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‘OK,’ she says softly. ‘Thank you. Look, I know I should have told you before. I’m sorry. I was just waiting for the right time.’

I need to push the thrashing, the crashing of my heart away. I need to beckon the bright to ward off the dark of the potential storm, so I manage to force out a wide grin. Apocalypse aftershocks have been beginning to rattle through me for the past month. I think of the wedding and I feel overfull with excitement– my body thrums with the thrill of it– and then the chaser of tremors occurs, a destabilising feeling from nowhere that makes my chest feel tight and my heartbeat pound and my stomach swirl.

I force a shrug. ‘It’s fine. You don’t need to treat me with kid gloves. Look, I can even say his name now. Remember when I couldn’t?’ All of three seconds ago? ‘Malakai. See?Malakai.’ While I do immediately become slightly lightheaded, this is obviously because of the chaotic mixture of champagne and what is essentially rum with a splash of Chapman. It has nothing to do with saying the name I haven’t said out loud in over six months.

My friends’ smiles are rigid as they make various sounds of pacification.

‘You said his name at a totally normal pitch—’

‘Sis, we know you’re not stressing about him—’

‘You sound totally at peace. . .’

Shanti clears her throat into the lull that follows and reaches for her baby pink Telfar. ‘Um, well, I’ve got a birthday booking for tonight, so I gotta go and prep. She’s this influencer with, like, a hundred thousand followers and is crucial for my brand expansion.’

Chioma quickly nods, rising with Ashanti, and reaching for her woven tote, ‘Yeah, and I’ve got a life-drawing class tonight so I’ll leave with you—’

‘Oh, I didn’t know you were teaching today,’ I say, grateful for the change of subject.

Chi-Chi’s an assistant interior designer who sometimes moonlights teaching art in community centres for extra cash.

Chioma shakes her head as she throws her faux-suede hobo bag over her shoulders. ‘Oh, nah. Not today. Modelling.’

I raise my brows, impressed, ‘Oh yeah? Well, bless them with your tiddies, sis.’

Chioma nods gravely, putting her hands together solemnly and dipping her head like a humble faith leader. ‘You know I will. It’s my humanitarian duty. I’ve been given a gift of stupendous rack. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t share?’

Shanti shakes her head and kisses me on the cheek before she bends down next to Aminah and whispers, ‘Oh shit, forgot to say– am I able to excuse myself from bridesmaid duties? Like, theoretically, what if I just want to be a regular guest? Because I love you, but I know that you’re going to be a bridal terrorist and I am not Kiki or Chioma. I don’t have their patience and it’s not a good look to beat a bride’s ass before her wedding day. I’ve done itona wedding day before, but that was a whole thing. She came for me first.’

Aminah’s expression becomes stone, her beautiful face so devoid of emotion it sends a chill down my body. Aminah and Shanti are almost the chaotic good and chaotic evil of each other, their positions switching according to the situation.

‘Ashanti Jackson, you better befuckingjoking.’ When Aminah swears, it’s an occasion that makes your heart jolt and your palms prick (think,Yes, this is the purpose of swearing, this is the emphasis for which it was created, to send chills, to straighten your back), ‘because I did not enter this friendship nearly a decade ago for you to flop on me now—’

Having read the teasing crack in Shanti’s face and being reassured a Baddie Battle isn’t going to occur, I relax into my seat and she squawks, ‘Shit, man, you’re just so easy. Be calm. It would be an honour, bitch. Iwillslap you if you talk to me crazy, though.’

Aminah chews on her reluctant smile and rolls her eyes as Shanti kisses her cheek with a loud smack. The two have their own friendship treatise that consists of a comfortable sharpness and the veneer of a grudging affection that you can only find in sisters who are mildly competitive with each other.

‘And I’ll slap you right back, honey,’ she says.

‘Wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Shanti trills before she and Chioma wave their goodbyes and head out to the high street. Aminah and I look at each other in the din of Sister Sledge insisting that we are family, our silence pointed.

While I initially came to know Shanti and Chioma in second year through the very normal friendship meet-cute of their being previously romantically entangled with the man I was to fall in love with, mine and Aminah’s friendship started on the first day of university. Together, we stripped an obnoxious rugby boy of his toga after some mild racial and sexual harassment on his part at the bins outside our residential building. It was love at first shared spite. Mine and Aminah’s relationship is that of soulmates: my best friend, my sister, my person. It never lets up, our love for each other only growing as we do. More than a shared adoration of Beyoncé, our inability to take shit and our dislike of men who wear dangly cross earrings, is the fact that our minds exhale in sync. Our differences sharpen each other. She knows me like she knows herself; she’s part of me, as much as I’m a part of herself and as much as I’m a part of myself. As if to prove the point, she lowers her chin and reaches out to hold my hand across the table, leaning forward so the ‘K’ in her gold pendant, previously lying in the square neck of her white bodysuit, dangles over her empty plate.

‘You’re mad at me.’

‘Nope. I’m not mad, Meenz. Just confused. How could you not tell me that Malakai was coming for your engagement party? I was prepared for the wedding– it’s a while away– but the engagement party is basically tomorrow—’

‘I know, Iknow.’ Aminah straightens and guilt dances across her face, immediately abating the tightness in my chest, softening my annoyance. ‘I was just waiting for the right moment to tell you, but then time kept on passing by and I got swept up in wedding stuff.’

I nod and squeeze her hand, because annoyance at Aminah doesn’t metabolise well with my body. My blood rejects it– it lies heavy on top of it and restricts its flow– and so I let it go, because it’s hard to carry and because I understand why she did it. She went through the break-up with me, my pain pulsing through her as she held my hand and as she lay next to me on the bed; it travelled in waves through the silence of her texts that remained unread because I was so scared to pick up my phone in case he texted and in case he didn’t.

I clear my throat. ‘I get that.’

Aminah nods carefully. ‘And how are you about the Bakari situation? Gist me for real. How could you not tell me for a month? We speak every day! I even know your bowel-movement schedule. You’re quite regular these days.’

‘Yeah, I started putting chia seeds in my porridge. Anyway, I didn’t tell you because it reallyisn’ta big deal. Or a break-up! We’ll figure it out. I just think it’s weird how he thinks that he could just offer to be my boss and think I’ll accept. It’s like he doesn’t know me. He once got me a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant.’

Aminah’s face is one of delicate disgust, her nose crinkling slightly. ‘Ew.’