The Lagos sun was rude that day, pressing its full weight on the city as if determined to prove a point. Charles was already running late for a meeting, tie slightly crooked, phone buzzing nonstop. Chizoba, meanwhile, was leaving a noisy seminar, clutching her tote bag, balancing notes and a half-empty cup of coffee.
Their worlds collided outside a café in Victoria Island. Literally.
The coffee didn’t survive.
“Ah! My shirt!” Charles exclaimed, looking at the dark stain spreading like a crime scene.
Chizoba’s face was mortified, but her voice was steady. “Well, maybe if you watched where you were going instead of typing like your life depended on it…”
Charles stopped mid-grumble, amused by her audacity. “Wow. So it’s my fault I was standing here existing?”
She smirked. “Exactly.”
They both laughed. And somehow, that spilled coffee became the first chapter of something neither of them planned.
A Love That Felt Easy
It started innocently, text messages to confirm coffee replacements, which turned into long chats about books, dreams, and silly arguments about who really made the best plantain and jollof. (Spoiler: Chizoba claimed victory, but Charles maintained a stubborn silence on the matter.)
Soon, late-night calls were normal. They swapped playlists, traded prayer points, and laughed at their own silly jokes.
And just like that, that laughter carried them into the weeks that followed.
The Sweetness of Ordinary
They were not the typical dramatic love story, no violins, no fireworks. Their love was built on small things:
Voice notes that started with “Just checking on you.”
Late-night drives filled with dreams of travel and children with mismatched dimples.
She was steady; he was spontaneous. She planned; he surprised. They were, in every sense, good for each other, or so it seemed.
By the time Damilola, Charles’s childhood friend, met Chizoba, he raised his brow and said, “So this is the one making you smile like Wi-Fi finally came back to your area.”
Charles didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
The Sweetness of Building
They weren’t perfect, but they were good together.
Charles, the careful planner, steadied Chizoba’s impulsive heart.
Chizoba, full of warmth and quiet courage, reminded Charles to breathe and dream.
Damilola cheered them on, half-teasing, half-serious: “Finally, my guy will settle down.”
Weekends meant exploring the city: bookstores, small concerts, roadside suya stands. Sundays meant church, where they’d sit side by side, sometimes not hearing the sermon because they were both too caught up just being near each other.
They planned. They prayed. They were, by all appearances, headed somewhere.
But love, no matter how sweet, has weight.
By year two, the cracks came cracking. Charles had his eyes set on business school abroad. Chizoba longed for roots, a home, marriage, stability. Their conversations began to tilt, slightly at first, then heavily:
“When exactly do you plan to settle down?” she asked one evening, her voice light but laced with hope.
“When the time is right,” Charles replied, distracted, a little too casually.
The tension wasn’t loud, but it was persistent. What she saw as ready, he saw as rushed. What he called preparation, she called delay.
Damilola noticed. One day, he said quietly to Charles, “She’s good for you. Don’t lose sight.”
Charles smiled, but his eyes betrayed a storm.
———————————————–
It happened quietly, like an evening rain that no one saw coming.
They met at the same café where they’d first collided. Chizoba’s hair was tied back; Charles wore that familiar tie, though this time it felt more like armor than fashion.
“I love you,” he said gently, “but I can’t give you what you want right now.”
It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t betrayal. It was heartbreak dressed as honesty.
Chizoba swallowed hard, nodded slowly. “I can’t wait forever, Charles. I deserve a yes, not a maybe.”
And with that, they parted. No big scene. Just two hearts heavy, walking away from what might have been.
When the Lights Go Out
Heartbreak is a strange house, you walk in and nothing feels familiar.
For weeks, Chizoba’s favorite things lost their color. Coffee tasted bitter. Love songs were unbearable. And prayers? They came with tears she didn’t expect.
Charles drowned himself in work, traveling, building, pretending the ache wasn’t there. Damilola stayed close but said little, sometimes just sitting in silence as his friend stared at a blank screen.
But pain, if allowed, teaches.
———————————-
Healing came slowly, through little things:
Chizoba joined a book club and discovered laughter with strangers.
Charles took long walks by the marina, journal in hand, finally admitting to himself that fear, not readiness, had kept him from choosing her.
Damilola? He prayed for them both and cracked jokes when the room got too heavy.
Months turned to a year. The sharpness of the break softened into something else: perspective.
The Redemption
One afternoon, at a quiet bookstore, Chizoba was scanning titles when she heard a familiar laugh. She turned, and there was Charles. No tie, no rush, just him.
They froze, then smiled.
“You look happy,” he said, genuinely.
“I am,” she replied, and meant it.
“You?”
“Better than I was,” he admitted.
They stood for a moment, two people who once shared dreams, now sharing peace. There was no spark, no regret, just gratitude.
Later, Chizoba would write in her journal:
Some loves are for building,
Some are for learning,
And some are for letting go.
The heartbreak didn’t ruin me;
It revealed me.
And maybe that’s love too.
Selah Moments
Love is beautiful, but it is not always forever. Sometimes, it is a teacher. Sometimes, it’s a mirror showing us what we fear, what we need, or what we’re capable of.
The heartbreak? It doesn’t define you.
The healing? It refines you.
And when it’s time, the right love, patient, bold, unafraid, will meet you where you are, whole and ready.