IF ONLY...

Jennie, Marcus, Serah and Tom.
Four people. Four different lives. Four best friends. And yet...

Jennie was nice. She'd always been nice to a fault. Everyone said so. But Jennie didn't always want to be nice. In fact, if she had her way, she probably would be vicious. A bitch.

Marcus was the rich one. He did not understand the meaning of hard work. He was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. That's how rich his family was... or so everyone thought.

Serah. She was synonymous with mediocrity. Average looks, average height, average intelligence, average grades. Her life even was just average. She could well get lost in the masses. All that was about to change.

Tom. A god stepped down from the heavens to mingle with mortals. He was so handsome, it was nearly sinful. Girls had always done different things to get his attention: offering him free sex, declarations of undying love, and so on. They all had one thing in common: they each wanted to be the Mrs. Tom. Yet Tom had eyes only for her.

Four unlikely friends. Yet, ever since their first campus day, they have been the best of friends. This is an account of their lives seven years after they met.

Jennie worked as a counselor. Having studied Psychology and French, it was a fitting career for her as she was empathic. She was engaged to be married to Sam, an up and rising business man who loved her immensely. Her life was picture perfect, and she acted the part out, but just below the surface, her resentment was brewing. She felt that she was living someone else's dreams. No-one, not even her three best friends, understood this.
Throughout her life, she had been the perfect doormat. She had studied psychology because her parents thought it fitting for her gentle nature. She had always wanted to study Music and Composition, but her parents were adamant that no child of theirs would study something so fickle in nature.
She'd met Sam at a club one night when the four of them had gone out. He struck her as an ordinary guy who she wouldn't have remembered the next day or even cared to, but as fate would have had it he was intrigued by her and wanted to meet up again under less crowded circumstances.
And as the adage goes, the rest was history. Sam charmed everyone around her. Her parents thought him wonderful. Her best friends thought him fabulous. Everyone said she was lucky. She liked Sam, but that was it. She just liked him. Why she had agreed to date him she still could not answer. But no-one asked that, except herself.

Marcus had gone into the family business after he graduated. To him, campus had been an opportunity to live the life. His saving grace had been the fact that he hated failure, and that he had a natural aptitude for business, and so worked hard enough to pass with Second Class Honors in Business Administration. Working for his father at first was an extension of his campus days. He would come to the office late, sometimes not at all. His father, fed up with his lazy son, issued an ultimatum: get serious or get packing. Marcus chose to get serious.
So he began working. Slowly but surely he picked up his pace. It wasn't easy, but he did it. After a while, he became invaluable to the company.

Serah worked as a Personal Assistant at a prestigious law firm. Her grades in Law had been, as was expected, average. She grasped the first opportunity that came her way which was to be the PA to one of the senior partners at Munyoki and Mburu Advocates, albeit the fact that it was not her ideal way to begin her career. But, ever the optimist, Serah believed that the job would help her network and eventually open up doors for her.

Tom, after campus, had opened up his own business. He had studied Art and Graphic Design and opted to do consultation. Business was not bad; he managed to pay his bills and save up a little every month. He still had woman issues; this time they were his clients. Sometimes a contract would be used as bait in return for favors. What they did not realize was that Tom was a man in love. He loved her with his all. To him, there was no one else. The only problem was that she did not know it.

to be continued...