Birds of different feathers

I've come to realize that at some point, it's better to be all by one's self than to roll with a bunch of people who wouldn't add value to your life. Just like the saying 'birds of a feather flock together', most times, birds of different feathers could still flock together, and this always results in bad situations. My cousin was a victim of such circumstances. She had flocked with the wrong friends and it caused her harm.

Source

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Elizabeth, my cousin lived with my family for a long time. I never thought a day would come when she'd no longer live with us as a result of a silly mistake that she had made.

Elizabeth was a final-year law student with amazing grades. Back then I used to wish that I'd inherit her intelligence when I got into the university.
She was a brilliant person, and she seemed perfect in everything except her choice of friends.
She had three friends who were also her coursemates, but they seemed a little bit out of place. I tried on several occasions to advise her against their friendship, but it felt like I was suffocating her, and I didn't want her to feel that way.

"Jenny, who do you think you are to advise me on the friends I make? Is this because I stay at your parent's house?" Elizabeth yelled in anger.

"You are misunderstanding the whole thing, Lizzy. I just need you to be reasonable and understand where I'm coming from. These girls are different from you; the kind of life they lead is nothing close to how decent you are." I tried to explain myself but she wouldn't listen.

"These will be the last time you'll ever speak to me about how I should live my life. Leave my room and stay away from me." She warned me.

I stood there for some time, still apologizing for the misunderstanding but she turned away from me, and at some point, I got tired of begging her, so I just shrugged my shoulders and left her room.

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Some weeks later, I got a call one sunny afternoon, and the caller said my cousin had been arrested. I froze as I heard that; I asked again to be sure the caller didn't take me for someone else.

"Sorry sir, but I think there has been some kind of misunderstanding. Who did you say you have in your custody?" I asked the officer over the phone.

"We have Miss Elizabeth in our custody, and she had your contact saved as emergency contact. We need to get through to her guardian, as she was found with illegal drugs." The officer explained and ended the call.

I immediately redialed for my parent's number, but it didn't go through, so I quickly took a shower and boarded a taxi to the police station. When I got there, I saw my cousin crying her eyes out while trying to explain herself to a group of officers who weren't even listening to her.

"Lizzy!!!" I called out for her, and ran to her, hugging her closely. "What's going on?" I asked her.

"Did you get through to your parents?" She asked me.

"I've been calling them, but their numbers are not going through." I replied sadly, and she wailed even more.

I took her to a table and pulled out a chair for her to sit on, then I sat on the other chair and rubbed her back in slow circles, still trying to console her.

"What really happened? I thought you were hanging out with your friends." I asked her.

It was then that she poured out the story of how the girls had slipped cocaine into her purse, whilst telling her that the substance was for make-up. My naive cousin held onto the powder for them as they drove at high speed to attend some kind of party. They were stopped for speeding, and somehow, the officer that had stopped them noticed that the girls were acting a little bit strange, so he began to search them and saw the cocaine in my cousin's purse.

The girls immediately denied having anything to do with the substance that had been found, and thus, my cousin was arrested and taken to the police station, while her friends continued their journey, without even trying to help her out.

I felt a wave of anger surge through me as I listened to her tale. The urge to hit her was so strong that it took a lot of self-control to refrain from doing that.

"Your so-called friends finally took advantage of you. You're so naive, and you don't listen to whatever anyone has to say. I warned you to stay away from those people. They are of a different breed, but you wouldn't listen. How do we get out of this mess now?" I was pissed about the whole situation.

I called my parents again, and thankfully they picked up on the second ring, and I told my dad what was going on.
"Let me speak to any of the officers around there." My dad said, and I rushed to one of the officers and put him on the call with my dad.

After a few minutes of discussion, my cousin was taken away, to conduct a blood and urine test and luckily for her, the results showed that she was clean.
Elizabeth had to spend the night at the station, and I went back home feeling terrible that I had to leave her there.

The next day, my parents returned and went to the station to bail her out. My dad was so furious about the whole situation.

"What are you doing mixing yourself with the wrong crowd? Now those girls left you here to rot. How do you explain this?" My dad yelled at her.

Elizabeth sobbed all night. Three days later, we got a letter of her expulsion from the University.
It was a shocking news to all of us. I wondered how the school authorities found out about the cocaine and the arrest. My dad couldn't deal with the whole thing, so he sent her to another state, to start all over again. That was how I stopped seeing my favorite cousin all because of her mix-up with the wrong people.

Thanks for reading.