Chapter 7

"Whew! Finally got rid of the Hovery Lord!" Amara said dramatically as she adjusted the skirt of her gown, settling it around her legs in the shaded part of the park where Bo had insisted they have to sit if she wanted him to leave as his wife had asked. She looked over at Serena when her friend laughed.

"What? What is it? Am I wrong? I swear that man hovers around me more than a mother hen would do whenever I am pregnant" she smiled.

Serena tried to curb her laughter to reply to her friend with the minimal result "No, no, not that. When you said Hovery Lord it sounded like Ovary Lord" she snorted again.

Amara was confused "Of course, that was what I me…oh" Her eyes widened and she laughed when she realised what her friend was talking about "You meant O-va-ry, whoever made up these words must be a rogue" then her smile turned lascivious as she patted her stomach and gave her friend a sideways look "Well, he is lord of that too. Hello? Proof right here" she smacked her lips.

Serena laughed again "Ama! Down, girl. You shameless hussy"

"This hussy owns it, girl. Especially since Bo appreciates it so much. Boy, does he appreciate it. There was this video I watched online the other day and I tried it with…"

Serena covered her ears "La la la la. I don't want to hear it. No way am I sitting here today to listen to your escapades with Bo. Pity my imagination please, do you want me to be looking up at the sky when next I saw your husband?"

Amara laughed as she scrutinised her friend and was satisfied that her smiles and laughter were no longer forced. She was seeing a glimpse of her carefree Ser again. Good

She curbed her laughter and bend to look straight into her friend's face as the latter still had her hands on her ears with her face turned away "You can remove your hands now, kid. This adult is through with her dirty talk for now"

"Thank you!" Serena said theatrically as she removed her hands from her ear and turned with a suspicious look at her friend.

"Fine, I won't talk about that one. I would only tell…"

"No!" she exclaimed then looked sharply around the park as a thought came to her mind "What if one of your family saw you now, playing like a child? How undignified"

Serena squelched the berating voice that sounded suspiciously like that of her mother-in-law and smiled at her friend who hooted with laughter.

Amara wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes and levelled a look at her friend "Now that whatever it was that had you so wound up had receded; now spill"

Serena affected an innocent look "Spill what?"

Amara lifted her bulging stomach to scratch at an itch at her waist before narrowing her eyes on Serena "Ser, are you playing with me, girl?"

Serena let out curt laughter then sobered as she looked over at her friend. The sudden moisture that came to her eyes when she saw the concerned look on her friend's face annoyed her. When had she become a waterpot?

She stared straight forward so her friend would not see the anguish in her eyes as she said "It is nothing really, Ama. Like mum would say, I seemed to be getting brasher and brasher. Discontent too" she sighed and shook her head "There is really no problem. Things are fine. I just want more. I guess I am being selfish"

"Who is feeding you that garbage, girl? I have never seen anyone more selfless than you are. What is it, Ser? Talk to me. Is this about Mathew?"

Serena shook her head as she refused to look at her friend. What could she say? It is not as if Mathew was maltreating her or anything. She remembered how he had apologised to her for walking out on her before going to work that morning.

"I don't want us to fight, Serena. I just want you to understand me better and I expect you to know that I can't let anything, anything at all affect my stamina at work. I have to put in my all to make sure that this promotion works this time around. I can't let anything be in my way, much less…sex. We will have plenty of time to do whatever we want to do later. You are my wife after all. But now I have to work hard for our future so that whenever we have our kids, there would be sufficiency for us" he had kissed her on the hair and left without even waiting to see the nod she had given to acknowledge his one-sided talk. She had nodded. She did not want to fight. She just wanted more of her husband and something of the perfect family she had envisioned.

She had started thinking that she was probably too selfish, looking out for what she wanted and what she admitted to herself would let her mother-in-law get off her back for a while. She had probably been too fixated on what would ease her worry that she had not thought much of what her husband was facing at work and how that could affect, well, his performance.

She looked at her friend, unaware of the anguish on her face as she smiled and said "It's not about Mathew, this is about me. I just realised that Mathew was right. I should really be more grounded and start acting more like a wife than a girlfriend"

"What?" Ama shouted "It is not about Mathew, you say? The heck it is not about Mathew he said that to you? My, this man seemed to be getting more worse. Sorry, Ser, I know that you don't like it when I speak about him like this but damn that was too much. What the hell? You, not grounded? Then I am sure he would call me a bird. I swear to God if Bo tried that with me, I would cosh him over the head before throwing his things through the window for him to go and find his grounded wife. Look at you girl"

"What? What happened to me?" Serena asked with a small smile. She knew that her friend wouldn't mince words, she realised how much she had missed her. Her friend had been on a visit to her mother-in-law's.

"You are becoming a shadow of yourself. That is what I am saying, not that something is wrong with you. I know how you used to be. Of course, you are not as crazy as I was back in school but at least you were always brimming with vitality. Now, look at you, babe. You are not only covering your eye bags with makeup, now you are blaming yourself? Oh my God!" She huffed "I knew it. When I asked if this was about Mathew, I only wanted to hear you say it yourself. I knew it was either you have been railroaded by him or his mother with your mother throwing in her sixpence too. I love your mum, don't get me wrong. But at times aargh" she growled and grew quiet as she seemed to have run out of steam, then she said quietly "I wish your dad was still alive"

Serena couldn't hold back her tears this time as she nodded "I wished he was as well. I miss him terribly at times like this" she looked over at Amara and the compassionate look on her friend's face made her break. Whenever she wanted to talk to her mother or her husband about how she felt, they only made her feel like she was overreacting but only Amara still stayed compassionate to her plight. She really wished her dad was here. She missed him terribly.

"Oh, Sweetheart" Amara said as she hugged her friend to her side "What is this man doing to you?" her heart broke for her friend, whose marriage had deprived her of a lot of things. If Amara had not gotten married before her, she was sure she would have run away from anything matrimony, not with the way her friend's own had been. Amara had never believed that anyone had the right to make someone else uncomfortable all in the name of marriage.

She wondered what else she could do for her friend as she had tried to talk with Mathew once without Serena's knowledge, she knew her friend wouldn't have allowed it if she had told her. The arrogant man had firmly but politely told her that it was not her business, right before he implied that his wife's association with her was the reason why she had not been able to settle and act like the ideal wife. As if Amara was not married herself. The bastard.

Amara had never truly liked him but who could have thought that the stuffy, self-righteous nerd who once looked at her friend like she was everything even as he subtly told her how something would look better on her than what her friend had intended to put on had only gotten worse and grown up to be more of a soft-spoken, responsible looking asshole who seemed to be chipping away at her friend's self-confidence.

There was not much she could do for her friend now, especially when she still seemed not to see that the problem was with her husband and not her. She knew how much Chevsko ostracised women who got divorced or separated from their husbands. She was sure that was what her friend's husband had been counting on that made him act however he wanted and it must be one of the main reasons why Serena had never thought of leaving her husband too despite how unhappy she was getting by the day. The Serena she had once known would have risked it but not the dutiful wife that replaced her friend who had once stood up for her against an abusive boyfriend.

She couldn't do much but at least this much she could do. She thought as she raised her hand and remove the ribbon that her friend had used to severely pack her hair into a bun.

A glorious red hair cascaded around her friend's face accentuating her heart-shaped face so perfectly even as the latter gasped when she realised what she had just done

"Ama, what did you do that for?"