I used to think my worst fear was getting dumped until the day a woman I barely knew called me to reveal who my boyfriend was. It was a random Saturday since I had gone out two nights in a row, I decided to stay home.

Normally, Patrick would stay with me since we used to spend weekends together. However, he decided to stay at his place because on Sunday he had a family get-together. I knew he wouldn’t ask me to go with him. Patrick never liked me getting involved with his family and I found it weird. However, I never questioned him since I assumed maybe he wasn’t ready for me to mingle with them. I would have started jumping to conclusions if it was one of my exes. However, with Patrick our relationship was solid. One could even say we were the perfect couple.   

To make me feel better about the situation, we had a 2-hour video call where we talked about random things. Although it wasn’t the same as talking to him in person, it did make me feel a little better. Our call ended at 8 pm and I decided to order takeout and watch a movie.   

Eventually, I blacked out before the movie ended. At midnight, when I was soundly asleep, my phone started ringing.   

“Hello?” I answered annoyingly.  

“Hi, do you recognize my voice,” the woman asked.  

“If you are not going to tell me who you are, please let me sleep!” I snapped.   

“My name is Mercy; I don’t know if you remember meeting me when you were with Patrick a few weeks ago. We met outside a restaurant in Karen,” She replied.  

“Ahh yes now I remember,” I said in a soft tone.  

Patrick and I had bumped into Mercy during one of our date nights. We had a small conversation and later he told me she was his cousin. Remembering that made me feel a bit embarrassed since she was my potential in law so I changed my tone.  

“Hey, how are you doing?” I asked.  

All of a sudden, she started crying which shocked me.   

“Is everything okay?” I asked.  

“I spent the night with Patrick yesterday and we had a bad argument, so he kicked me out,” She replied.  

“What happened exactly?” I asked in a confused tone.  

I was so stunned that I didn’t even remember to ask her where she got my number from.  

“I’ve been suspecting Patrick of cheating for a while now. So yesterday when he came over, I waited for him to go to bed so I could go through his phone. When I opened his WhatsApp, I saw your chat with him and your profile photo looked familiar,” She said.  

“What?” I asked trying to process what she had just said.  

“So, I took a screenshot of your contact info then woke up Patrick to confront him,” She continued.  

“What did he say?” I asked, trying to contain the anger that was building up inside me.  

“Patrick had told me initially that you were his cousin, that’s the same story he stuck with but I found it hard to believe. So, I decided to call you to find out for myself,” She replied.  

“Give me a moment I’m calling you right back,” I told her.   

“Okay,” She replied before hanging up.  

“I can’t believe this,” I thought to myself as I dialled Patrick’s number and waited for him to pick up.  

“Hello?” He answered in a sleepy tone.  

“Patrick wake up, we need to talk!” I snapped.  

“Surely babe, what is so important that you couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning?” He asked.  

I explained the full story to him.   

“You’ve called me in the middle of the night not to get my side of the story but to yell at me?” He asked in an agitated tone.  

“I’m the one who was called a few minutes ago by a woman you claimed was your cousin and you also told her I’m your cousin!” I snapped.  

“Please go back to sleep, we’ll talk about this when you’re fresh,” He said before hanging up.  

I stared at my phone for a few minutes trying to process what had just happened. Like any couple, we had our fair share of fights and Patrick had never behaved like that. This led me to believe that he was guilty. My anger had reached its climax, so I opened WhatsApp and sent him paragraphs expressing what I didn’t get to say over the phone.   

Once I was done, I went back to sleep. The following morning, he called me at 8 am which annoyed me even more. He knew how much I loved sleeping in on Sundays.   

“Hello?” I answered in an agitated tone.  

“Now that you are fresh, we can talk like grownups,” He replied casually.  

Because I needed answers, I decided to remain calm.  

“Okay, now tell me your part of the story,” I said.  

“This is why I didn’t want you to get involved with my family. They are usually so dramatic. Mercy was just trying to scare you off because they don’t want me dating someone from a different tribe,” He replied.  

His story seemed so far-fetched and being together for a while I could always tell when he was lying.  

“Okay let’s do this, add her to the call so we can sort this out,” I replied.  

“There’s no point in blowing this out of proportion, just let it go babe and trust me,” He said.  

I decided to add Mercy to the call anyway immediately she picked up, he hang up the call.   

“I asked him about what happened and he denied everything,” I said to her.  

“That’s usually his response to everything. I can’t believe he did this to me again. You’re not even the first woman he has cheated on me with. I’ve been persevering in this relationship for a long time,” She replied while sobbing.  

“What? Kwani how many times has he done this?” I stupidly asked even though I knew the answer would break me.  

“You’re like the fourth woman, we’ve been dating for four years,” Mercy replied.  

I hang up the call since I knew if she kept talking, I would have gone over to Patrick’s house and hurt him badly. My eyes were wide awake, and the tears started rolling down my cheeks. My phone buzzed countless times. Mercy had sent me screenshots of her conversation with Patrick along with their photos together.   

To make matters worse, Patrick was still typing accusing me of not trusting him. I couldn’t believe he dared to victimize himself after what had just happened. After his final text which read “Believe what you want,” I blocked him. Patrick never attempted to see me to explain or apologize which made me feel even worse. However, after a while, I realized that Mercy’s decision to call me had opened my eyes to how flawed my relationship was.