My brother was bitter. I don’t know how he found out that I was dating his friend, but he came into my room shouting at the top of his voice, warning me to stay away from his friend. My first instinct was to deny the truth, but I told myself it wasn’t worth it. While he stood over my bed ranting about all the reasons he didn’t want me to date his friend, there was only one question I was waiting to ask: “He’s your friend and you like him, so why can’t I like him too?”

He didn’t wait for the question. He stormed out immediately after he finished talking. I called Jerry: “Did you tell your friend we are dating? I told you to wait, so why tell him now?” He answered with a shaky voice, “Me? I haven’t said anything to him. How did you know he knows?”

I told him everything that had happened and asked him not to engage him.

To be honest, I wasn’t fully into the relationship. I was only trying to see if things would work out. I knew my brother wouldn’t allow it, so I was going to keep it a secret until I was sure it would work. My brother told my mom about it. My mom told him, “Your sister isn’t a child, so who are you to determine who she should love?” My dad laughed at him, so he was left alone in the battle.

He stopped talking to me and stopped talking to Jerry. Jerry called to smoke the peace pipe, but my brother didn’t pick up the call. He told other friends that Jerry had broken the bro code for dating his younger sister.

While going through that phase, I was also dealing with my personal doubts because I wasn’t sure if Jerry loved me. He said it. He tried to show it, but to be honest with you, the fact that he was my brother’s friend also filled me with doubt. Boys are capable of everything. What if he was dating me to prove a point to my brother? So I was very careful.

If it messed up, I knew my brother would sing the “I told you so” song while I lay with my heartbreak. I didn’t want him to be right, so I told Jerry I wasn’t going to be intimate with him. When he bought me a gift, I told him I couldn’t take it because I didn’t want him to say somewhere that I took him for a fool. I took his gift and gave nothing back. I gave him rules. I think at some point, I just wanted to piss him off so he would leave me alone.

He didn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried. One day, I saw him and my brother together; they were laughing and making fun of each other as if nothing had ever happened. I was shocked. I asked Jerry what had changed, and he only said, “We are guys. We know how to resolve our differences.” I asked my brother, and he also didn’t say much apart from, “Aren’t you happy we are happy once again?”

Weeks later, Jerry took photos of me with his phone and gave me the phone to go through them. When he left me alone, I went straight to his WhatsApp and checked the messages between him and my brother. The conversation was very heated. My brother was throwing warnings from the initial stages, while Jerry stayed defensive.

I thought, “So this guy went through all that and he didn’t leave me alone?” Then I got to the later part of the conversation where Jerry said, “I’m your friend, so I can’t be an enemy to your sister. I will treat her just the way you treat her. She will never have a reason to complain to you, and you’ll never have a reason to doubt my intentions toward her. I know you love her, but I love her too. Relax and see what will come out of it.”

That message was sent at dawn. It took my brother three days to respond, and his response was, “I just dey watch you.”

I closed his phone and let myself fall onto his bed. When he entered, I asked for a hug. When he asked why, I said, “You took very beautiful photos of me. Every one of them is nice.” We hugged. We had our first kiss. Things moved very fast from that point because I believed him, just like my brother did.

We dated for two years. And then marriage. And then babies. And then he travelled. And then he came for us. To date, he doesn’t know I read those messages—and those messages were the turning point of our relationship.