Never in my life did I ever think i’d feel like I was stuck in a love triangle, but it happened. I’ll try to make this story as short as possible so here goes. I have a friend that i’ve known for a few years. I’ve known him longer than my boyfriend. That friend and I are the same age. We always got along and had some similar interests, but we were never anything more than friendly around each other. I never even felt attraction to him like that. One thing we always had in common is our taste in music. We both appreciate all genres of music as an art. Literally everything from classical to country. He’d heard me sing just from playing music on my laptop or in the car and sining along; so one day last year around this time he hit me up and said “I decided to work on a mixtape and I’d like to see if we can write a song.” At first I thought it was a joke. I never knew he had interests in becoming an artist or that he wrote music, but my reaction was just like “yeah yeah whatever. I’ll hear what you’ve got and maybe write something with you.” When I actually heard the first song he wrote though, I was really impressed and shocked; he’s talented! I’ve always written personal poems when I feel emotional so i thought “hey maybe we could write something cool together.” I never knew if my poems could be reflected as songs. So anyways, we started spending a lot more time together. We’d go to the studio, stay up all night and write music. I’m close friends with his older sister, who’s also like an older sis to me as well and I was friends with her first, she introduced us. lol His younger brother and I have a cool bond. He’ll ask me to help with reading Quran or answering a physics question. His mom was helping to teach me their west african language and his dad bought be an engraved bracelet from their country that everyone in the family has. So yeah, we were quite close. Even though we did music and contradicted if we should stop all the time; we’d still sit and listen to Islamic lectures together and I always liked watching how serious he took his prayers, because it was motivation for me. We definitely created a strong bond during this time and eventually attraction became a factor hard to avoid.
My boyfriend and I were going through a really weird patch. I think he started to question the whole “relationship” thing. And he basically said he felt like he wasn’t gonna have any time for me anymore (he’s an engineering major). He said he wanted a break. Un-agreeably i expressed to him that it was fine, but a break for me means altogether, not anything in between and that he shouldn’t expect me to be waiting around for him if he’d decide he wanted me back. We got in a huge argument, and then within like an hour, he’s calling me saying he doesn’t wanna split but just doesn’t wanna be unfair to me. Next thing I know, we got into another argument and i’m saying I hate him and he’s telling me he doesnt wanna even remember my face.
So the next day, the friend and I had lunch and I told him what happened. Told him I didnt wanna be hurt anymore by my boyfriend and that I should just move on and focus on my own endeavors and leave him in the past. The friend agreed and was supportive and everything went on as usual. Except our feelings got stronger.
Random sub-story, one day my dad calls when i’m at their house and before i ever hang up with my dad we always say “I love you” or “b7bak.” He would say b7bik and i would say I love you. Then my dad made a joke and said “ya fatima b7bik blengalizy wa blarabie.” (I love you in English and Arabic) My friend heard that and then he used to suddenly say it to me at random times. He knew what he was saying, but it was like one of those things where he’d just repeat it cuz he thought he sounded cool saying something in Arabic. One day we went out and I got really mad at him for something and then avoided him for a few days and he texted me randomly and said “ya fatima, b7bik blengalizy wa blarabie” I was like AWWWW. Couldn’t be mad anymore. lol
So anyways, things were weird with my relationship; I was pretty much single. My mom was always traveling for her job, so i was always with my friend and his family. They really were like my second family. Even my friends noticed the bond between us. Questioning it all the time. One day I brought one of my gorgeous sudanese friends around and the guys were drooling over her. For some reason it made me jealous that even he found her attractive like that. Without saying anything, he could tell… So he calls out to my friend whos across the room and says in PERFECT arabic “Ream, ana b7b s7batik kateer.” Shocked me and her both! We continued to get closer, even wrote a special song together called soulmate when my boyfriend came back in the picture.
My boyfriend started texting me again and i mean even though my feelings for my friend were evolving, i was still in love with my boyfriend. My boyfriend represented stability to me. He’s about 3.5 years older, very responsible, intelligent, goal oriented. We share the same values being from sudan and have mutual friends back home and here. My friend wanted to take things slow, which i did as well, but there was definitely a more stable feeling with my boyfriend since we’d been together for some time already and had so much similar.
In the process of writing that soulmate song, my friend noticed we’d been texting and thats when things got really weird!
