Olivia didn't go to school the next morning. She couldn't.
Her body might have been in the village, but her mind was spinning somewhere between disbelief and betrayal.
Her mother.
Her own mother — the one she trusted, the one she called every Sunday — had planned this.
As she sat by the well, drawing lazy circles in the red sand with a stick, she heard his footsteps approaching. Calm, steady, like nothing had happened.
"Olivia," Chidera called softly, "you've been quiet since yesterday. Please, let's talk."
She didn't turn. "There's nothing to talk about."
"Yes, there is. You deserve the truth."
She scoffed. "You think I want to hear more lies?"
He sighed, then moved closer, his voice steady but weighed down. "You've every right to be angry. I should've told you. But please — let me explain why this happened."
She finally looked at him, eyes sharp. "Why would my mum send a stranger to watch me like I'm some spoilt child?"
Chidera shook his head. "Not to watch you. To protect you."
Her laugh was bitter. "Protect me? From what, mosquitoes and broken toilets?"
He smiled faintly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "From yourself."
They walked slowly toward the old mango tree near the edge of the school compound. The sky above was cloudy — heavy, almost symbolic.
Chidera leaned against the tree, folding his arms. "Your mother told me about you before you even left Lagos. She said you were brilliant, strong… but too comfortable. Too afraid of struggle. She wanted you to learn the kind of strength that comfort never gives."
Olivia's voice was small now. "So she decided to punish me?"
"No. To prepare you."
He took a deep breath and continued. "I wasn't supposed to tell you, but I'm not really a corper. My father's a minister — of information, actually. I borrowed the uniform from my cousin to blend in. I wanted to stay close, make sure you didn't give up and redeploy back to Lagos in two days."
Her jaw tightened. "So it was all fake. All the fetching water, fixing the roof, pretending to be broke?"
He shook his head. "No, that was real. The experiences were real. I didn't fake the work. I lived it too. I wanted to understand what real service meant — and what life was like outside our comfortable world."
There was silence. The kind that stretches like a wound.
She sat down on a broken bench nearby, hands trembling slightly.
"Did she… tell you not to tell me?"
"Yes," he said quietly. "She believed you'd only take the lesson seriously if you thought it was random fate."
Olivia looked up, tears brimming. "So the wrong bus… wasn't wrong after all?"
He smiled faintly. "Oh, it was wrong. You really did enter the wrong one. That part was fate's idea, not your mother's."
Despite herself, Olivia laughed — a small, cracked laugh through tears.
"So… I messed up my posting and my life was a family project?"
"Maybe," he said, his tone soft, "but look at how far you've come."
Evening came, painting the sky in strokes of gold and ash. Olivia sat outside the lodge, watching children chase each other in the dust.
For the first time, she didn't see filth or poverty — she saw life.
People who laughed even when there was no light. Who gave even when they had little.
Chidera joined her, sitting a little distance away.
She didn't chase him off this time.
"Are you still angry?" he asked.
She thought for a while. "I don't know. Maybe I should be. But I'm… tired of being angry."
He nodded. "That's a start."
She looked at him then, really looked — not at the fake corper uniform, not at the borrowed name, but at the man who'd been there when she fell, who patched the roof in the rain, who fetched water when she couldn't.
"Do you ever regret it?" she asked softly.
"Coming here?"
"No. Lying."
He hesitated. "Every day. But if I hadn't, we wouldn't have met."
Her lips curved into the faintest smile. "That's a dangerous thing to say."
"I'm a dangerous person to meet," he replied with a teasing grin.
And just like that, the tension eased — not gone, but softening, like rain melting dust after a storm.
For the first time, Olivia felt something she hadn't in months — peace.