We were three little girls who had met at the many outings we had attended with our parents and other religious outings. We were inseparable.
People often say that “three people cannot be friends at a time as there’ll be more attraction between two of them”, but that was never our situation. We loved and cherished the relationship, and people would often call us the “inseparable trio”. It was such happy years for us.
We had no access to mobile phones at the time as we were too young to be handed one, and it was expensive too. We lived far from one another, so the only time we get to meet was at those outings, and we made good use of the little moments we were together.
Our parents were aware of the relationship, and they encouraged us to be good to one another. In fact, other girls were jealous of our relationship too because no one understood how, why, where or when the relationship started. Even we didn’t understand.
We grew up and parted ways to begin life as adults, but this time, there was the mobile phone. We would talk over the phone, check on one another and pick up from where we had stopped the gist the previous days. We were in our separate institutions.
I was the only one with a different name among us three, so we could call us TT&M.
One day, I travelled home from school and my mum said, “how are you preparing for your friend’s wedding?” I was surprised because none of my friends informed me about getting married, and we were just nineteen. “Who would get married at that age when we were just getting started with life”, I thought.
My mum said, “are you not aware that T is getting married? In fact, it’s next Saturday, and I thought that was the reason you came home to start with.” “I didn’t come home to attend a wedding. I was tired of school and decided to take a break”, I responded.
That’s fine. Now that you are around, you should attend the wedding, she said to me, which I firmly believed I shouldn’t be at the wedding. Why? I had a call with T around that time, and she never mentioned that she was getting married. Maybe she didn’t want me there, I thought. So, I didn’t attend the wedding.
I wasn’t angry that she didn’t invite us, her closest friends to her wedding though. She probably had her reasons, I thought. But what I didn’t know was that she had separated herself from her single friends since she decided to get married because she believed that being friends with single friends would negatively influence her to leave her marriage because we do not have the experience of marriage.
I realized that the next time we met, and I tried to greet her warmly like we used to do, but she outright ignored my greetings and walked faster to catch up with her new friends who were the association of the married.
There and then, I understood the situation, and I quietly withdrew. I saw her last year at an outing, and I greeted her like a stranger, because that’s what we have become. Strangers. I walked past her and continued playing music on my phone. I am still unmarried, and I still can influence her to leave her marriage. So, it’s just better that we be strangers till whenever.
This is my entry to InLeo prompt for the month of February. You can check here for the details.
Images are from MetaAI
