Short Story : Due Diligence

Short Story : Due Diligence

“How do you expect me to believe that? Simi barked. That money was for my business and the transaction details clearly show your name as the recipient! If I knew this was the reason you asked for my debit card details, I never would have given it to you!”

Getting up to leave, Ayo retorted, “You never trust me and I can’t be with someone that doesn’t trust me”. Ayo, Simi’s boyfriend of 5 months had taken a chunk of her savings and spent it on frivolous stuff without her knowledge

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I had just gotten back to the hostel since leaving at 7am and the last thing I wanted to deal with were the lies of a pilfering boyfriend. My stomach was in knots as I thought of how to begin to make up for the amount Ayo had stolen from me. This move was going to take me several steps back and I wasn’t excited about it.

My goal was to own a fashion business before graduation and thanks to YouTube and other resources, I had self-taught on the basics of fashion design but I needed money to get a sewing machine. The few ushering jobs, virtual assistant roles and money gifts had allowed me save up to half a million naira. The plan was to start taking orders right from school to grow my client base

Tired, angry and famished, I reached for the fastest thing to make (noodles) and pondered on what my best friend Seni had told me. I guess she was right after all. What exactly did I see in him that made me spend 5 months of my life with someone who didn’t seem to have a direction for his life and was trying to veer me off mine.

Relationships were exhausting – at least my fair share of them so far. I gave Ayo a chance because he made me believe that he was different from the rest. He was a smooth talker, light skinned with broad shoulders, made me laugh uncontrollably and said all the right things, but looking back now, I was not paying attention to the more important stuff

It was a few minutes past 8pm, so I took a stroll to Seni’s room to update her on the latest

“Ehn! He did what?

Kai, Simi! I told you that this boy was no good for you o! You know how long it took you to save up that money!

I hope you’ve gone to block the card and more importantly, I hope you have broken up with his thieving self?” she said

Seni was right. No one else but I was to blame because there was no reason to have shared my card details with anyone no matter who they were.

“Don’t worry sha, we go run am!” At least now you can focus and not have boy drama because any small thing, you’ve gone to fall in love.

“That’s how you went to give someone your original bone straight hair and they returned a fake one to you” she hissed

“See ehn, this one that you’re a starting a business, you need to shine your eye. Trust people, but verify o! Too much trusting has done you more harm than good”

Her words rang through my ears as I stared into space. Seni was the bad cop to my good cop and had my back whatever the situation was. “We go run am” was her affirmation of support, regardless of the situation and she always kept true to her words.

I had been burnt from being too trusting and now, it has done me a lot of harm. At least, now that I know better, I will do better!