When they say sweet sixteen, what exactly do they mean? I'm certainly sure I wasn't sweet when I turned 16. I was an unhappy teen who was mostly hungry and acted very stupidly at times. Don't get me wrong, I am very intelligent, but I guess the stupid side of my brain mostly took over at the time.
My whole life shifted to survival mode when I turned 13. I moved in with a parent who was mostly absent and therefore had to always have a plan in place for where my next meal came from. I really did hold food up in high esteem, because hunger, is not my best friend. Even now as a grown up, I hate the thought of someone I love being hungry, and I like to show love through food.
By the time I turned 16, I was now almost a pro in providing for myself. I mostly borrowed money from friends and struggled to pay back or sometimes didn't pay back at all. Sometimes I ate at the homes of my friends. This continued for a while till I made a new friend, let's call him Kwame. I had seen Kwame a couple of times in the neighborhood but had never spoken a word to him. He was a year ahead of me academically and worked after school hours as a photographer at his dad's photo studio. Sometimes when his elder brother who I knew stopped to speak to me at the house, I could see Kwame stealing glances at me from the corner of my eye. I didn't need a prophet to tell me he liked me, it was very obvious. This is why I was not surprised when he eventually gathered courage to tell me. We immediately started dating. Whether I also liked him or not is not up for discussion. Girl had a stomach to fill, and Kwame just seemed like the right person because he was from a stable home. (Remember I mostly made stupid decisions?)
Kwame had a best friend, and they were so close that I sometimes wondered which one of them I was dating. One day, this friend saw me talking to an older man. This man, who looked like he was in his mid 50s, kept pestering me about how he liked me and wanted to be in a relationship with me. I always thought he was crazy. So on this particular day, I had had enough and was literally warning him to stay away or I was going to report him to the police. It seemed Kwame's best friend had heard everything I said and had already gone ahead of me to "report" to his friend because when next he saw me, Kwame asked me about it. I told him how the man had been worrying me for months and how I had threatened him.
Apparently, Kwame's father was friends with this man and so he knew him very well. His name was Mr. Mensah. He had a reputation for chasing young girls around and promising them money in exchange for sex. In fact, he had been chasing Kwame's elder sister too.
Kwame and his best friend already had a plan set in place for this man and needed me on board to teach him a lesson. The plan was simple. The next time Mr. Mensah approached me, I would act interested. He would of course then invite me to his home where he would try to sleep with me. All I had to do was to quote the sum of money I wanted, demand that he gives it to me before I agreed to anything. After receiving the money, I would then pretend to text someone on phone and call Kwame, who will be standing outside all along, waiting for his phone to ring. As Mr. Mensah tries to touch me, Kwame and his friend would knock and tell Mr. Mensah that I'm their cousin and they saw me entering so they had come for me. This seemed like a perfect plan to me. I didn't ask any questions, or what the plan B was if it backfired. Men like Mr. Mensah needed to be taught a lesson, and I could even get some money from this plan to feed myself. Let's get it done!