Me and my reputation

Greetings!

I'm someone with a very high reputation both in my city of residence and, more importantly, in my hometown. This may sound like I'm hyping myself, and I think that's okay because it's not every day we get the opportunity to do so. Lol.

Honestly, I was brought up in the church way, living an innocent lifestyle. To clarify, it was actually me who decided to walk that path because my parents weren't really into church stuff. So, I brought myself up in the church's innocent lifestyle. During those days at home, I was very committed to Godly things, especially since I worked in my church for 3 years as 'everything'. Yes, I was even an assistant pastor. You know, there's a special kind of love shown towards a young boy who's deeply committed to the things of God, especially when he's very respectful to elders. That was just my life—I was never seen in the wrong places, I was never found wanting, especially with theft issues, considering that I handled a lot of money in my church. Meanwhile, other churches around us were having money issues with their staff, and the news would spread far and wide. This actually led one of the top pastors in the local government to make me his boy and I was trusted with their church finance. Mehn, I was scared of the level of trust I had from that man.

When I gained admission into a tertiary institution, I faced a very rough temptation. When the situation arose, the only thing that came to mind and weakened my system was the thought of how the people back home would react to the news. You know, the son they trusted so much went to school and changed.

This was what happened:

I met this lady in the lounge; she liked me, and we wanted to have something going...
One night, temptation came, and we had a very 'clean' kiss that lasted for 6 seconds. Honestly, that's where it stopped because my already drifting mind snapped back, and I regained control quickly.

After that, I decided to distance myself from the lady because, hey, I didn’t want to hear anything about getting someone pregnant—that news would have ruined the reputation I had built.

About a month later, I remember clearly, I was in class on a Monday morning when this lady called me 15 times. I didn't notice because my phone was on silent and inside my bag. When I saw the calls after the lecture, I returned her call, and when I tried to find out what made her call me so urgently, she burst into tears and told me that something was wrong. She said she would tell me when I returned from school.

Honestly, the only thought that arrested my mind was that this girl was pregnant and she wanted to put it on me.

"But I didn’t have sex with her," my mind justified, and another thought quickly knocked it off: "Didn’t you kiss her? As long as you can’t deny the kiss, there’s no way you can deny any pregnancy accusation if she’s very desperate."

Omo! My mind became very restless. Many thoughts began to clash in my head, wondering how the people back home would react to that news. I rushed back home and found her still crying, which made me even more scared. I urged her to tell me what was happening, but she refused. It was hard for her to speak because each time she tried, tears would roll down her face even more. The more she cried, the more my heart felt like it was being transported to heaven.

I eventually forced her to tell me what was making her cry. When she finally did, I took a very long breath and vowed never to get close to any lady until I graduated from school.

Guess what she said was the reason for her drama? She had lost the 4,000 naira I gave her to pay a fee of 3,000 naira, with the intention of returning 1,000 naira as change. Mtchwww!

Yeah, that's how high I value reputation.

Thanks for reading.

This is my entry to Hivenaija prompt of the week

| Photos are mine |

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