16

AMAYA

Day of the Poruwa Ceremony

I woke up to a text from Beth.

How are you holding up?

I didn’t feel like responding. How was I holding up? I wasn’t holding up at all. I was barely holding on. But I didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now, because I couldn’t face being honest. Not that I had to face Beth at all. Not that I ever had to truly face Beth, if I didn’t want to, even though she was easily my closest friend.

In an age where we buy our groceries online and meet romantic partners online and do our banking online, why are online friendships considered any less valuable than real-life ones? So what if I’ve never met Beth in person? Why is the physical act of meeting considered such a big deal when you can literally grow up next to someone and not know them at all?

Why is Beth a less valid friend than Kaavi? Is it because we’ve never met?

Maybe that’s something to unpack about me. Maybe if Dr. Dunn was my real-life therapist, and not just a podcast life coach, he’d think it was worth exploring. Why do I feel more comfortable around Beth, whom I have never met, and Alexander, whom I have only met under very specific circumstances, and Dr. Dunn, who honestly feels like he’s just talking to me and me alone? Tell me, please, how that’s less real than the relationship I had with Spencer, who left me in shambles, or my friendship with Kaavi that hurt beyond words?

The truth is that it’s so much easier to develop relationships with people when there are healthy boundaries between us. When there’s enough space. It keeps us from giving more of ourselves than we bargained for. It keeps us safe.

—

The Poruwa ceremony was all about auspicious times, so I’d set my alarm to 3:45 p.m. even though there was no way I could get unlucky about this. I turned the chair on my balcony to face the crowd that had gathered on the beach and got myself a cup of tea. I didn’t have to wait long.

Usually, the groom enters first with his family, accompanied by traditional drummers in turbans. Spencer had no family with him in Colombo, so the Fonsekas had him ride in on an elephant instead.

Yes. An actual, honest-to-goodness elephant.

The government had banned this years ago, and animal rights groups would have a field day if they got wind of it, but the one constant in Colombo is that the rules don’t apply to you if you’re rich and powerful.

The wedding guests cheered and clapped as Spencer was led toward the stage, where he disembarked with some difficulty. It wouldn’t have been an easy task in regular clothes, but of course Spencer was wearing the traditional Kandyan Nilame outfit, to match Kaavi’s Kandyan Osariya. You would normally have to be from Kandy to wear this, but then, it’s not like there was anything normal about this wedding. Spencer had gone all out—wearing the awkward crown-shaped hat, the jacket with the unnaturally puffed sleeves, and the sarong that was cinched in a bundle at his waist. He was adorned in the same white and rose gold threadwork and sparkles that mimicked Kaavi’s, and he even carried a sword.