If she wanted to, Chastity could have left Ivy's house and been at her parent's in less than ten minutes. But she didn't want to. She hadn't been there for all of six years and she was not planning on breaking her record.

Much like her, Ivy had grown up in the kind of comfort that's relegated to any middle class family. Good schools, amazing clothes, the reality that income was never really something to worry about and nice holidays. Unlike her though, Ivy still had both her parents be loving and also, very unlike way too many Kenyan households, they genuinely looked to adore one another.

Ivy had disappeared into her room the moment they had arrived, somehow already stressed about what was on her plate. Chastity didn't try to understand how she had things to do and so she didn't question it. Instead she made herself comfortable in the guest room, unpacked the clothes she was going to wear to the office the following day and started wandering around the house.

They had upgraded – the kitchen looked especially modern. She made a beeline for the fridge, grabbing for the bottle of yogurt and a banana. Since moving, she wasn't sure she'd ever really filled her fridge like the Ototi's had.

"Have you finally come to ask for her hand in marriage?" someone asked, a stool scrapping loudly against the tiled floor.

Chastity sighed then plastered as big a smile as she could. "Hello, Pendo. Nice to see you too."

Pendo was not exactly Chastity's arch nemesis. Actually, they were very cordial with one another. The only problem was that they were far too similar and sometimes that had them butting heads instead of agreeing on everything. Being with Pendo always made Chastity wonder how Ivy could stand her and her sister and not lose her mind.

She was dressed in a black t-shirt that had no business looking that pretty for just how plain it was. Her hair was in lines and her face was almost bare. The sneering had been a nice little accessory to an otherwise bare face.

"Still stringing her along then?"

During her third year in uni, Pendo had pulled Chastity into her room during one of her visits and demanded to know why she was so determined to break Ivy's heart every chance she got. Of course Chastity said that she had never done that. This led to Pendo calling her a bitch and making her promise to never break Ivy's heart. Never even think about toying with Ivy. Chastity, shaking in her UGGs, promised never to do that.

Seven years later and she had probably done exactly that.

"I am not stringing anyone along. We are still friends and I value her."

Even with all the modernizing, most of the kitchen utensils were in the place they had always been so she grabbed a bowl, knife and a spoon and begun preparing her snack.

"Then why is she here and why does she look like shit?"

Chastity had seen Ivy. They had come over together. She had been laughing and was bursting to the seams with stories. She had no bags under her eyes to speak of and unlike Chastity who'd only managed to squeeze in a five hour nap since Friday, she had looked well rested.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She bit into the banana, her resolve of cutting it into the yoghurt lost. "She looks healthy. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say she is positively glowing. Now you on the other hand..."

Pendo did look like how Chastity felt the longer she stared at her. Neither of them had expected to find her at home, back to her usual dark self. Sometime back she had discovered her calling – plain humanitarian work. She had even opened a bakery that did more giving than receiving. She wasn't a doctor but she was good enough that her parent's bragged about her as much as they did Ivy.

Pendo waved her off. "Sickness." Somehow, Chastity didn't believe that but chose not to push. "Nakuru, you know." She didn't. She'd never been -- except as a stop for when she used to head back to upcountry to see her grandparents.

"I hear it's tough there," she said, just to be polite as she savoured the yogurt.

"Look, I like you. I like my sister too. I just so happen to like her more than you but less than my peace of mind. Don't go fucking her over, okay?" Chastity nodded. She would never do anything to Ivy. "Good. Now stop hogging my yogurt and go help her with the garden. She doesn't know what she is doing."

She snorted as she left the kitchen with her bowl, making her way towards the garden. Much as she'd have liked to help, she hadn't been very eager to go into the mud just yet and so she stood at the balcony, enjoying her yogurt as she studied Ivy being bested by a water pipe.

It struck her again how so beautiful Ivy was. It had little to do with how those black tights showed off her shapely legs or the very thin t-shirt promised what could only be heaven. It was the way, even in the middle of being frustrated, that she shone. Everything about her was bright and collected. She was like a star that was never going to explode. She was meant to pulse steady and brightly for anyone who beheld her; sort of how she was beholding her.

