Chapter 17 – WHAT BROKE MY FRIEND

ZARAH'S POV; Zarah is the fashion designer friend of Demi

It started gradually.

At first, we laughed about it. Demi—the same Demi who used to call love “a scam with better PR”—was smiling at her phone like a teenager. I mean, full-on, butterflies-in-the-stomach, grinning-for-no-reason, syrupy-eyed kind of smiling. The kind of smiling you do when someone texts you, “Send your account number?” and it makes your entire day.

We noticed it, of course. Nikky teased her first. Then Ruqoyah joined in. Me? I just watched. Because it wasn’t just the smiles. It was the softness. The calm.

She started sending voice notes that didn’t have a single swear word. She bought scented candles and like two million perfumes . She started wearing nude lip gloss instead of wine lipstick like she didn’t have enemies anymore. It was Khalid. We all knew.

Khalid, Demi’s university roommate brother. Ayeesha’s older, charming, low-key terrifying brother. That was the twist none of us saw coming. But it was working. Demi was happy. The kind of happy that makes your heart squeeze because you didn’t realize how tense she used to be until she wasn’t.

But then she came back from Abuja.

And something was off.

Not just off—wrong.

The smiles were smaller. The voice notes were shorter. She still wore her signature wide-legged trousers and silk hijabs, still ordered her oat lattes, still made sarcastic comments during brunch—but the shine had dulled. Like someone put a thin layer of fog over her.

“Are you okay?” I asked one afternoon while we sat in the corner of the boutique I run.

“Yeah,” she said, sipping her drink. “Just tired.”

But she wasn’t just tired. She was pulling away.

I watched my best friend go from being in love to something quieter. And that’s when I knew: heartbreak was on the table.

Not loud, dramatic heartbreak. Demi wasn’t a throw-your-phone-and-wail type of girl. She was a “ghost her own feelings until they go away” type. The kind who internalized everything until it started leaking out the sides.

So, I staged an intervention.

I texted the group chat and told the others to play along. I lured Demi into the store under the guise of a Zara sale, then sat her down with a firm voice and herbal tea.

“We’re doing this,” I said. “Now.”

She blinked. “Doing what?”

“Talking. You. Us. All of it. Because I don’t like this ghost-of-Demi energy you’ve been serving.”

She gave me a look. I held my ground.

“It’s nothing,” she said after a long pause. “I’m just… managing.”

That word.

Managing.

It was what people said when they were dying inside but too proud to say it out loud.

So I said the thing no one ever says directly.

“Is this about Khalid?”

She looked up.

And I saw it. The crack. The hesitation.

“He wants marriage,” she whispered, barely audible. “And He deserves it. He deserves that forever happiness. I just don’t see myself doing that.”

I let silence stretch between us. Sometimes, that’s what you need to give grief room to speak.

“I know your parents… shaped a lot of that,” I said gently. “But you’ve never talked about it. Not really.”

She nodded. Her fingers tightened around the tea cup.

“You remember the Christmas fight?” she asked suddenly.

I nodded. How could I forget?

We were fifteen. Demi’s parents had a full-blown, plate-throwing, table-flipping fight over a cup of tea. The police came. Someone (we still don’t know who) called them. Her dad was taken away for questioning. Her mum screamed at the officers and cursed the neighbors.

It was chaos. It was normal.

“That wasn’t even the worst,” Demi said. “The worst was the time they both tried to get each other arrested in the same week. Like it was a competition.”

I reached for her hand.

“I grew up thinking love was war,” she said, her voice cracking. “Now that I’ve tasted something soft, something kind… I’m scared. Because what if I ruin it? Or worse, what if it turns into that?”

“You’re not your parents,” I told her. “You know that, right?”

She didn’t answer.

And that silence scared me more than anything.

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That night, I wanted to call Khalid. I really did.

I want to ask him, gently, to be patient. To not take anything personally. To love her through it. Because Demi may not say it, but she loves him. In the stubborn, fearful, terrified way only someone like her can.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I facetime Nikky and Zaran and we decided to find the most discreet and best therapist in Lagos and we booked a session for our friend. Because that’s what friends do. Take the hard step for each other.

After I sent the appointment notification to Demi, I cried a little. Not because I was sad. But because I hated that someone so brilliant, so loud, so unapologetically herself, had been taught that love had to be a battlefield.

Photo by Thoa Ngo on Unsplash