“Be happy, Chioma.”
“I mean it.”
She bought the asoebi in burgundy and gold. She danced at the reception until her feet ached. She stood in every photograph with her whole chest, her smile reaching her eyes because she genuinely wished her friend well, even if she did not share her reasons.
When the last song played and the last guests spilled out into the warm night air, Kamsi drove home alone, the music still faint behind her, and sat for a while in the dark of her small room before turning on the light.
Ada was next, five months later.
Her husband’s name was Tobenna, a civil servant who wore ironed shirts and came home at the same time every evening. He was not exciting. Ada had never asked for exciting. She had asked specifically and without apology for calm, for a man who would not raise his voice, for a home where the air did not feel like it was waiting to catch fire.
Tobenna offered all of this.
His mother was traditional, and his family was old-fashioned. But Ada had decided that old-fashioned was not the same as bad, that there was, in fact, a kind of safety in knowing exactly what you were walking into.
“I know what people think. They think I settled. But I have peace, Kamsi. Even now, before the wedding, I already have peace.”
“You do, my friend, and I’m so happy for you. Congratulations, Ada. I mean that, too.”
“Thank you so much. It means a lot.”
Ada’s wedding was quieter than Chioma’s, but no less beautiful. Ivory lace, a church ceremony that made three women cry, and a reception where Tobenna’s family served the best akpu Kamsi had ever tasted. She ate two plates and danced with Ada’s younger cousins and tried not to think too hard about anything.
On the drive home, Ifunanya called her.
“Two down, two to go. Kamsi, our turn is coming, oh.”
“Go and sleep, Ifunanya.”
“I’m serious. Don’t let them leave us behind.”
“Good night.”
She hung up and drove the rest of the way in silence.
Ifunanya did not take long.
She met Desmond at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Enugu, a party she had dressed for with the focused energy of someone on a mission, which she was. Desmond was everything she had described in her vision: tall, well-traveled, free with money in the particular way that made people around him feel special simply by proximity.
He bought tables. He tipped generously. He noticed Ifunanya within twenty minutes of her arrival and did not stop noticing her for the rest of the evening.
Their relationship moved like a song played at high speed, intense, dazzling, slightly breathless.
“Look at where he took me for my birthday. Look at this room. Look at this view. This is the life I was telling you people about.”
“Ifunanya, you deserve it. Enjoy yourself.”
“He seems generous. Just make sure you also know him when the trips are over.”
“Kamsi, must you always find something careful to say? Relax. Not everything needs deep analysis.”
“I’m just being thoughtful.”
“Overthinking. And time is exactly what I don’t have to waste. Some of us cannot afford your kind of patience.”
The room shifted slightly. Chioma looked away. Ada adjusted her wrapper. Kamsi nodded once and let it go.
Six months later, Ifunanya’s wedding was the grandest of the three, a two-day affair with a live band, a Lagos-based event planner, and a dress that had been talked about on three different WhatsApp groups before the day even arrived. It was the kind of wedding that made people reach for their phones before they reached for their emotions.
Kamsi wore her asoebi. She danced. She smiled in every photograph. And when the night ended and the lights came down and the generators were switched off one by one, she walked to her car in the sudden quiet and sat behind the wheel without starting the engine.
Three weddings.
Three friends.
Three doors closed on lives she had not chosen.
She was not sad, exactly. She was something more complicated than sad, a feeling that had no clean name in English, but that her grandmother might have described in Igbo as the particular ache of standing still while everything around you moves.
She started the engine.
She drove home.
And somewhere in the dark town of Uguta, a man was already being prepared for her, chosen by the very friends who believed with complete sincerity that they were doing her a kindness.
Walls know everything.
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