"I think," she said after she noticed Ivy was never going to get it, "that you are supposed to push it anti-clockwise to get the best squirt." It was infuriatingly funny that she would choose squirt of all words.

"Oh?" Ivy dropped the pipe to the ground, wiping sweat off her brow. "What do you know about farming equipment?"

"More than you, apparently."

She cleared her bowl, placed it on the balcony and walked to the garden, taking the discarded pipe and doing just as she suggested. "See?" She irrigated the plants much to Ivy's astonishment.

"Manual labour becomes you." Ivy walked to the balcony, leaning against one beam and studied her.

It felt too queer she begun fidgeting. She, all of a sudden, wondered what her best side was. For selfies, it was obviously her left but then what about her body? What the fuck was her best side? She adjusted her shorts, not sure if she wanted to look modest or so irresistibly sexy Ivy would finally break and tell her they could do a little fooling around.

Did her legs look long? Boobs perky? Was she already sweating?

"I'll go get us some juice, okay?" Ivy said as she grabbed the empty bowl and headed back into the house.

At least the pressure was off for a minute but then Pendo's words came back with a vengeance. Chastity was not one for relationships. They took too much and always led to resentment. Even though she got crushes here and there, she never felt the burden of the fear that always came with not wanting anything serious with any of them.

Most times, they were very inconsequential. Nothing was going to change in her life whether they were there or gone. It was always fine. A lot of fish in the ocean always made sense but then Ivy started to look sexy literally out of nowhere.

This person, who had shaped most of her life to what it was, started looking so good out of nowhere and that caused an upheaval of denial and anger in her life. She was never supposed to cross that line with Ivy – this was obvious best friend commandment number five. She was supposed to keep her hormones to herself and enjoy life with some nice hot stranger and call it the good life.

But Ivy started smiling like a flower and cackling like a god. She started becoming regal in her being and stealing Chastity's breath and brain cells away. She was doing the thing that she was not supposed to and that was not helping in any given way and despite her resolve, she had almost told Ivy she wanted a relationship.

She hadn't been sure if her hormones were talking or rational brain.

Ivy came back with two large glasses of orange juice and beckoned she stop what she was doing and enjoy a break.

"I could have sworn I'd seen apple juice in that fridge."

Ivy shrugged. "Maybe it was there."

"You fiend," Chastity said, taking a big swing of her juice. They hadn't done much. The garden still looked thirsty for more water but a break was a break.

Soon they were back and after bickering, getting themselves muddy and wet, they called it a day and disappeared into their respective rooms, showering and preparing for supper.

The Sunday was going perfectly until they were all sat at the dining table, both Ivy's parents present, their faces grave as they looked at Pendo who was busy not looking at them.

"You could go back to school," Mama Ivy said as she bit into her Ugali. "I don't think it's too late."

"I am thirty," Pendo said through gritted teeth.

"And failing at a lot of things," Baba Ivy said sharply.

Chastity shared a look with Ivy. It was never like that. The Ototi household never felt terse and as though a bomb was ticking by, seconds away from eviscerating everything. That was the expected ambiance of Chastity's home.

"One hiccup," Pendo said sharply. "One hiccup and you call me a failure."

Mama Ivy returned the same sharpness. "It would have been a hiccup if your bakery had an expected loss. You led to a whole church being shut down!"

"How is that my fault?"

"You slept with a nun!"

Pendo pushed back her chair, getting to her feet. "I fell in love. So did she. That had nothing to do with the church shutting down. It was all going to shut down eventually."

"They called you a Sodomite!" Mama Ivy retaliated and this led to Pendo laughing like a mad woman, walking away from the dining area, disappearing to the stairs.

Chastity felt like she was intruding on something even though no one said anything right after and resumed eating like everything was completely normal. She wondered if whatever had happened was the reason why Pendo had semi threatened her earlier that day.