Insight of a Kenyan Girl

Something undeniably wrong was happening to me. I was foolishly playing along with the little game Callum had started. We were having dates, car rides, music, and an absurd amount of fun. You know how women are—we have the tendency to get attached too quickly, and once again, I was proving this to be true.

He was dangerous. Not in the obvious way that raises alarms, but in the subtle, insidious way that creeps in unnoticed. He was dangerous for me emotionally, physically, and in every possible way one could think of. I was slipping into madness, slowly but surely. I found myself anticipating our calls with a hunger that terrified me. They sometimes lasted two hours, more often than not with me doing most of the talking while he listened, offering the occasional, calculated input. He gave me attention, and I was intoxicated by it, drunk on the thrill of his presence. Callum was intelligent, witty, and effortless in his charm. We had fun—I won’t lie. He made me laugh, he made me think, he made me feel alive.

And then, like the cruel twist of fate that accompanies every tragic love story, he took it all back. The attention, the calls, the conversations that stretched into the night. It was like I had been a thriving plant, nourished by the warmth of the sun and the richness of the soil, only to have it all stripped away, leaving me to wither. I found myself begging—an indignity I swore I would never lower myself to.

“Please don’t do this to me.” “Just update me, please.”

Desperation is an ugly thing, and I was drowning in it.

He had even promised forever at one point. We had spoken of futures, of homes, of children. We had fantasized about wedding guests, color themes, flower arrangements, and all the sickeningly sweet details that had made me believe, if only for a fleeting moment, that he meant it. But now I see it for what it was—just words. Empty promises that had shackled me to a dream that was never meant to be mine.

Callum had turned me into his puppet, and I had danced to his tune without realizing I was merely an amusement, a passing phase. He gave affection as though it were a luxury, something to be rationed, measured, and withdrawn at his discretion. And I, like a fool, had lapped it up, reveling in its warmth even as it scalded me.

Then, he started starving me of it, little by little. The very thing I craved the most was being used as a weapon against me. And like a masochist, I endured it, even as it tore me apart. He was the sadist, I was the willing victim, and our twisted dance continued—until it didn’t.

I began to unravel. My emotions swung wildly between longing and resentment. I found myself throwing tantrums, succumbing to sudden bursts of anger, screaming at a man who wasn’t even listening. I was losing myself in him, and the more I craved him, the more elusive he became.

And then, something shifted. It was as if a foggy glass had been wiped clean, revealing the stark, unfiltered truth. He even looked different to me now—less appealing, almost ugly. Was this the infamous stage people spoke of, where love turns sour, where admiration morphs into disdain? Or had he simply never been the person I thought he was to begin with?

But even in my clarity, I still made excuses for him. Maybe he was struggling, maybe he was just busy, maybe—just maybe—he still cared. It was laughable how desperately I tried to justify the inexcusable. But then it hit me: when you starve a foolish man for too long, he wises up.

And so, for the first time in this ill-fated affair, I made the choice. I closed the curtain on this performance. No grand gestures, no final words—just quiet retreat, like I had never been there at all. And that, I decided, would be the end of Callum Carter.

What a sham it had all been.
But endings have a way of rewriting themselves. Days passed, then weeks, and I no longer waited for my phone to light up with his name. The ache that once hollowed me out began to dull, replaced by something unexpected—relief. I had survived him.

One evening, as I sipped my coffee in a quiet café, I saw him. Callum Carter, sitting alone, scrolling through his phone, unaware of my presence. A pang of something—pity, amusement, closure—washed over me. Once, I would have broken myself for him. Now, I simply turned away and walked out into the night.

Because the truth was, Callum Carter had never been the storm in my life.

I was.