Maame(58)

Penny and the OTP team x

Ben didn’t text that night. Just as well. I got into bed and replayed everything that had happened between us in my head. If I were watching our relationship on-screen, I would have rolled my eyes at TV-Maddie, called her a sucker and claimed to have known better, that it was so obvious. But I didn’t know any better. And was it really so obvious?

I chalk it up to yet another thing schools fail to teach us: how to do your taxes, how to buy a property, and how to tell when you’re being taken for a fool.

The following morning, a plethora of flowers and treats are delivered. They gather on the dining room table, propagating until they mimic afternoon tea in an overgrown garden, but I stay out of the kitchen as much as possible to avoid looking at them.

I’ve always wanted to be given flowers and it turns out that all I needed was for my dad to die and my apparently-not-boyfriend to get caught sleeping with someone else.

To get caught being in love with someone else?



* * *



I tell Shu and Nia what happened and they both come over. It’s weird seeing the two of them together because they’re not exactly friends. They only know of each other through me.

“Shower, please.”

I do as Shu says; I brush my teeth, scrub my face, and pull my hair up, and when I’m done, Nia’s changed my bedding and loaded the washing machine. Shu has taken the overflowing bins out and picks at the chocolates Ben had delivered. She mops the kitchen floor and I watch her. She’s had a haircut; it’s to her collarbone now and is so shiny that individual strands streak silver when they hit the light. She has on her multiple necklaces and she’s added another ear piercing to her collection. She wears an oversized jumper and bike shorts. Her eyelash extensions mean if I look close enough, they’re either resting on her cheeks or reaching for her eyebrows.

I love Shu very much.

Nia’s bought more food and lots of salad and fruit. We sit in the living room and eat on the floor.

Shu kisses her teeth. “I never liked him, you know.”

“You met?” Nia asks.

“No, but I looked him up on Facebook and he was still active on it, so that was a red flag,” Shu explains. “Facebook is now solely for stalking purposes, distant foreign relatives excused. He’s not even good-looking,” she adds, popping a grape into her mouth. “Small eyes and stretched lips. I knew you’d end up having funky taste in men.”

“Maybe Maddie’s more focused on personality?” Nia helps.

“I doubt it,” Shu says. “His was clearly shit.” She turns to me. “Were you with him because he was rich?”

I lift my head from Nia’s shoulder. “Thank you for essentially calling me a gold-digger, Shu.”

She frowns. “I don’t know why you’re offended. Gold-diggers are our nation’s hardest workers; do you know how much effort goes into pretending to give a shit about some guy for his money? A lot. Hoes are Britain’s unsung heroes.”

“Let’s not further that thread. How are you feeling?” Nia asks me. “All this Ben stuff isn’t great timing.”

“I didn’t love him,” I admit, “not the way I was supposed to and I know that, but I loved feeling loved and … wanted. I just don’t understand why this happened.”

“This isn’t your fault, Mads,” Shu says, looking closer at her phone. “I think I found her. This bitch?” She turns her phone to me and on it is a picture of Sophie with pouted lips in another figure-hugging dress. In the caption she thanks “babe” for the sparkling bracelet encircling her wrist. The picture was posted two days ago.

“Yes, that’s her.” I stare at the photo and try to pick faults, but it doesn’t matter if I find any. He still chose her. Maybe if you’d worn tighter dresses … “How did you find her?”

“She’s tagged on his Instagram,” Shu says, widening the image. “Oh, look at that. Big lips and wide hips.”

Nia tuts. “Typical.”

I look between the two of them. “What am I missing?”

Nia continues to stroke my hair. “Ben may be a certain type of man,” she says gently.

“He likes your features, just not on you,” Shu finishes bluntly. “Now that I look at him closely, he does give off that racist vibe.”

I jerk back. “Racist? That’s a bit strong. Ben’s not … He doesn’t hate me.”

“Maddie.” Nia looks at me with pity. “A white person can date a Black person and still be racist.”

“Because there’s levels to that shit. Like a lasagna.” I frown but Shu says, “Stay with me. So, on the top, that cheesy layer, that’s what you can see clearly. Hate speech, mad looks, and violence. Obvious stuff you can’t ignore. But all them layers underneath, the ones that are harder to see, microaggression and unconscious bias? Giving your white girlfriend jewelry, boat rides, and meet-and-greets with the family, but your Black girlfriend pasta in your house? Racism, hun.”

I’m still not entirely convinced—maybe Ben is a bad person to every woman—but then Nia says, “I know it might seem too small an action to fit under such a big word, but the simple idea that the white girl he’s seeing as the one to invest in suggests your level of worth to be less than hers, and it isn’t. You are worth everything she is, do you hear me? You are not the problem.”