Nairobi evenings had changed.
Or perhaps she had.
The city no longer overwhelmed her the way it once had — the noise, the glass towers, the endless movement of people who seemed to belong without effort. After London, Nairobi felt warmer, looser, more human in its chaos.
And yet tonight, standing beneath the awning of the private hospital wing, Naliaka felt sixteen again.
Out of place. Watching. Unsure where to stand.
She had not intended to see him.
Her shift had ended late. The sky was already deepening towards indigo, the last gold light caught in the edges of buildings across the road. She stepped outside, grateful for air that did not smell of antiseptic, and paused to stretch the stiffness from her shoulders.
That was when the car arrived.
It slid to the kerb with quiet precision — long, black, gleaming beneath streetlamps. Not ostentatious, but unmistakably expensive. The kind of vehicle that moved differently from ordinary traffic, as if granted invisible right of way.
Naliaka barely noticed at first.
Then the rear door opened.
Daniel stepped out.
For a moment her mind rejected the image.
He belonged so seamlessly to the scene — the car, the driver stepping back, the effortless assumption of arrival — that her memory fractured again. The boy who had walked beside her on dusty roadside paths did not emerge from vehicles like this.
He closed the door with a small nod to the driver. His suit jacket was gone now, sleeves rolled once at the forearm. Evening shadow softened the lines of his face, but composure remained — that same contained stillness she had seen in the corridor.
He looked tired.
The sight struck her unexpectedly: the faint drag at the corners of his mouth, the heaviness in his eyes. Not the open hurt of youth — something older, borne longer.
He turned towards the entrance.
And saw her.
Recognition flashed — brief, unavoidable — followed instantly by restraint. He did not startle. Did not hesitate. Only altered direction slightly, angling towards her with polite inevitability, as one acknowledges someone known but not intimate.
Her pulse began to climb.
"Dr Naliaka," he said when he reached her.
The title again. Always the title.
"Daniel," she said.
The driver remained by the car, waiting. The engine hummed softly, expensive patience.
Her gaze flicked once towards it before she could stop herself.
He noticed.
"This is for my mother," he said evenly, following her glance. "Transport has been… difficult."
Explanation offered before question. Distance wrapped in courtesy.
"Of course," she said quickly. "I didn't mean—"
"I know," he said.
Silence slipped between them again, thinner now, edged with awareness. Night air carried the scent of rain and jacaranda from somewhere beyond the parking lights.
Up close, she noticed details she had missed before: the watch at his wrist — understated, costly; the clean precision of his shirt; the quiet assurance in the way he occupied space. Nothing ostentatious. Everything expensive.
Understanding began, slow and disorienting.
"You've done well," she said before she could shape the thought.
His mouth curved faintly — not quite humour.
"My family has," he said.
The distinction landed.
Something in her chest shifted again.
"I never… knew," she said softly.
His gaze rested on her a moment longer than usual. There was no surprise in it.
"No," he said. "You didn't."
Not accusation. Not quite.
Fact.
Memory rearranged itself violently in her mind: the way he had always deflected questions about home; the way he walked instead of taking rides; the absence of visits; the careful neutrality around money. All the blank spaces she had never pressed.
All the years she had believed them equal in circumstance.
"I'm sorry," she said, though she wasn't certain for what.
"For what?" he asked gently.
Everything, she almost said.
For not seeing you.
For not knowing you.
For leaving you.
Instead: "I should have known more about your life."
He held her eyes.
"You knew what I chose to show," he said.
The words were calm. But beneath them lay something deeper: I showed you only what was safe to give.
Rain began lightly — a scatter of drops ticking against pavement, against the car's polished surface.
Neither moved to leave.
She became aware of how close they stood — not touching, but within the radius that once had meant familiarity. Now it carried tension instead, a charged awareness of bodies that remembered proximity differently than minds allowed.
"Are you happy?" she asked suddenly.
The question slipped out unguarded.
For the first time since she had seen him again, something in his composure faltered — not visibly, but in the pause that followed. His eyes shifted away briefly towards the rain-dimmed lights of the road.
"Yes," he said at last.
The word was perfect.
It was also untrue.
She knew him well enough — still — to hear the absence inside it.
"Good," she said, and hated how small it sounded.
He inclined his head, accepting the statement as closure.
"I should go in," he said. "My mother will be waiting."
Of course she would. Someone always waited for him now — family, responsibility, a world she had never shared.
"Daniel," she said.
He stopped.
Turned.
Rain dotted his shoulders, darkening the fabric.
"I'm glad you're here," she said quietly. "For her."
It was safer than the truth: I'm glad you're here at all.
His gaze rested on her face — searching, measuring — as if weighing sincerity against history.
"Thank you," he said.
Then he turned and walked towards the hospital doors, leaving her beneath the awning with the soft rain and the fading warmth of his presence.
Only when he disappeared inside did the realisation settle fully, heavy and irreversible:
She had never known the life he lived.
And whatever had grown between them years ago — fragile, equal, shared — had always existed in only half his world.
Now she stood outside the other half, looking in.