APART

Chapter 27: RUBY'S STORY

I sat close to Cecilia and held her hands as she controlled her tears. All i could do was imagine was she was going through. If i had known, i wouldn't have brought up Ruby. Curiosity got the best of me, now see where i got myself.

I've got myself stuck in a bad dilemma. I want to tell Cecilia to quit crying and don't tell me about Ruby but at the same time, i've already scratched open and old wound; There's no going back now.

"Ruby," She sniffed, trying to control the snort coming out of her nose. I hurriedly went to my room and got a packet of serviette for her. "Thank you." She collected the serviette from me, opened it and took one of it to clean her nose.

"It's fine C." I gave her a smile. There was silence for a while before she resumed.

"I, Ruby and Jasmine were best friends back then. We would always hang out together, give each other relationship advice and we always had each other's back. Like we were so close we saw ourselves like sisters...." She sniffed and wiped dabbed her eyes with a serviette.

"Take your time C." I urged her.

"So it got to a time that Ruby and her boyfriend at that time started having some issues. His name was Martin. He was a cheat. It was so bad that she would sometimes check his phone and see nude pictures that were sent to him by other girls."

"Oh my." I responded for her to know i'm following.

"Ruby and Martin got into an altercation that made her leave their apartment. They lived together in a two bedroom flat." She explained further for me to understand.

"Okay." I nodded.

"She left their apartment and came to where i and Jasmine were living at that time. She was crying seriously. So in order to distract her from her sadness, all three of us went to a nearby club to have fun. We originally intended on going to a strip club because i have a friend that is a stripper. I wanted it to be like a girls night out but she declined and we all went to the club instead." She paused and took in a deep breath. I stared at her intentively as she told me the story. I love when i'm being told stories.

"So..." She continued. "When i, Ruby and Jasmine got to the club, we started having some little fun before a guy approached us and told us he wanted to have a word with Ruby. He greeted us really well, gave i and Jasmine some cash before walking away with Ruby. That guy was Noah." She paused again and started crying. I rubbed her back and gave her a smile to enable her keep going.

"After Noah and Ruby left us, i and Jasmine continued what we were doing. After sometime, Ruby returned looking very happy. We her friends were excited to see her happy. We stayed at the club for some minutes before we went back home." She paused and drank little amount of water before she continued.

"I and Jasmine sat on Ruby's bed for some late night gossip. It was then she told us all about Noah. She told us how they both got drunk, went to a room and had sex. It stunned i and Jasmine how she did such a thing without knowing him. She dismissed our thoughts as irrelevant and showed us the credit alert of one million naira he sent to her. Seeing the money kinda made i and Jasmine see Noah as a suspicious person. When we pressured Ruby too much, she dismissed us and went to bed." She took a break.

"From that day, Ruby started seeing Noah and after a month, she told us they were now dating. We were both happy for her but i was still a bit suspicious about him. I tried warning her about Noah but her and Jasmine threw my advice to the side and said i was just being jealous because i was the single one amongst the three of us. Jasmine was dating Yinka at that time while Ruby was dating Noah. Slowly, Yinka and Noah knew each other because of their girlfriends and they both became friends. They started having joint dates which brought them closer."