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She glances at my stomach, which is becoming big at this point, and another blush spreads across my face. “Ah … I’m fine.”
“There was talk amongst the people who … well …” She licks her lips and glances around the area to see if anyone’s listening, then she leans in and whispers, “That you escaped.”
“It’s true,” I reply. “I did …” I avert my eyes. I can’t look at her and say these words when I know she would’ve given everything to get out of here. “But I had to come back.”
She takes a step back. “Wait … what? I thought that they’d found you. Everyone here said the patriarchs went out of the community. They only ever do that to get new followers …”
“Or to find someone they lost,” I say, and I sigh out loud. “Noah did come for me, but he didn’t take me back.”
“Why didn’t you try to escape him?” she says. “I thought you wanted to get out.”
“I wanted nothing more,” I explain, trying to keep her from walking back farther. “But I’d already gotten pregnant, and … my mother. She’s here.”
She frowns. “Your mother?” She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I know. It was hard to accept for me too, but …” I swallow hard. “I was born here. My mother’s a matriarch.”
It’s silent for a while. Then she takes another step back.
“I can’t … I thought you were …” She shakes her head again. “This isn’t real, right?”
“I’m telling the truth,” I say, blinking a couple of times so I can stop the tears from flowing. “But I’m still like you. I was taken too.”
I try to grab her arm, but she jerks free of my grip. “No. If you were born here, if your mother was a matriarch … that means your father is a patriarch.”
“Yes, but I came from the outside,” I try to explain.
“Don’t lie to me,” she hisses. “Please. I can’t take it. I thought you were a friend.” Tears well up in her eyes, and it hurts.
“We are friends! Please believe me; I’m not lying,” I say. “I escaped when I was little. I spent all this time living in the outside world, just like you.”
When I try to reach for her hand again, she leans back.
“No, you’re nothing like me.” Her body goes rigid. “You dress in these fancy clothes, get to walk up on stage with those men, you get to live the high life. You eat like a normal human being, no, like royalty. You sleep in a soft bed with feathery blankets, and people serve your every need, from dressing, to washing, to making you feel good.” Her words sting like a knife. “You’ve become a puppet. One of them.”
“Don’t say that,” I say.
“Why not? Tell me it isn’t true,” she hisses. “You can’t.”
She’s right. I can’t. Living inside the temple is a luxury compared to the huts, but it is still a prison. An opulent prison, but a prison nonetheless.
“I am still a wife. I got claimed. I never asked for any of this,” I say, pointing at my belly.
“But you’ve accepted it,” she says through gritted teeth. “Do you love him?”
“What?” I mutter.
“Do you love your husband or not?” she asks. “It’s not that hard to say yes or no.”
“I don’t … know …” I reply, wishing I knew how to say the words lingering in my heart. How can I describe what I’m feeling for Noah if I don’t even understand it myself?
Even though he’s the catalyst to my ruin, he also saved my mother. He fought for my love so hard that he’d sacrifice his body in order to make me happy. He endangered himself and put his own life on the line just to give me time to decide on my own whether or not I wanted to go back to the community. How can I not love that?
How can I not love this man who has put so much on the line just to be with me?
But I know that this admission can lose me this friendship that I care so deeply about.
So I sigh, and say, “Yes … I do.”
The look on her face turns cold and bleak. “See? You can’t even admit it to yourself. That’s how ashamed you are of yourself. You know it’s wrong.”
“I didn’t choose any of this, and you know that,” I reply.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “None of this matters. Nothing will ever change. I won’t ever get out, and you don’t even want to anymore. Why did you even come to see me?”
“I’m worried about you because we haven’t seen each other in months,” I reply.
“Well, don’t bother with me,” she says, turning around. “I’m gone soon anyway.”
“What?” I gasp, and I grab her arm to force her to stop before she enters her hut. “What do you mean gone?”
