Chapter 42

Hawa’s POV

One day, I saw Moud with the same girl at an ice-cream parlor where Kesso had taken me. We pretended not to see each other, but Kesso went to say hello to him. The next day, he called me, and we had a normal chat.

I took a long bath, had dinner, turned on the air conditioning, and got under the comforter. When I picked up my phone, I saw several notifications. I went to the page and saw comments under the photo of Soukena that I had reposted. As I started reading, sleep completely deserted my eyes. My heart pounded as I saw over a thousand comments filled with insults—homewrecker, unworthy woman, whore, prostitute, thief, village girl. People said I used marabouts to take away husbands and accused me of following the husbands of all my clients.

“No, not that, Lord,” I said, feeling my heart compress.

Cold dread washed over me. I put down the phone and tried to compose myself. In other comments, they had taken a photo of Kesso and me, indicat