Water under the Bridge

G.B? Is that you?

Miriam...

*clapping* It is a lie. So this is you?

*Looking at self* Yes

How have you been?

I have been well. And you?

Fine...

Good.

Everyone is doing just fine...

Thank God.

Girl but you are hard o....

How do you mean?

Njideka...

What about Njideka?

I thought she was your friend?

She was.

Then why weren't you there? I mean, no matter what happened between the two of you, you should have been there.

There was no place for me there.

How can you say that? Ehn, all her friends were there. We all came to support her family.

*shrugging* Well, what can I say...

At least for the kids.

You of all people should know why I was not there.

What do you mean?

Miriam, if there is one thing that I do not like, it is dishonesty. How can you be asking me what I mean? Infact, how can you stand here and pretend you don't know what happened?

I beg your pardon

No, I beg your pardon. Weren't you on the Chibuzor support team that accused me of trying to wreck her marriage and now that she is dead, you are all pretending like you did not know that one day that monster was going to kill her...?

G.B, what are you trying to say...?

*hissing* Sebi, I am the unmarried one? The one that did not have her best interests at heart?The immoral one? The one that does not know anything that she is saying. Abi? Weren't those your exact words?

What?

Oh, you didn't know that I heard all of you? Of course, you didn't. Isn't that funny. See, let me educate you. You remember that get together that we, and by we, I mean Nijdeka and I had planned; that you came and took over because God forbid that she do anything without your high and mighty approval? You remember that one? The one where two hours before, Chibuzor nearly removed her front teeth because she challenged him on his mistress? You remember how you, her mother and those single-digit-IQ-holding females that make up your clique sat around her offering advice on how she was supposed to not antagonise her husband and make her marriage work? Remember how, when she said I had told her that she ought to pack her bags and get the hell out of there, you all started on my case about how I am so immoral. How can I know anything about a good man or what it takes to put a marriage together, after I had slept with all the men I work with to make it ahead?

*Stammering* What? I....Excuse me...

Oh, now you cannot form a sentence? *hissing* you forgot to turn off your cell phone after I had called to get the directions to your place. You made Njideka change the venue to your house that you live in with your husband and your children and all that your money had bought you.

How dare you?

You better be glad that I just got my nails done. Or I would have given you tribal marks from the opposite side of the country, stopping me in the middle of the street with your phony arse questions and judgments. Heiffer please, you are just as responsible for her death as he is.

Are you mad?

Ehn now. You did not know...ah-aaaah, let me tell you. It is my madness that has got me all i've got baby. I am mad o. Very mad. Infact, I am anbout to display for you if you don't carry your useless self out of my sight and scurry over to your Rav 4....

Fuck you!

Fuck me?
*Reaching for her earrings* No, sis, I am about to fuck YOU up.

*stepping back*
Are you crazy? Do you know that you are in the middle of the mall's parking lot? People are watching you.

They've got to watch me. I am on primetime.Besides, more asphalt to paint your face with.

I know what your problem is, you're just jealous. Look at you, 35 years and no husband or children. You are forever chasing your co-workers about and you think you are an actress because you take off your clothes? You are a common prostitute.

With an oscar. Don't forget that.

You are a common whore. We all know you wanted Chibuzor and when he turned you down, you tried to break her marriage off.

What are you talking about?

Chibuzor told her. Oh, you did not know that your secret will come out.

*sigh* I have always known you were not worth my time. It is the word of a wife beater that you will take as gospel. You know what, I apologise for what I said before. It's not your fault that your are stupid. It's my fault for listening to you.
*turning and walking away*

Yes, go away. Run away. Nonsense. Useless. And she called you her friend. Backstabber. Prostitute.....

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She wept with an intensity that shook her being and hurt her chest. I should never have stopped to talk to her, she thought to herself over and over. It had disntegrated so fast that she had not been able to stop herself.

Seeing G.B was like turning a knife in an already sore wound. Nijdeka's death had torn her apart so bad. Everyday, everywhere she went, there was a reminder that she could have stopped what had happened. No one knew how much she beat herself over the head for not being brave enough to help her friend be brave. She couldn't do that.

She was not like G.B who told the world on a daily basis to go fuck itself. She was barely holding it together. No one knew that Etta's prolonged trip to Spain was because he was in jail. No one knew that she knew she was being watched by the men who paid him for the "goods" he supplied and had been caught in possession of. No one knew that she was sleeping with his brother so he would not kick her and the boys out. No one knew except Nijdeka. And that was why she had understood the fragility of her friend's existence and how if Chibuzor had kicked her out, it would all have been over.

As it was now. She laid her head on her steering wheel and wept; hers sobs masked by the loud horn.

************************************************************************************
I watched her crying in her car. And I knew what she was feeling.
Neither one of us had been able to save her. And we had called ourselves her friend.