The offer came on Thursday.
Email at 2:17pm.
'Congratulations, we are pleased to offer you the position of Content Writer...'
₦120,000 monthly.
Resumption is in Two weeks.
I read it sitting on my bed.
Read it again, again.
Then closed my laptop.
Felt nothing.
I didn't tell anyone for two days, just carried it inside me like a secret, like something fragile that might break if I spoke it out loud.
Saturday morning, Kunle found the email, my laptop was open. He wasn't snooping, he just saw it.
"You got it," he said.
"Yeah."
"When do you start?"
"Two weeks."
He nodded, didn't smile, didn't congratulate me.
"You telling your mom?"
"Eventually."
"Zainab?"
"What's the point?"
"The point is she deserves to know, from you not from campus gossip."
"We're not together—"
"I know what you're not, I'm telling you what you should be, decent."
He left for class.
I sat there.
Knowing he was right.
Hating that he was right.
I ran into her Sunday evening.
Wasn't planned, never was with us anymore.
I was walking back from buying food, she was leaving the fellowship hall with some girls.
Our eyes met.
I could've kept walking, should've but I stopped.
"Can we talk?" I asked.
The girls looked at her, she nodded at them.
"I'll catch up."
They left.
We stood there.
Under the streetlight that only worked sometimes.
"I got the job," I said.
"I know."
"How?"
"Tunde told someone who told someone, you know how this place is."
"Yeah."
(Silenced.)
She looked tired, thinner than before.
"When do you leave?" she asked.
"Two weeks."
"That's soon."
"Yeah."
A bike passed, music blaring, someone shouted something at the driver.
"Are we going to talk about it?" she asked.
"About what?"
"About how this ends, about what we say, what we don't say."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say you'll miss me, that leaving is hard, that I meant something, anything real."
I looked at her.
Really looked.
At the girl who'd let me into her small room. Who'd cooked for me, who'd laughed with me, who'd kissed me like it meant something.
The girl I'd pushed away because staying was too scary.
"You did mean something," I said.
"Past tense again."
"Zainab—"
"No, I get it, you're leaving. You're starting over, I'm just part of the life you're leaving behind."
"It's not like that—"
"Then what's it like? Explain it to me, coz from where I'm standing, it looks like you're erasing me, erasing us, like none of it mattered."
"It did matter, it just... it can't matter anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't take you with me."
The words came out harsher than I meant.
She stepped back, like I'd hit her.
"I never asked you to take me with you."
"I know—"
"I just asked you to be honest, to not disappear, to let me matter even if it's just for a moment."
"You do matter—"
"Then why does it feel like I'm begging for scraps of your attention? Why do I have to hear about your life from other people? Why am I always the last to know?"
I didn't have an answer.
She wiped her eyes, not crying, just angry.
"You know what hurts the most?" she said. "It's not that you're leaving, It's that you made it so easy, like I was just a distraction. Something to pass the time until something better came along."
"That's not true—"
"Isn't it? Because the moment things got hard—the moment I needed space, the moment I struggled—you gave up. You didn't fight, you just... let go."
"You pushed me away—"
"And you ran! You could've stayed, could've pushed back, could've fought for us, but you didn't coz it was easier to blame me than to fight."
"I was protecting myself—"
"From what? From love? From actually feeling something? From being vulnerable?"
"Yes!"
The word exploded out of me.
Louder than I intended.
People looked over.
I lowered my voice.
"Yes, I was protecting myself from feeling too much, from needing you too much, from becoming the kind of person who can't function without someone else. Because I've seen what that does to people, I've watched Tunde destroy himself over Amaka, I've watched my mother wait for a man who's never coming back, I've watched people give everything to love and end up with nothing. So yes, I protected myself, and I don't regret it."
She stared at me.
Eyes wide.
"Wow," she said quietly. "You really believe that."
"Believe what?"
"That love is a weakness, that needing someone makes you less, that being alone is safer than being together!?."
"It is safer—"
"It's lonelier, there's a difference."
"At least lonely doesn't hurt like this."
"You're already hurting, you're just too proud to admit it."
I shook my head. "I'm fine."
"You're not, you're breaking, I can see it, everyone can see it. You're becoming someone you're not coz you're too scared to be who you are."
"And who am I?"
"Someone who cares, someone who feels deeply, someone who's terrified that if they let themselves love, they'll lose everything."
