felt it wasn't fair to judge him for his past mistakes. "I have made bad decisions too you know, I'd hate to be judged for them," she'd said.
I could have told her about my past with Ade, what he had made me do for him, who I was to him, but I was terrified. Scared she would turn against me, use my secrets against me. So I didn't tell her. There was a part of me that hoped they would get back together again. I hoped that she would learn who he was and start hating him the way I do, and we could take him down together.
So I didn't give up on her, I tried my best to be her friend while she was dating Ade. I would listen to her gush about how amazing he was, the things he did for her, and I would smile and tell her she deserves it. Our friendship had to be a secret of course, Ade didn't like her to have friends he didn't know about, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have liked me to be her friend. The only problem is that Ayo didn't keep secrets from Ade, she insisted on complete transparency, so I guess she must have told him about me, because I didn't hear from her for a week.
She had been avoiding my calls and texts when I ran into her at Lore, an art studio she frequented. I greeted her in glee, arms outstretched and ready to hug her. The look on her face could only be described as guarded, she was not happy to see me, and I knew Ade had been whispering in her ear about me. "Ade told me the truth, about you," she crossed her arms, refusing to look me in the eyes, "He says you're his ex. That you're obsessed with ruining his life. He said that I shouldn't take anything you say seriously."
Okay, he had me there. I hadn't been completely honest with Ayo, about my past relationship with Ade. Because of that, every bad word I had ever said about him now looked like the words of a bitter ex. It looked like I was just saying whatever I could to keep them apart for longer. I know I should have told her before him but it was fear that had held me back. "That's true, we used to date. But I moved on, Ade is not a good person Ayo, people need to know what he is."
She scoffed, "He is good to me. People make mistakes Mixo, and Ade has made mistakes in the past, but that's not who he is anymore. I think you should let him be who he's trying to be now,"
"and what is he trying to be?" I asked her, chuckling. "A good person. He's trying to be a good person." I shouldn't have, but I laughed. There it was, that naivete, that wide-eyed 'he can be good' nonsense that she so desperately wanted to believe. I couldn't believe she still had that mindset after everything I had told her, so I laughed at her. I couldn't help it.
"You're being a bitch you know. I'm leaving," was the last thing she said to me. I was too enraptured in laughter to see her walk away. By the time I looked up, I saw her getting in Ade's car. That was the last time we spoke. Ade and I made eye contact while he drove away, he smiled at me triumphantly, his way of saying that he won this round. I couldn't help but think: 'Ayo Abiola is stupid; not naive, not innocent, just plain stupid'.
What happened to Ayo, in the end, well it's to be expected. He had done it to others, done it to me, so it was a long time coming. You can't love someone to that extent. The difference between Ayo and me is that I was obsessed with Ade, but that obsession stemmed from hatred, Ayo adored Ade. She was absolutely in love and devoted to him. There was nothing she wouldn't do for him. So you see, by loving a man like that, she got what was coming to her.
Maybe I could have saved her. Maybe if I wasn't so focused on destroying Ade, maybe if I wasn't so obsessed with ruining his life, I could have saved hers. I think that, if I hadn't been so occupied with taking a video, with having the "grand expose", that I honestly could have saved her. Perhaps, if Ade hadn't seen me there, he wouldn't have been so spurred up, he wouldn't have gone that far. He wanted to put on a performance, he wanted to make sure I saw what he was doing to her. Of course, Lesedi was there as well, I can never really tell what role Lesedi plays in Ade's exploits. I probably could have saved her, but I didn't, and that is my cross to carry.
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