UNSENT (2:17 AM): Monologue of We Were Never Sisters

Voice memo recovered from a water-damaged iPhone 11.

Location: Fishing village hostel, Kilifi County, Kenya

Timestamp: 17/05/2018

A broken ceiling fan clicks. A mosquito buzzes. Distant laughter. Jess speaks.

Okay. Okay, breathe.

[Soft exhale. Slurred.]

So… Lesson One: never fall for someone you’re supposed to save the world with.

We met in an elective. Social Justice in a Post-Colonial World. Sexy stuff, right? She wore these boots with little sunflowers embroidered on the ankles, and I swear to God, I signed up for the Kenya program just to walk beside them for three months.

Emilia said we were going to change lives. Help kids. Help each other. “Let’s go somewhere magical,” she said. “And learn to make the world a better place.”

The way her eyes sparkled made it all sound so... beautiful. Like the world was ours.

If only we knew what was coming.

Not like any of this was easy to begin with.

Me, with my family from [slurred] Bucharest—or wherever my mother decides she’s from today—they think I’m on a church mission.

And that I'm still a virgin.

And Emilia? She’s got this perfect liberal family with Pride flags in the kitchen... [burp] but God help you if you don’t behave! Her mom calls me “little tornado.” Her dad thinks my tattoos mean I have “deep, unresolved pain.”

Which isn't completely off. But still. You get the gist.

They hate that I drink too much, flirt too much, laugh too loud. They hate how quickly she started doing all those things too.

[Pause. A long sip. Ice clinks.]

So yeah, we got on a plane. Said goodbye to our last names and kissed each other one last time in the airport bathroom.

God, I hope no one was watching.

'Cause this is where Lesson Two comes in, okay? Straight girls touch each other. A lot.

But there are rules.

You braid her hair at the beach, but never at night. You adjust her strap if her shirt slips, but your fingers never linger. You hold her tight, but only while riding a boda-boda.

You can even share a bed, but only to 'save money for the orphanage'. You're here to make a change in a post-colonial country, after all! Then you can watch the hostel owner actually tear up at your generosity, as you hope the bile remains stuck in the back of your throat.

Lesson Three: Always have a 'him' ready.

Our fake Chicago fiancé, Mark, has three LinkedIn connections, a gluten allergy, and a dead sister named… shit, what was it? Audrey. Right. Because when you’re lying about your whole life, you memorize the script.

And oh, boy, did we have a script.

[Exhales. Bitter.]

Emilia called me dada (Swahili for sister). I called her honey, but only the kind you put in your the tea, not the kind that kisses you back. The pretense was rehearsed, prepared, and ready to go!

And we got good at it.

At first I was proud. Like this was a sign that our love could conquer everything. Then came the fights, and the lonely tear-stained pillows, and the fearful jumping at any sudden sound.

But I still held on.

I just never anticipated the locals. Don't get me started on these men!

[Glass bottle clinks against tile. A loud swallow. Jess burps]

Playing for the other team, it's a given that I'm not a big fan. Roll with my bias, if you will, please?

They love white girls. Especially ones who smile politely when they’re asked if they’re “looking for an African husband.” The ones who pretend they don’t understand the joke. And those who laugh, nervously tugging at their skirts, praying the sun would set fast enough already.

Antoher day, another man who called us mzungu like it’d unlock our tatted thighs.

[Silence. Then a hollow laugh.]

There was that night in Lamu.

Some drunk Canadian expat starts giggling about us “giving off gay vibes”, as if he wasn't putting a target on our backs. And Emilia? Emilia leans into it. Presses her tits against my arm, giggles like a drunk sorority girl, and says, “Ew, we’re basically related! Jess’s mom’s my godmother.”

She flirted with him for twenty minutes.

What was I gonna do? Get us kicked out of the program? Risk her future job placements?

So, I let her.

But the worst part? I envied her. How easy she made it look.

[Fist slams into tile. A choked sob.]

I puked in the alley behind the bar. Blamed the gin. Blamed the fish. Blamed anything but the real reason: I was disappearing, and she didn’t even notice—too busy beaming when she and Mr. Toronto swapped numbers and he wandered off, clueless.

At least it worked.

For a while.

So here's Lesson Four for you: know what's worth breaking.

Because I bet you won’t see this coming.

[Her voice drops, frayed.]

I don’t know if I love her anymore.

No—that’s a lie. I do love her. So much it hurts. But I don’t know if I can love us like this. Not after what we've been through. Not after whittling ourselves down for people who’d hate us if they really knew.

The answer used to be so simple. Love. The thing that conquers all. It got us to risk everything. So how did it all break?

Well, that’s the thing. We didn’t break. We just bent. Again and again, until nothing was left but guilt and sunscreen and silence.

Maybe this was all a mistake.

[A bang. A sniff. Tries to compose herself.]

The fucked-up part? We’ve got two weeks left here. Two more weeks of pretending. Of being the sweet white girls who give their shoes to the barefoot kid and flirt with the hostel bartender just enough to get an extra fan for the night.

Then we fly back to our “liberal paradise,” where everyone will call us brave and ask dumb questions about how bad it really was. And we’ll lie again. Because the truth—

[Quiet now. Wrecked.]

—the truth is, we failed each other. Not in some big, dramatic way. Not with betrayal. Not with screaming fights or cheating or lies.

We failed in all the small ways.

The silences.

The secrets.

The nights we turned away instead of reaching out.

And I—

[Sharp intake of breath. Trembling.]

I’m not going home with her.

Bet you didn’t see coming, huh?

She doesn’t even know it yet. She thinks I’ll get on the plane to Portland with her, and we’ll go back to our real lives and figure it out there.

But I bought a different ticket.

I’m flying to Berlin. Staying with a cousin. Figuring things out.

Because I love her. But I don’t love what we build together. I can't continue like this.

I need to find the version of me that existed before the pretending. Before the script. Before the part where love meant hiding everything you are just to survive.

So if you’re listening to this, Emilia—

[Pause. Softly.]

—I’m sorry.

I wanted forever with you.

But not like this.

[A soft knock. Emilia’s voice: sleepy, barely audible.]

“Jess…? You coming to bed?”

[She straightens. Suddenly loud and chipper.]

"Yeah, lil' bro! You go and tell mom the safari was simply amazing! Call you later! Gotta go—"

[Recording ends.]

I got so inspired thanks to so many live challenges this month, that I'm excited to announce that this is both an entry for The Eulogy Unofficial Challenge hosted by the lovely Unofficial Challenge Queen, Belle, and thanks to this amazing and creative idea, I connected it to the Pride Under Pressure Challenge.

About that:

I want to share some thoughts on the “Pride Under Pressure” theme. While I see the value in telling stories of struggle, I feel uneasy about how often queer stories are only told through pain. Queer trauma is already overrepresented in media. It can start to feel like our suffering is the only thing that makes our stories “worthy.” During Pride, I think it's important to create space for joy, love, resistance, and full queer lives. Focusing only on pressure or hardship can unintentionally reinforce harmful tropes. It can feel like queerness is only valid when it is hard or tragic. I’d love to see more themes that invite a range of queer experiences, including joy and celebration. That’s also resistance. Thanks for considering this. I appreciate platforms that are open to feedback and want to reflect the full reality of queer life. Thankfully, we have QVV coming to the rescue with that one!