She would smile that same hollow smile and everyone would call it the happiest day of her life.
And I would be here.
Watching through a screen.
Reduced to a stranger.
A fucking spectator to the demolition of the only thing that had ever made me want forever.
I set my phone down on the bench and pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
I wasn’t going to pretend I hadn’t always known this would end.
From the moment I had first kissed her, from the first time she had looked at me with so much passion, I had known we were temporary.
After all, she had been honest about her engagement, about her family’s demands, about the life waiting for her back home.
But somewhere between watching her laugh at my terrible jokes, feeling her relax into my touch, and hearing her whisper my name in the darkness when I was inside her, the world outside had ceased to exist.
And I had started to hope.
I had started to let myself believe that what we had might be worth fighting for.
That maybe, just maybe, love would be stronger than duty.
That she would choose what we had over the safe path her family had paved out for her.
I had let myself imagine a future where she stayed. Where we built something real together. A future where I got to keep her.
But hope, it turned out, was just another word for delusion.
The photo was still glowing on my phone screen when I picked it up again. I stared at her face, searching for any trace of the woman I had come to know. The woman who’d made me Nigerian turkey stew or jollof and fried plantains on lazy Sunday afternoons. Who teased me for the way I sang in the shower, even though I sounded like a dying cat.
But all I could see was resignation.
The same expression she wore when she talked about not disappointing the people who mattered. About being the daughter they needed her to be.
The same distant look she’d get when she stared out my apartment window as if she were calculating the distance between where she was and where she was supposed to be.
Apparently, I wasn’t one of those people.
The ones who mattered.
Two weeks ago, after our messy argument, Atlas had stood in my doorway, her fist raised to continue the assault on my door that had been going on for what felt like hours.
I had heard her knocking. I had listened to her voice calling my name through the door. But moving felt impossible.
Everything felt impossible.
When I finally dragged myself off the couch to answer, she took one look at me and her expression shifted from irritation to alarm.
“I’ve been calling you for four days,” she said, pushing past me into the apartment without waiting for an invitation. “You always pick up my calls, Marley. Always.”
I watched her take in the scene with the detached observation of someone watching a car accident: dishes piled in the sink like a monument to my inability to function, curtains drawn tight against a world I couldn’t bear to look at, empty tissue boxes scattered across the coffee table.
The air felt stale, matching the weight in my chest that had been growing since Kelechi had walked out of my life and taken all the oxygen with her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, but her voice was gentle now.
