It all started with a mini pack of 100g of Jelly Tots. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was sitting on those green benches for first timer university students, having the breath of a newbie, and looking so lost among the tall buildings surrounding me. I swear I wanted to run away, because I could not understand the environment. Everything felt so fresh, young and new.

There I was; a statue. I remember he sat next to me and introduced himself as Pat. Mr know-it-all, the university travel guide! Hallelujah, he could not stop praising himself. He immediately offered me a pack of jellies to grab my attention while showing me around. I got addicted to the routine: every day he brought the pack to make me talk. I even ended up calling him Mr Jelly, and it all turned out beautifully, because we became real friends.

What really amazed me about him was the fact that he never talked about his family. He avoided the topic by opting for another page. Carrying the sweets around with him, he introduced me to his world of jelly flavours.

The round lemon-flavoured jelly meant sour, ungrateful and not in the mood. The square grape-flavoured was sadness, triangle lime would shed light, while the orange was ‘do not disturb, I am constructing my future’. Red Butti Fruttie-flavoured was for love, purity and happiness. I was quite amazed by how he took his interpretations so serious. If he was not feeling well, he would send me a yellow tot, and I would know that he is sour and not feeling OK.

We got attached that one night, on top of our campus stairs; everything was covered in red. Butti Fruttie was all over and led to a picnic set. I knew that something was on, but I had a great night. He officially announced that, from that day on, I was his Butti Fruttie. For a moment, I forgot that I was Rinkie and everyone on campus could not understand how Butti Fruttie came about.

We would bunk classes, kiss under closed cupboards—under trees, and even hide from our so-called friends just to be together. Love, purity and happiness were all we had. The most amazing thing is he never forgot the reasons for coming to the university—books. He would teach me what civil engineering entailed and act like a qualified professor in the making. In return, I would portray an ecologist and make a speech about social change. This would turn out crazy, because when submitting assignments, we would accidently switch course codes. Talk about obsession with the capital letter O.

Everything was going smoothly until second semester when he came back from home. He was not alive but pale-faced, full of tiredness. Of course, I would ask him what was wrong, but he would just say he was exhausted every time. Days went by, but Pat visited home regularly and everyday he came back with a mud face. On his door, two jellies always hung for weeks – Lime and Orange which meant ‘I am busy and we will talk tomorrow, no messages, no calls’. And it was like he put his phone in the closed closet.

Deep inside me, I felt emotionally abused. Lonely and neglected. I could not believe that Mr Jelly had me for a ride. Even a pack of tots meant nothing to me, because who would I share it with? One corner of the campus I would bump into him. He made the decision that we should just be friends, but I was not OK with the idea. We would meet occasionally and talk but the jellies were out of the picture. Sometimes, I would blame myself for bringing him into my life, because it seemed like he only wanted to harvest my fruit.

School work and how busy he was with his practical, were all we talked about. I adapted to the situation, buried the jelly tots and moved on. No more calls, no more late-night chatting or early sweet messages. I disappeared from his life, because he would spend a month without seeing my eyes, while I used the hash tag “I AM BUSY’’.

I hated him so much that I stayed clear from him. He looked for me in the university campus and announced on the university’s radio station that I was missing and needed to be found. I could not have cared less, because I was mad with myself. I had always preached to myself that I would never let a guy play with my feelings. In such anger, I blamed myself for letting love blind me.

Of course, he eventually did find me by accident. He grabbed my hand and said, “We need to talk.” I listened to his sorry speech and how life had been bad since he cut me off. My heart raved like, why are you telling me these things? I mean talk about lame excuses…

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Tell us: Should Rinkie give him another chance?