Isabella paced the room.
“No. Maybe he is rich and hiding it.”
Rita pretended to arrange her books.
Isabella turned on her.
“You knew?”
Rita looked up.
“Knew what?”
“Don’t play innocent.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
Isabella’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re secretive these days.”
“Maybe I’m tired of being insulted.”
The room went quiet.
Joy looked between them.
Isabella laughed coldly.
“Interesting. The bread girlfriend has grown wings.”
Rita stood.
“His name is Ethan.”
“His name was slum guy until he bought Samsung.”
Rita’s hand tightened around the phone box.
“You rejected him.”
“I rejected what he showed me.”
“That’s the problem.”
“No, the problem is you. If you were my real friend, you would have told me he was not poor.”
Rita stared at her.
“Why?”
“So I could reconsider.”
Joy groaned. “Isabella.”
“What?”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
Rita’s voice became quiet.
“So if he was poor, I could have him. But if he is rich, he belongs to you?”
Isabella lifted her chin.
“He approached me first.”
“You laughed at him first.”
“Girl code—”
“Girl code does not mean I must throw away someone who treats me well because you rejected him badly.”
Joy whispered, “Rita…”
But Rita was no longer whispering.
“You want every man who has money to be yours by default. Even married ones. Even the ones you insulted. Even the ones who love somebody else.”
Isabella’s face changed.
“Be careful.”
“No,” Rita said. “You be careful. You call greed standards because it sounds better.”
The words landed like a slap.
Isabella grabbed her handbag.
“I’m going out.”
Joy stood. “Isa—”
“Don’t.”
The door slammed behind her.
Rita sat down slowly, heart racing.
Joy looked at her.
“You meant that.”
Rita’s voice shook.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been holding it for a long time.”
“Yes.”
The problem with truth is that once spoken, it often invites everything hidden to come out behind it.
Isabella returned to Richard that same week.
Richard Amadi was forty-two, married, handsome in a tired way, and generous with money he did not have enough discipline to keep. He liked younger women because they made him feel successful before they asked questions. Isabella liked Richard because he transferred money after every argument and called it apology.
His wife, Amaka, knew.
Of course she knew.
Women know when rice money becomes hair money on another woman’s head.
The first time Amaka confronted Isabella, it happened at a restaurant. The second time, at a supermarket. The third time, she chased Isabella across a parking lot shouting “husband snatcher” so loudly that a fruit seller dropped oranges from laughing.
Isabella came home shaking with rage and humiliation.
“She’s mad,” she said, pacing the apartment. “That woman is actually mad.”
Rita sat at the table with notes open.
“She is hurt.”
Isabella stopped.
“Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say she was right to chase you.”
“But you think I deserved it.”
Rita closed her book.
“I think when you enter another woman’s marriage, drama may be waiting inside.”
Joy muttered, “This is going to become a sermon.”
Isabella turned on Rita.
“You act like you’re better than us because you found one man who may be rich.”
“No. I act like I don’t want another woman crying because of me.”
Isabella laughed harshly.
“All men cheat. If I don’t date Richard, someone else will.”
“That is what people say when they want permission to do harm.”
“You and your village wisdom.”
“At least mine helps me sleep.”
Isabella’s eyes hardened.
“Enjoy it while it lasts. If Ethan is truly rich, I’m taking him back.”
Rita stared at her.
“You cannot take back what was never yours.”
“We’ll see.”
Joy stepped between them.
“Enough. Both of you.”
But something had shifted.
The friendship that had survived poverty, school stress, bad landlords, shared noodles, heartbreaks, and exams began cracking under the weight of one man’s hidden money and another man’s open betrayal.
Joy noticed it before either of them admitted it.
Joy was not as loud as Isabella or as gentle as Rita. She lived between them, making jokes, borrowing clothes, calming fights, pretending not to care too much because caring deeply gave people power. But Joy cared. She remembered the three of them in first year, sitting on one mattress during a power outage, eating garri with groundnuts and promising that no man would ever come between them.
Now men had come between them because each girl had carried different wounds into womanhood.
Rita feared losing herself.
Isabella feared being poor again.
Joy feared being abandoned.
She tried to warn Rita.
They sat alone one afternoon after Isabella stormed out again.
“Are you sure about Ethan?” Joy asked.
Rita frowned.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A serious one.”
“Why?”
Joy sighed.
“The gifts, the proposal talk, the way he keeps showing Isabella things. It feels like he is proving something.”
Rita looked away.
“He loves me.”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t. But sometimes men can love you and still use the relationship to heal their ego.”
Rita’s heart tightened.
Joy continued gently.
“He approached Isabella first. She humiliated him. Now he buys you expensive things in front of her. Proposes where she can see. Drives the car there. Rita, that may feel like he is defending you, but maybe part of him is still speaking to her.”
Rita wanted to reject it.
Could not.
Because the thought had already crossed her mind.
“Not every happiness needs an audience,” Joy said.
Rita looked at her.
For once, Joy was not joking.
That evening, Rita met Ethan at a small café near campus.
He arrived smiling, carrying flowers.
She did not smile back.
His face changed.
“What happened?”
“We need to talk.”
He sat.
The flowers lay between them like something foolish.
Rita folded her hands.
“Do you love me?”
Ethan leaned back, startled.
“Yes.”
“Or do you love that Isabella regrets rejecting you?”
His expression closed.
“Rita.”
“Answer me.”
“I love you.”
“But do you enjoy hurting her?”
He looked out the window.
That was answer enough.
Rita’s chest hurt.
“I told you not to use me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Maybe not fully. Maybe not on purpose. But every public gift, every performance, every time you arrive at our apartment like you want Isabella to see what she lost. Ethan, I am standing beside you, but you keep looking over my shoulder.”
His jaw tightened.
“She humiliated me.”
“I know.”
“She looked at me like I was dirt.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know what that feels like.”
Rita’s eyes flashed.
“You think I don’t know what humiliation feels like?”
He stopped.
She leaned forward.
“I have been mocked by those girls almost every day because I chose you when they thought you had nothing. I defended you when you were not there. I kept your secret. I swallowed insult after insult. So don’t tell me I don’t know humiliation. I know it very well.”
He looked ashamed then.
Good.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I believe you. But sorry isn’t enough.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stop performing our relationship for people who don’t respect it.”
He nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
“And tell me the truth.”
His face went still.
“About what?”
“America.”
The air between them changed.
A server passed their table with two plates of rice and chicken. Someone laughed near the counter. Outside, a keke horn blared.
Ethan did not move.
Rita’s voice softened.
