You took a momentary leave from work to cool things down.
Your health had deteriorated but you informed no one. You preferred to suffer alone and bear the pains which you caused yourself.
Weeks passed, but the silence did not soften.
You learned quickly that time did not heal everything—it only made the truth impossible to escape. Port Harcourt moved on with its noise and urgency, but inside you, everything remained paused at the moment Kemi walked out of your door.
You stopped expecting his calls.
At first, you still reached for your phone instinctively, especially at night, when loneliness settled heavily around you. But each time you remembered—remembered that some doors, once closed by betrayal, do not reopen easily.
Your parents called often.
"You sound tired," your mother said one evening.
"I'm fine," you replied automatically. "It's work stress." You didn't want them to know what you were passing through. You hadn't informed them about the recent development. You promised to do that once you're back on your feet.
"You always say that," your father added. "Come home this weekend."
You promised you would, knowing you probably wouldn't. Facing them meant facing yourself, and you were still gathering the courage to do that.
Sola did not come around anymore.
You both had become distanced although you still exchanged brief messages—polite, distant, careful. The warmth that once defined your friendship had been replaced with something fragile and uncertain.
One afternoon, unable to bear the quiet, you decided to step out. You walked slowly along the familiar streets, your arm now free from the sling, though still weak. Everywhere you went, memories followed—cafés you and Adams once laughed in, corners where you had texted Adams with shaking fingers, places that now felt like evidence.
At a small roadside restaurant, you ran into someone unexpected.
"Lauretta?"
You looked up to see Mrs. Bello, an older woman from the office who had always watched you with gentle eyes.
"You've been missed," the woman said warmly. "Are you well?"
You hesitated, then nodded. "I'm learning to be."
Mrs. Bello smiled knowingly. "Sometimes God breaks us quietly so we can hear ourselves again."
The words stayed with you long after you two parted.
That night, you sat at your desk and opened your journal—something you had abandoned years earlier. Your hand trembled as you wrote.
I betrayed trust.
I avoided truth.
I hurt people who loved me.
The words hurt, but they also felt honest.
For the first time, you didn't write excuses.
You wrote responsibility.
You acknowledged Adams—not as a temptation, but as a choice you had made. You acknowledged Sola—not just as a betrayer, but as someone who forced the truth into the open. And you acknowledged Kemi—not as someone you had lost unfairly, but as someone you had wronged deeply.
Tears fell onto the pages, blurring the ink.
But you kept writing.
Days later, you sent a message you had rehearsed countless times.
You: I don't expect forgiveness. I just want to acknowledge the pain I caused you. I'm truly sorry.
You sent it to Kemi.
You didn't wait for a reply.
For once, you were not seeking relief—only accountability.
As the weeks turned into months, you began rebuilding quietly. You resumed and focused on work. You returned to church, sitting at the back, listening more than you spoke. You started therapy, learning that self-awareness was not punishment, but preparation.
You learned to sit with discomfort without running from it.
One evening, as rain fell softly against your window, your phone buzzed.
It was a message from Kemi.
Kemi: I received your message. I'm still healing. I don't know what the future holds, but I appreciate your honesty.
You stared at the screen for a long time.
It wasn't forgiveness.
But it was not rejection either.
You placed the phone down gently and exhaled.
You stood by the window, watching the rain wash the streets below. For the first time in a long while, your chest didn't feel so tight. The guilt was still there—but it no longer owned you completely.
You understood now that redemption was not about undoing the past.
It was about choosing differently in the future.
And as the rain fell, quiet and steady, you made a promise—not to anyone else, but to yourself:
Never again would you trade truth for comfort.
Never again would you silence your conscience.
Because some lessons are too costly to forget.