“Then what is it?”
He looked at her. “It is another debt.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “A debt? I didn’t do it so you could owe me.”
“I will owe you anyway.”
“Why do you always make everything so hard?”
Chidi laughed bitterly. “Because my life is hard.”
That shut her up.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Chidi said quietly, “You don’t understand how this feels.”
“Then help me understand.”
He swallowed. The words were difficult, but once they started coming, he could not stop them.
“You step in like it’s nothing. One call, one payment, one decision. For you, it is small. For me, it is not small at all. It is my grandfather. It is my responsibility. He is all I have left.”
His voice roughened.
“My parents are gone. It is just me and my grandfather. When you do something like this, it feels like you are standing where I should be standing.”
Imani looked at him with hurt in her eyes. “I was trying to help.”
“I know.”
“Why do you still sound angry with me if you know I was trying to help?”
“It is because I am grateful. And I hate that I’m grateful.”
That was the truth of it. It sat heavily between them.
Imani slowly let out a breath. “I didn’t help to control you. I couldn’t sleep knowing you were carrying it all alone, especially with your grandfather in the hospital. I don’t know how to watch someone I care about suffer and do nothing.”
Chidi said nothing for a long time. His pride was bruised, his chest was tight with shame, but behind all of it something else was growing too. He could see that she meant every word.
From that day, things between them changed. Not suddenly, not in one dramatic moment, but slowly.
Imani began visiting Pa Josiah at the hospital from time to time. She brought fruit sometimes. She greeted the nurses with respect. She spoke to the old man in that same gentle voice that kept surprising Chidi.
And Pa Josiah liked her very much.
One afternoon, after Imani had left, the old man turned to Chidi with a weak smile.
“She is not proud the way people say.”
Chidi adjusted the bed sheet. “People like to talk.”
Pa Josiah nodded. “That one cares for you.”
Chidi said nothing, but his ears grew warm.
When Pa Josiah became stronger and was finally discharged, Chidi felt as if he could breathe again.
A few days later, he met Imani after class. She was waiting near the same corridor where she had first stopped him weeks ago. This time, when she saw him, she smiled but did not tease.
“How is your grandfather?”
“He is better, thank you. He even asked about you this morning.”
Imani’s face lit up. “Really?”
He nodded. Then after a pause, he added, “He likes you.”
Imani placed a hand over her chest dramatically. “That is because he has good sense.”
For the first time in days, Chidi laughed. A real laugh. It was brief, but it changed her face at once.
“There,” she said softly. “That is better.”
He looked at her, and for once he did not try to look away too quickly.
“Thank you,” he said.
Imani’s smile faded into something softer. “For what?”
“For helping me.”
She shook her head. “You do not need to keep thanking me.”
“I do.”
She studied him. “So what happens now?”
He knew what she meant. He could have stepped back again. He could have returned to caution and distance. But he was tired of lying to himself. He liked her. More than that, he had started depending on her presence in ways that scared him. And now that he had seen how real her care could be, it became harder to keep pretending she was just a rich girl playing games.
So he said the thing she had waited weeks to hear.
“Maybe I should stop running.”
Imani went completely still. Then she smiled, and it was not the bright, playful smile she used when teasing him. This one was quieter, happier.
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
That was how it began.
They did not make any public announcement. They simply started belonging to each other.
At first, it was beautiful. Imani was happy in a way everybody could see. She glowed. She laughed more. Even Adeobi, who had warned her from the beginning, could not hide her relief.
“I didn’t think the boy would finally agree.”
Leave a Comment