FINE BOY, FRAGILE HEART.

Chapter 2: Prayers for A Name

My alarm started beeping like it had a personal grudge against me. “Ugh—” I slapped the phone and rolled over. Monday morning. Freshers everywhere. The thought alone made my body tighten; university life was about to begin in full volume.

“Omo,” I whispered to myself, one eye open. “Today will be stressful.”

But even stress had competition — my mind kept drifting back to the boy with the cat eyes. Please let him be in my department, I prayed. Please let him be in my class. Please, please let me know his name.

I tried to be practical for a second: civil engineering is not for the weak, na. He fit just fine and no get brain like that, I teased myself. Still, my heart wanted the daring version where he was smart, funny and smirking at me across a long, dusty lecture hall.

My laughter woke lazy Opeyemi. She pushed the blanket off and stuck her face into the room like a small storm. “Heyyyy Wura, wetin carry you laugh like that? Only you dey inside room dey laugh?” Her voice had that morning-roughness that always made me smile.

“Ope, abeg, leave me joor,” I mumbled, pulling the pillow over my head. “Go and get ready. I no want to be late for this lecture today o. These lecturers are believers in punishment.”

She sat on the side of the bed and swung her legs. “Na only you dey think am like that. Who be the guy?” she asked, already knowing I’d say something.

I sat up, hair all clumped to one side, and told her everything: how he greeted, the way the sun hit his skin, the cat eyes that looked like they had secrets. I even admitted to the little daydream where we sat by the lagoon front twinning in matching sneakers.

Opeyemi snorted. “Wura please. You were the only one that saw him yesterday. I no look at am. So no dey build palace for air.”

“How do you know he no dey handsome if you no even see am?” I shot back, grinning.

She shrugged like a proud aunt. “Because you said so. You carry eye for fine things.”

We both laughed, but my laughter had a tremor inside it. I had started to believe, for the first time in a long time, that maybe chance could be kind.

I dressed, recited a whole list of affirmations under my breath — stupid, but effective. “I am beautiful. I am enough. I am intelligent. I will be great.” I said them like a prayer and like a dare. If nothing else, at least I would have my dignity polished.

We left the hostel together and the campus was already alive — girls in headwraps, boys in tees, vendors calling out for suya, bookshops with paperbacks and second-hand dreams. Students in groups clustered like migrating birds, all headed somewhere urgent and important.

Opeyemi walked ahead, arms swinging. She was the kind of cousin who could talk a lecturer into lowering a deadline and then make you think it was your idea. I shuffled to catch up, clutching my bag. My eyes scanned everything: the road, the steps, the faces. I was on full alert, like a detective on a one-person case.

We got to the faculty steps and I felt that little prickle again — the one that had started the day before. I told myself to breathe. Don’t be obvious. If he’s here, be subtle. If he isn’t, life goes on. But even as I told myself that, my feet moved closer to the lecture hall entrance like they were pulled by something unseen.

Class was half-full when we entered; a few clusters of freshers whispering, seniors moving like they owned the corridors. I found a seat near the middle — not too close to the front, not at the very back where lecturers assume you will sleep. Opeyemi dropped into the seat beside me and gave me that look: the one that meant she suspected I was scanning the room for a pretty face.

The lecturer started with greetings and a long, slow checklist of course requirements. I heard only snatches of the introduction — words like “stress analysis” and “coursework” floated by — because my head was busy constructing scenarios where Doyinmola sat somewhere across the hall. What would I even say if I met him? “Hi. I noticed you yesterday. My name is—” No. That sounded like the plot from a film.

And then my heart did that thing again. A shadow crossed the doorway — a tall frame moving with easy confidence. For a ridiculous second I thought it might be him. I turned, and my eyes found a boy standing at the back, waiting for a friend. He wasn’t the same boy — but his posture, the way he tilted his head as he scanned the room, pulled at something inside me. My breath snagged.

My mind raced. Maybe it was him and he just walked in late, I told myself. Maybe he sits at the back like a mysterious hero. Maybe he has a name like Doyinmola and it sounds like poetry when someone says it.

The stranger at the back laughed at something his friend said, and I saw his profile in that small movement. Not Doyinmola. Not even close. I felt both foolish and relieved at the same time.

Lecture droned on. The pages on my notebook stayed blank as my pen refused to cooperate. Around me people scribbled notes and typed on phones; my mind was busy with fantasies and what-ifs. Opeyemi nudged me once and mouthed, “Stop.”

After the lecture, I walked out with the crowd, pretending to be casual. I told myself I wouldn’t look for him again. I told myself that if he was meant to be a part of my life, the campus — small as it was — would make sure we met again.

At the faculty gate, as we waited for the traffic to slow, I caught sight of a familiar silhouette near the bakery stall — someone I had seen the day before, turning a sachet of water between his fingers. I couldn’t be sure: the light was wrong, and he was half-hidden behind a group of students. But my heart, traitor that it is, decided that this second glimpse was confirmation.

“See that boy?” I whispered to Opeyemi, but she was looking the other way, bargaining with a vendor for bread. I tugged at her sleeve. “Ope, that one. I think—”

She turned and gave me a long look. “You are grounded if you start chasing boys for bread today.”

I laughed, embarrassed and elated. The campus was full of chances, I realized. Ordinary days like this one could hold something extraordinary if I only let them.

So I prayed again — a soft, ridiculous classroom-prayer — for a name, for a chance, for the courage to say hi without making a fool of myself. And with that, Monday kept moving: lectures, notes, the smell of freshly-baked bread, and a heart that had started to believe in little miracles.