Chapter 33
The days after Elizabeth's visit moved slowly, like time itself was unsure of what came next.
The room felt different. Her presence had left a softness in the air, a trace of perfume on the pillow, and a lingering warmth in the space beside me. But beneath all that warmth was a quiet storm brewing inside me—questions I couldn't silence, feelings I couldn't explain, and a familiar ache I had hoped was gone for good.
I didn't tell anyone she came. Not Kingsley. Not the boys in the compound. It felt too complicated to explain. What would I even say? That the girl who broke me showed up with food, warmth, and sex, then disappeared again like a dream I wasn't sure I wanted to wake up from?
I kept writing, though. Even when I didn't feel inspired. Even when my fingers trembled from hunger or my head pounded from stress. I had to keep going. It was the only thing I had left that felt like purpose. Some of the stories I wrote were about people who survived heartbreak. Some were about people who didn't. But they were all pieces of me.
Electricity bills didn't care about emotions. Neither did landlords. With less than six months left on my rent, I started counting days like a prisoner counting down to release—or eviction. I found an old notebook and began tracking my expenses: ₦100 here, ₦50 there. I even started charging phones for people in the compound when the light came. It wasn't much, but at least it bought me a meal every now and then.
Elizabeth kept her word.
She texted a few days before returning to school: "Can I still pass the night at yours before I travel?"
I stared at the message for a long time.
I wanted to say yes. I also wanted to say no. My heart was caught between wanting her and wanting to protect itself.
But I typed: "Yeah. The door's open."
She arrived that evening with a backpack and a small bag of food again. Jollof rice, plantain, even a pack of Hollandia yogurt. She smiled like she hadn't left anything broken behind the last time. Like everything between us had always been easy.
We didn't talk much about school or life. She lay beside me and talked about her course, how stressful pharmacy was, how she barely slept. I nodded, listened. But inside me, there was this growing emptiness. A gap between who we used to be and who we were now.
That night, we didn't touch.
She curled beside me, her back to my chest, and I wrapped an arm around her waist. The intimacy was there—but it felt quieter. Sadder. Like we both knew this wasn't forever. Like we were just sharing a pause in the chaos.
I wanted to ask her—Why did you leave me when I needed you the most? But I didn't.
I wanted to ask—Are you here because you miss me or because you're lonely? But I didn't.
In the morning, she dressed up slowly. I walked her to the bus park in silence. She hugged me tightly before she left. "Take care of yourself, Fred," she said, holding my gaze for a second longer than usual.
And then she was gone.
No promises. No declarations. Just silence.
I walked back to my room that morning with hands in my pocket and the street quiet around me. I didn't know what she wanted. Maybe she didn't either. All I knew was that whatever fire we once had, it was now just a candle—still flickering, but slowly burning out.
When I got home, I opened my journal and wrote:
"Some people return not to stay, but to remind you of what staying would have felt like."
Then I closed the book, sat at the edge of my bed, and started planning how to survive the next month.
Because feelings couldn't pay rent.
And memory didn't boil water
I made a pot of garri that afternoon. It was the last thing I had left. I didn't even bother using hot water—I just stirred it cold and swallowed like it was medicine. Each mouthful felt like the price of survival. I sat on the floor and ate in silence, the echoes of the morning hugging my thoughts too tightly.
I didn't hear from Elizabeth again that week.
She didn't call, didn't text. And I didn't reach out either. I couldn't. Part of me still clung to the warmth of her last visit, but another part—the louder part—kept screaming that she wasn't here to stay. Maybe she never had been. Maybe I had only been the pit stop on her journey back to something better, something more stable.
And yet, I couldn't hate her. That was the hardest part. I wanted to. I needed someone to blame for the ache in my chest, for the feeling that I'd been used as a soft place to land when the world got too loud for her. But how do you hate someone who fed you, held you, listened when no one else did?
I started avoiding eye contact with my neighbors. I didn't want to answer questions, didn't want to smile. Every conversation felt like a performance, and I didn't have the strength to act anymore. The boys would gather outside in the evenings to talk about politics, football, girls. I stayed in. I told them I was busy writing, and sometimes that was true. But most of the time, I was just curled on my mattress, staring at the ceiling, thinking too much.
My notebook became my therapist. I wrote everything in it—how I felt, what I missed, what I wanted. I wrote about Elizabeth, about school, about the shame of not being where I thought I would be by now. And then one night, I wrote something that changed everything:
"I'm not stuck. I'm just waiting for the next door to open."
That sentence stayed with me. It became my mantra. My reminder. Because the truth was, I still had time. Maybe not a lot, and maybe not enough to do everything I'd dreamed of, but enough to do something. Enough to keep going.
So I got up the next morning, washed my clothes by hand, and cleaned the room. I rearranged my books, changed the position of my table, and opened the window to let in more light. It wasn't much, but it felt like a fresh start. Like breathing again after holding it in for too long.
I started charging people for writing gigs again—CVs, application letters, love notes. Anything. I even wrote a poem for a girl in the next compound who wanted to impress her boyfriend. She paid me ₦500 and a piece of fried yam. It was the best meal I'd had all week.
And slowly, the days began to stretch again. Not with joy, not with magic, but with movement. That was enough.
One night, as I lay down on my bed, my phone buzzed. It was Elizabeth.
"I've been thinking about you."
I stared at the screen, heart tight. I didn't know if I should be happy or worried. I didn't reply immediately. I left the message there, unread, like a coin tossed into a fountain you're too scared to pick up.
She texted again the next day.
"Do you miss me?"
I did. But I also missed myself—the boy I was before the world got too heavy. The boy who didn't have to choose between love and survival.
I replied, finally.
"Sometimes. But missing you won't fix my life."
She didn't text back after that.
And somehow, that was okay.
Because the truth was, I needed space to rebuild. I needed to figure out if the life I wanted could still happen, even without her in it. Or maybe because she wasn't in it. It was hard to tell. Everything was blurred now—dreams, memories, futures.