Hope And Faith ✓

Epilogue.

Written: 8th December 2020.

••

Four years later. .

"You have got to be kidding me, Nadi," I cursed colourfully under my breath and Nadi cringed as we both stepped out of the airport, our suitcases in hand.

"I apologised before, okay? I swear if I knew that the travel agency was a scam I would have let it be, Hope," she bit her lower lip in remorse and I sighed.

I didn't have any reason to be mad at her, except that we had just been duped by a fake travel agency, so I couldn't make her feel guilty. We were both at fault for not bothering to check if they were real or not.

And now we were stuck here in New York with no way to get back to Canada in time for mother's wedding with Abigail.

"It's okay, let's just take deep breaths here, okay? I'll call Justin and see if he can get anything ready for us. Tonight is the final rehearsal for the wedding tomorrow and we have midterm assignments to turn in by Monday!" I could feel the frustration setting in now.

Nadi had convinced me to follow her to meet her parents for the midterm break, even though I knew it wasn't a rock-solid idea to leave a week before Mom's wedding I decided to anyway. Now Mom was both pissed and anxious all at the same time.

Nadi's boyfriend, Justin, could help us. But then how? Abigail would probably strangle me with her bare hands for giving her this sort of hypertension.

"Wait," Nadi said and we both paused, "is there a flight we can book? Today is Saturday and I'd be damned if I'll let myself fall asleep during classes. And if that can't work we can always blame your mother for planning a wedding on a Sunday." I shot her glare and she smiled cheekily.

I ran a hand through my boring brown hair muttering absolute nonsense under my breath.

I was turning twenty-two in two days from now and my Mom had wanted to get married on my birthday but I had convinced her against it.

And then she started talking about how being twenty-two meant that I had to finally bring a boyfriend home to her and her wife to be Abigail.

It wasn't like I didn't want to, I mean even Nadi teased me about how single I was, but knowing that my Mom wanted me to bring a guy home and I actually couldn't make me upset with myself. I wasn't completely ugly but telling my Mom that guys now our days preferred people like Nadi.

Dark brown skin, short black hair and big brown eyes. At least that was who my former crush and Nadi's recent boyfriend, Justin preferred.

Or maybe it's just you overthinking everything, as usual.

I cleared my throat to get rid of the nasty thoughts that were soon to fill my mind and looked at my best friend who was angrily typing at the screen of her Samsung.

"Let's go grab a drink or something," I licked my lips when I finally realised it wasn't just me and Nadi, there were probably hundreds of people out there who had either just gotten off a flight or were about to board one, "standing here isn't exactly the most comfortable thing to do."

••

"If I wasn't happily straight she'd make me go lesbian," Nadi wriggled her eyebrows and I scrunched my eyebrows in disgust.

We had found a small café and she had wasted no time ordering a doughnut and a cup of coffee with more sugar than I could tell. If she kept going at it she would not only burn up the only money we had left but would get sugar high.