All this was hard to summarise to her friend, even if she wanted to, so Yaa shrugged; a gesture she knew Abina would hear in her voice, but also one she hoped would disrupt the curious tiny spindles of unease that had started forming in her stomach. ‘I just know. It just is. There is no world where we aren’t a thing.’
‘Well, as sweet as that sounds . . . that’s a lie. There is. There was. The world I met you in. University. Remember that? Remember that girl? Don’t you miss her?’
Yaa swallowed in an attempt to push back down the tension that had started to crawl up her throat. ‘Hey, um, I just got an alert telling me that my Hitch ride is outside my building.’ Mercifully, the truth gave her a way to evade the questions she couldn’t answer.
‘Yaa—’
‘I have to go.’ Yaa took her phone off speakerphone and propped it between her neck and ear as she ducked out of her bathroom into her hallway, where she slipped her black open-toed heels onto her freshly pedicured feet, her nails shining, pearly-white.
Abina sighed. ‘I’m sorry. You know I just want you to be happy, sis. Does he make you happy?’
Yaa met her own gaze in the hallway mirror. Despite her eyes being carefully decorated to accentuate soft joy, all her elongated lashes did was tug at something dark in her eyes. It was sharp and stark, and it was a part of herself she’d grown accustomed to hiding. It seemed to be leaping out to try to tell her something. Yaa blinked and forced out a smile, something bright and wide enough to push the bad feeling aside. It was the smile she gave at dinner parties when Kofi squeezed her knee to get her to dial back what he called her ‘social justice rant’， the firm grasp that told her she was spilling out of the ‘girlfriend who is smart but not enough to embarrass me’ mould. Yaa smoothed out the scooped neck yellow kente dress that skimmed over her curves. The neckline was low but not too low, dress length hovering just above her knees. It was sexy yet still demure, fitting for a future minister’s wife, ready for the photos that would be plastered on society blogs and Instagram roughly thirty minutes after the proposal. Kofi would definitely have hired a photographer. Yaa nodded at her reflection.
‘We’re perfect for each other.’
Running late at the office. Meeting overran. Have pushed the reservation. Another 20 minutes or so. See you soon. K
The car pulled away as Yaa blinked at the text from Kofi in the backseat. She rolled her eyes. Not tonight. Of all nights. Even if it wasn’t the night, it was still her birthday. The knowledge that the two of them would be together forever meant that Kofi took Yaa for granted. He showered her with gifts, took her on luxury trips and they dined finely, but when it came to his time, to the listening, to the seeing, their long-destined relationship overrode any need for him to try. They were to be together and nothing would change that. He knew that. The parties she threw him, the way she talked him up to crowds of ordinary people at campaign rallies, the loud laughs and arm rubs she gave him at dinner parties and the uncomfortable lingerie she wore for him was the result of what was apparently her sole duty to put in effort. All Kofi felt he had to do was show up, and he couldn’t even do that, apparently. All he had to do was pretend for one night that he wasn’t fucking his assistant, but he couldn’t even do that. She let him have the assistant fucking. The assistant was ambitious and smart; she knew this because she knew Kofi was paying for her after-work business management classes. Yaa found her useful. When Yaa made it clear that she knew about them, Yaa quieted the assistant’s panic by letting her know that it didn’t have to be a big deal; all Yaa wanted to know was the major meetings that Kofi sat in on but didn’t tell her about. She wanted to know about the draconian policies he was angling to put into place that protected the elite and suppressed the poor, whom he had made promises to protect when he came into office. The assistant smiled knowingly and said: ‘No problem, madam.’ It benefitted them both.
Still, there was a base level of respect that Kofi sometimes couldn’t be bothered to rise to, and that irritated Yaa. They’d known each other their whole lives and, for better or worse, they were in this together. That should count for something. The only time Kofi ever cried about his father was to Yaa, in the privacy of their unique intimacy. She was the only one who knew that his rage at his father’s absence when he was alive had only been exacerbated by his death. And whenever his mother’s jabs hit too close to the bone, Kofi would always fight for her. Regardless of anything else, they were a team.