Not all that glitters

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Rita was slowly moving close to me and extending a hand of friendship. We are both members of the same religion but attended separate branches.

We do see when we have religious seminars, and we all come together from our different branches.

For the times I see her during the seminar, she's always in the company of her sister. Occasionally, I see them with their father, but then I stopped seeing her together with her sister or her dad.

One Sunday, I saw her at my branch, and she ran to give me a warm embrace.

“What are you doing here” I asked with a grin that extended to both ends of my mouth area. It was such a delight seeing how welcoming she was to me.

“Oh, nothing much, I just came to chill at Uncle Festus's house for a while, can I please have your phone number?” She requested, as she brought out her phone, and we exchanged contact. Initially, we were friends on Facebook and she follows my update.

Now, Uncle Festus is a member of our religion as well, a really nice and accommodating man too.

Rita and I went on to texting, and every so often she pays me a visit at home. Every time Rita and I have a conversation, she's always complaining about being unmarried.

She would always complain about how the men approaching her for marriage gives her a condition to leave the religion, which was a tough one for her to do. As she complains, I'd try my best to counsel her.

One evening, Rita texted me on WhatsApp, as we chatted she would respond to some of my WhatsApp status she finds intriguing.

Then she dropped the big question, but first she asked, “How old are you?”

She is older than I by a year as I was 22, and she was 23 at the time, but then like I had already sensed where the question was headed, I told her I am 24.

“Wow! You are 24, and you are not bothered about being unmarried?” She wrote to me.

“Why should I be bothered?” I texted back.

“You know time is no longer on our side, does your family not trouble you to settle down?” she inquired

“No they don't, I already clarified it, I have my whole life ahead of me and marriage is the least of my problem, if it happens it happens, and they understand that.”

“Wow! You are so lucky, I wish my mom were alive, maybe the pressure to settle down from my family won't weigh heavily on me as I know that she will support me”. She concluded.

I sympathized with her as that was the first time I learned about her mother's demise. She went further to tell me how her younger sister and her father has made life unbearable for her at home, which was why she's at Uncle Festus.

According to her, whenever she reports to the dad on how disrespectful her sister was towards her, the father will tell her, “if you were married and in your husband's house, your younger sister will not come there to insult you. You brought this on yourself”.

I was wowed! That moment, I said a little prayer thanking God for the family he gave me because I am the eldest, and my younger ones won't dare disrespect me like that.

Fastforward, I was once seeing Rita off when this pretty young girl drove pass us in a really flashy Benz. In our usual discussion, Rita brought up the topic of how she was the one the man asked out first, but she declined.

The thing is that the man is a movie producer and Rita is part of the actress who goes to shoot movie in his house alongside this girl and several others.

It should be worthy to note that the man also had numerous baby Mamas, but just one lived with him which was why Rita turned him down.

But seeing the girl drive pass us, and getting to know that the man also built a duplex for the girl's parents, Rita was filled with regrets as it seemed this girl was leaving her life.

As usual, I consoled my friend and told her, her own is coming.

Eventually, Rita gave up the fight with one of her intending suitors as I saw her engagement and her wedding in the Christian way. Not just that, Rita and her new husband relocated abroad and they currently have two children.

After Rita's relocation, her sister, and father changed towards her, and they became one big happy family again.

Rita's sister, who made life unbearable for her because she was unmarried, got pregnant out of wedlock and is still unmarried.

The girl Rita was envying with the Benz and duplex for her parents, left the man after four children.

Apparently, the baby mama who lived with the man, turned the girl to a punching bag and made the home miserable for her as they were all living under one roof.

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