I wanted to argue.
Wanted to tell her she was wrong.
But the words wouldn't come.
Because she wasn't wrong.
She was right.
And that made it worse.
"I have to go," I said.
"Of course you do, that's what you're good at now. Leaving."
"Zainab—"
"No, you want to leave? Leave. You want to start over? Start over. You want to pretend none of this happened? Fine, but don't expect me to make it easy for you, don't expect me to smile and wish you well and act like my heart isn't breaking."
Her voice cracked.
"I loved you," she said. "I know we never said it, I know we were never official, but I loved you, and you loved me too, you're just too scared to admit it."
I couldn't speak.
Couldn't move.
She stepped closer, close enough that I could see the tears she was fighting.
"Say it," she whispered. "Just once, say you loved m, say it mattered, say something real before you disappear forever."
I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
But the words were stuck, trapped behind walls I'd built too high... protected by pride too thick to break.
The silence stretched.
Seconds feeling like hours.
She waited.
I said nothing.
Something died in her eyes.
"Goodbye," she said.
She walked away.
I stood there.
Watching her go.
Wanting to call out.
Wanting to run after her.
Wanting to say everything I couldn't say.
But I didn't.
I just watched.
Until she disappeared into the dark.
I went back to the lodge.
Kunle was there, studying.
He looked up when I came in.
Saw my face.
"What happened?"
"I saw Zainab."
"And?"
"And I couldn't say it."
"Say what?"
"That I loved her, that she mattered, that leaving her is the hardest thing I've ever done."
"Why couldn't you say it?"
"Because saying it makes it real, and if it's real, then I'm walking away from something real and that makes me—"
"Human, It makes you human."
"It makes me a coward."
He put down his book.
"You want to know what makes you a coward? Not saying it, not giving her that, not letting her know that she wasn't wrong, that she did matter, that she wasn't just in your life—she changed it."
"What difference does it make now?"
"All the difference, coz what we don't say becomes permanent, It becomes the thing that haunts us, the thing we regret."
"I can't—"
"You can, you're just choosing not to."
He was right.
I knew he was right.
But knowing didn't make it easier.
That night, I wrote her a message.
Long one.
Everything I couldn't say to her face.
"I did love you, I do love you. I'm just too broken to know what to do with it. You weren't a distraction, you were the realest thing in my life, and that terrified me, coz real things can hurt you, real things can break you, and I've been broken enough, I'm sorry I couldn't fight, I'm sorry I ran, I'm sorry I'm leaving, I'm sorry I can't be who you needed me to be, I'm sorry for all of it."
I read it five times.
Finger hovering over send.
Then deleted it.
Because Kunle was right.
'What we don't say becomes permanent.'
And maybe permanent was safer.
Maybe permanent protected us both.
Maybe silence was kinder than truth.
Monday morning, I started packing.
Didn't have much... clothes, laptop, books, memories I couldn't pack.
Tunde stopped by.
"So you're really doing it."
"Yeah."
"Good, this place will kill you if you let it."
"Feels like it already did."
"Nah, you're still breathing, that means you can still come back."
"From what?"
"From whoever you're becoming, It's not too late."
"Feels too late."
He looked around the room.
"You know what I regret most?" he asked.
"What?"
"Not telling Amaka I loved her when it mattered. I waited, thought I had time, thought once I fixed my life, I'd go back and say it properly, but life doesn't wait, and now she's married, and I'm here with all these words I never said."
He looked at me.
"Don't be me, If there's something you need to say, say it, before it's too late."
He left.
I sat on my bed.
Surrounded by packed bags and unsaid words.
Pulled out my phone.
Scrolled to Zainab's number.
Stared at it.
Typed:'I'm sorry.'
Deleted it.
Typed: 'I loved you.'
Deleted it.
Typed: 'You deserved better.'
Deleted it.
Finally typed nothing.
Coz 'What we don't say becomes permanent.'
And permanent was all I had left to give.
Wednesday, three days before I left, I saw her one last time.
She was at the library.
I was returning books.
We made eye contact.
She looked away first.
I wanted to go over.
Wanted to say something.
Anything.
But I didn't.
I returned my books and left.
That was it.
Our last moment.
Not dramatic.
Just two people in the same space, saying nothing.
Letting silence become permanent, and permanence became goodbye.