Esylovians Meli, a third-year student at Kenyatta University, will live to remember the Dusit D2 attack with a lot of pain and regret after losing her Australian boyfriend Marcus Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, who changed his earlier plans following the advice of his girlfriend, is said to have landed in the country on Sunday at 8.40pm.
He had plans to spend his two-week visit in the country with his girlfriend but that would not be as he is among those confirmed dead following the terrorist attack at the Dusit hotel, located along Riverside Drive.
Meli revealed that she first met Rodriguez during his visit to Kenya in 2017.
She further revealed that her boyfriend had planned to stay in a hotel in Karen when he flew into the country on Sunday but she convinced him to stay at the Dusit hotel due to its proximity to the Central Business District (CBD).
In an interview with a local daily, the fashion designer noted that she regrets making her boyfriend change his plans.
"I regret making him change his mind. He could be alive now if I had not put my foot down on having him stay at Dusit. I insisted on the hotel because it was easily accessible for me from town. I checked him in on Sunday night," said Meli as quoted by the Standard.
Rodriguez had planned to go swimming that afternoon but Meli requested him to wait for her arguing he could not go swimming alone.
"Maybe if he went out swimming as he wanted, he could be alive," she added.
She was in class when the attack took place and her phone was on silent mode.
After class, she found out that Rodriguez had tried calling her eight times. She later heard the news about the attack and found her way to Riverside.
The last time she spoke to Rodriguez was at around 1am in a four-minute conversation when he called to inform her that he had been trapped in the hotel.