"Dan! Quick wash the carrots, you don't want Sonia waiting when she arrives, right?" A woman not any less than forty years called out to her son.
"Mom, I'm trying but the knife doesn't seem to be very sharp," a young man holding a kitchen knife said as he walked into the kitchen from the back door.
He kept staring at the knife with a slight frown on his face. He has an unkept dark ash-brown hair with silver-gray undertones. His eyes are pale brown with a hint of red... And his lips, he got a natural red and well-shaped one. A definition beauty hidden by poverty.
"You are just lazy," his mother grumbled, taking the knife from him and carrying the carrots to wash before cutting.
Daniel pouted but didn't say anything to his mother.
"Why don't you go and take your bath and then go and bring her to our house. Who knows if she has gotten lost," his mother said to him.
"You are right, thanks mother," Daniel said happily and left to take his bath.
Minutes later, he came out all dressed in a simple white polo and blue trousers. He wore his glasses and then went to the kitchen where his mother was.
"Mother, how do I look?" He asked her.
The woman glanced at him for a while and then with a faint smile, she replied.
"You look good, Dan but if you can reduce your belly, you will look better."
Daniel pouted and looked down at his big stomach. He rubbed it slightly before responding.
"I do not see anything bad about it," he said. "Besides, Sonia likes me the way I am."
His mother sighed, unable to argue with her son. "Fine, go and bring her. The food is almost ready too."
"Okay, mom!" Daniel replied and left the house.
As Daniel stepped out into the sunlight, he blinked behind his glasses as the heat rolled off the cracked pavement. The street outside was narrow and uneven, lined with patchy concrete walls and corrugated roofs that had long given up their original color. Children darted barefoot between alleyways, their laughter occasionally swallowed by the honking of motorcycles and the shouts of street vendors advertising roasted corn, secondhand shoes, or fried bean cakes.
The air was thick with the scent of smoke, sweat, and spices — the perfume of survival. Laundry hung like surrender flags from window grills and rooftop lines, swaying gently in the breeze. The buildings leaned into one another, worn down by time, patched with everything from newspaper to plastic tarps. A few goats picked through the scattered trash along the road, and a man sat outside a small kiosk, fanning himself lazily with an old magazine.
Daniel walked carefully, sidestepping a broken bottle and greeting a familiar old woman selling oranges in a rusty wheelbarrow.
"Good afternoon, Mama Risi," he said with a small nod.
"Ah, Daniel," she smiled, toothless and warm. "Going to bring that fine girl of yours, eh? Make sure she doesn't trip on our potholes!"
He chuckled lightly. "I'll carry her if I have to."
The woman laughed as he continued on, his white polo already drawing dust from the road. People called this place a slum... and it was, by most standards but to Daniel, it was home. Every uneven tile, every noisy child, every rusted gate was familiar. It might not be pretty, but it was alive.
"I need to hurry up," Daniel mumbled, increasing his pace.
After walking for a while, he finally saw his girlfriend — Sonia, standing under a shade and glancing around.
"Babe!" He yelled excitedly and ran towards her.
When he got to where she was, he opened his arms to hug her but she pulled away instantly.
Seeing this, Daniel frowned.
"Babe, what is the matter?" He asked her. "Did I make you wait too long? I'm sorry, okay? I was busy with mom in the kitchen." He tried holding her but she slapped his hands away.
"Don't touch me!" Sonia said, glaring at him as though he had done something bad to her.
"Why? What did I do? Weren't you the one who wanted us to meet?" Daniel asked, confused.
"Yes, I wanted us to see but not for this," she replied. "I came to tell you that it is over between us! I don't want this relationship ever again."
Daniel froze.
The sun beat down on his back, but suddenly he felt cold like someone had yanked the ground out from beneath him. His lips parted, but no words came. Just that sinking feeling that starts in the stomach and spreads like poison.
He stared at Sonia, trying to find some trace of the girl he loved — the one who used to laugh at his lame jokes, who once said she liked the way his eyes turned red when he cried. But the girl in front of him now... she looked like she had already left.
"What... what do you mean it's over?" he finally said, voice tight. "Sonia, we've been together for—"
"Don't make this harder than it is," she cut him off, her voice sharp but trembling underneath. "I just… I can't do this anymore, Dan. This… this place, your life, it's not what I want."
Daniel flinched. His gaze dropped for a second, catching the dirt smeared along his once-white polo, the dust clinging to the hems of his trousers. His belly, still round under the fabric. Then he looked up again.
"You said none of that mattered," he whispered. "You said I mattered, that as long as I love you..."
"I meant it then," Sonia replied, folding her arms, as if to keep herself from shaking. "But I have grown, Daniel. I want more than this. More than struggling, more than dodging potholes and pretending like love can fix poverty."
"So you're leaving me," he said slowly. "Because I'm poor."
"No—" she snapped, then looked away. "Yes. I guess so."
There it was. The truth, bare and cruel under the weight of the sun.
Daniel laughed — a small, bitter sound that didn't suit his face. "You know, I would've given you everything. Whatever I had. Even if it meant going hungry for a week."
"I know," she said, finally looking at him and for the first time, her eyes were soft. "And that's exactly the problem. You have ruined yourself for me."
Silence stretched between them, a heavy silence.
Sonia stepped back. "Take care of yourself, Dan."
And then she walked away.
Daniel didn't stop her. He stood there, in the middle of the dusty street, as people moved around him like he was just another thing in the background. A forgotten boy in a forgotten neighborhood, watching love vanish down the road.
But after a long moment, he took a deep shaky breath and then turned around to head back home.