4 / 5
How it ended
What happened next? What did you do, what changed, and where did it leave you?
She'd said it in a tone that was meant to hurt. And I was relieved. For the first time in more than fifteen years of pseudo-friendship, she had been honest. Her words confirmed what I already knew: I had to leave them in their world. "I could explain so many things to you. But it's useless. You and I hung out together, but we're not alike. Since that's what you think of me, I won't cause you any more problems. I won't come to your wedding. Now I'll leave you before the morality police fine me for indecent exposure." "Are you serious? You're not coming to my wedding?" Amadi was twenty yards away, whistling at his future wife to show he was getting impatient. "Yes, okay, I'm coming, two minutes. Jade, are you serious? You're not coming to my wedding?" "We'll see. Go, your future husband is calling you." Barely fifteen minutes after our conversation, I had received no fewer than ten texts from the girls, asking whether I was really planning to skip the wedding of a friend I'd known for more than fifteen years. I didn't hold it against Sousou. When she mentioned the weight of her reputation in her family, under the cover of religion, I understood that her choices, her freedoms, were limited by default. At the time, that's what I thought: in some projects, the law of religion sits above the law of the land. So what could she do, except submit?