#series

Debby was heartbroken when her relationship of one year and two months died with the death of Henry. His kidney just upped and failed, and five weeks later, he died. It was like the ground under her feet shifted. One moment, she was standing on solid ground; another moment, she felt like she was falling off the edge of a cliff. She couldn't remember a more terrible time in her 26 years of life.

Patrick was the only one she could really open up to, and that was not before pleas upon pleas from him for her to let him be of help. Debby's mum, who was her closest friend, died of cancer when she was fourteen. She was not particularly close to her dad, so couldn't let him in to the deep recesses of her heart where pain was lodged like a big rock.

She was ready to start living again seven months later after Henry's mum had a long talk with her.

"You cannot stop living because this has happened. Please, put yourself together and move on," Henry's mother told her.

They sobbed together for a long time and then she left.

One rainy night, she was lying on a couch in her father's sitting room, surfing the net when Patrick's call came.

"Hello, big head," She said after picking up the call.

Their kind of friendship was rare. Teasing and silly faces were commonplace with them.

"Good evening, Debby. Please can you come to the house?" His voice had a sad note in it.

Alarm went off in Debby's head at once. She didn't need a soothsayer telling her before she knew that something was wrong with her friend.

"Patrick, what is it?"

"Please come to the house."

After a moment's silence, she sighed and said, "Ok. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

It was a good thing that her father was out of town. He would have needed too long an explanation as to why she could not wait till morning to go see her friend.

She took longer than she had planned, because she had difficulty getting a tricycle to take her to her destination. It was well past 9:00pm when she arrived. After a brief knock on Patrick's door and an invitation to come in, she went inside. He must have left the door open for me, she thought as she walked in. Patrick was seated on his three-seater sofa, his back and head leaning on the backrest.

Hands akimbo, she stood looking down at her friend. He looked like he was doing all he could not to break down.

"What is the problem?" she asked. It was still difficulty for her to imagine what could have happened to her friend for him to look so sad.

"Sit down," he said, patting a space by his side on the sofa.

"Without question or hesitation, Debby sat, turning slightly so as to see his face.

"She is pregnant," he said without preamble.

Both taken aback and confused, Debby asked, "who is pregnant?"

"Peace."

Peace was his fianc�e of over two years. Patrick had gone to meet her parents with a bottle of wine to officially let them know that he wanted to marry their daughter. Though plans had not yet been set in motion for the big day but they were fairly certain that it was going to happen within a year.

Debby had not known sex was in the picture in their relationship. She must have heard and thought wrong.

After deliberating on the best way to approach the issue, she said, "what are you going to do about it. I mean, the deed is done already."

"How could she?" she had been wondering about the other emotion she was seeing on his face but had not been able to place a finger on it. Now she saw it clearly; it was anger.

"Now hold it right there. I am not going to sit here and listen while you put all the blame on her as if she impregnated herself. You are as much to blame in this as she is." Debby was angry at this point and she did not try to hide it. "Some of you men are something else. You sleep with a girl and get her pregnant only to make it look as if it was all her fault?" she added under her breath.

"What are you talking about?" Patrick cut in, looking at her as if she had suddenly developed three heads. "I am not responsible for her pregnancy. We had agreed to wait and you know that very well."

As it dawned on her that she had gotten the whole thing twisted, she understood why he was so angry. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

They both sat in silence for close to three minutes, each lost in thought.

"How did you know?" Debby finally asked.

"She told me." He was staring into space.

"When?"

"This evening just before I called you," he said, with a heavy sigh. "The most annoying part is that she was not remorseful about it. She said I starved her of sex."

"What! I thought the decision to wait was taken by both of you."

"That's what I thought too, but she said she only agreed to it because that was what I wanted." Before Debby could ask the question that was on her mind, he continued. "When I asked her when she started cheating on me, her answer shocked me. She said she started falling in love with the guy about eight months ago. She decided to break things off with him when I proposed to her. But since I did not immediately talk about plans for the wedding, she thought I was just wasting her time, so she went back to the guy."

"I'm so sorry, Patrick."

He broke into a mirthless laugh before saying, "sorry? Why are you sorry? Are you sorry that I fell for a player or are you sorry that I was foolish enough not to see all the signs that were there?"

"You?"

"I what? Debby, I showed her love in every way possible. I made sacrifices. I defended her. I provided for her as much as I could. Debby, you know when you told me you were not comfortable asking your man for things, I thought you were out of touch with reality. I thought any woman that is not being provided for by her man will leave and vice versa, so I made sure she had everything she asked for, unless I didn't have. I had money tied up in investments and I told her about it. I was waiting to get the money out before making plans for the wedding. What else could I have done to show her I was not wasting her time? Debby, what else?" There was no missing the trails left by tears that ran down both sides of his face.

Unbidden, tears pooled in her eyes too. That was her first time of seeing Patrick so broken.

She closed the distance between them and drew him into her arms. They stayed that way for a long time before Debby tried to draw back.

"Please stay," he begged. The sadness in his voice forced her to postpone her desire to leave.

Ten minutes passed before Debby made another move to pull away but this time his request took her by surprise.

"Debby, please kiss me!"

Shocked to a standstill, she searched his face for traces of laughter or anything to show that he was just pulling her legs, but there was none.

"Please," he said, lowering his face towards hers. "I need you to kiss me."

"Patrick, you don't know what you need. You are not in your right frame of mind and you are not straight. A kiss is the last thing you need right now. What you need is to lay down on your bed and sleep like your life depends on it, because it looks like that. By the time you wake up tomorrow, you would have been cured of this madness! Goodnight!"

Before he could think of what to say, she dragged herself out of his arms and carried herself out of the door and into the dark of night.