CHAPTER THREE: CRACKS AND PROMISES
1424 Words
The rains came suddenly one Monday afternoon, sheets of water slamming against the rusted roofs of Ashaiman and flooding the pothole-riddled roads in minutes.
Kwame had been on his way to campus after dropping Kojo at the clinic for a persistent cough.
He had spent the last of his money on cough syrup and porridge, barely enough to feed two, but he lied and told Kojo he had already eaten.
The trotro was leaking. Drops of water fell from the roof onto his bag.
He sighed, shielding his laptop with his arms.
It wasn’t the rain that made him uncomfortable.
It was the silence of his heart, the war of right and wrong, grinding louder than thunder.
When he alighted, he stood beneath a lean wooden structure of a chop bar, arms crossed as he watched the water cascade down the gutters like miniature waterfalls. His phone buzzed, but he didn’t check it.
He knew who it was.
The downpour slowed to a drizzle. Kwame adjusted the strap of his backpack, sighed, and stepped back onto the road
When he got to campus, the lecture had already begun. He slipped in quietly and took the empty seat beside her.
Ama.
She turned, surprised.
Her face was pale, and her eyes heavier than usual.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low.
She didn’t answer immediately. Then she shook her head. “Nightmares.
And a call from my uncle. He wants money. Again.”
Kwame nodded. He knew that story all too well.
“We’ll talk after class,” he said.
Later, they sat in the small garden behind the Faculty of Arts building. Rainwater still glistened on the flowers.
Ama stared at the ground, twisting her fingers in her lap.
Even soaked from the rain, she looked like something out of a different world fragile, quiet, almost unreal.
Kwame approached cautiously as if any sudden movement would make her disappear
“Are you feeling cold?” he asked softly looking moving towards her.
“You look soaked, you shouldn’t have to come”
“I wanted to,” he replied.
“Besides, I was already soaked, and I might as well see the only person who makes me feel dry.”
She gave a ghost of a smile. “You flirt like someone who’s hiding pain.”
She looked up, her eyes wet, not from the rain.
“I need to tell you something. But you might leave.”
He grew serious. “Try me.”
Ama exhaled shakily.
Her hands trembled as she gripped the ends of her scarf
“I didn’t grow up with my parents,” she said suddenly.
“My father... he drank. He hit my mother until she left.
Then he turned on me.
My aunt took me in. But... I’ve never felt safe. Not really.”
At my Auntie’s place, “My body was mine to keep but someone else was using it without my consent and against my will,
I was six the first time it happened.
My uncle used to call it ‘games.’ My aunt said it was my fault when I told her. So I stopped talking. Completely. For two years.”
Kwame’s stomach twisted. The world around him dimmed.
He wanted to scream, to punch something, to take her pain and crush it beneath his fists.
But he only listened. He didn’t interrupt.
“It continued until I was thirteen. When he died in a car accident, I didn’t cry. Everyone said I was heartless. But how do you mourn a monster?”
She wasn’t crying. Her face was stone. But her voice cracked like thin glass.
Kwame reached out, gently placing a hand over hers. “I won’t say sorry. That word is too small. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ama flinched at first, then stilled. “I don’t like to be touched.”
He pulled his hand back instantly. “Noted. No touching. Just talking. Or silence. Whatever you need.”
“I don’t know how to be around people. I keep waiting for them to leave. Or hurt me.”
“I won’t do either,” he said.
She looked at him then. Deeply. As though she was measuring his words, weighing their truth.
“Why are you kind to me?”
“Because I know what it means to be broken. And I know what it means to feel unworthy of being loved.”
She looked at him, tears forming. “You say that now. But what if I’m too broken?” Kwame smiled gently. “I’m not whole either, Ama. Maybe we can be broken together.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t seem broken. You smile too much.”
Kwame grinned. “That’s the trick. I cry in the shower so no one sees.”
Ama giggled softly, and the sound felt like a melody breaking through static. “You’re ridiculous,” she whispered.
“You’re beautiful,” he said without thinking.
She blinked.
He shrugged. “What? I’m allowed to admire God’s creation.”
Ama flushed. It started at her ears and bloomed down her neck.
“You should stop. I’m not used to compliments.”
“Then I’ll give you one every day until you believe it.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling.
Later that evening, back at home, Ma Abena was kneeling on a prayer mat with the radio turned high, her way of drowning out of the world. The scent of anointing oil filled the room. Kwame quietly placed the GH¢20 change from the clinic under her Bible. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Afia was washing clothes outside, her hands raw and red from scrubbing. Esi was crying over a broken sandal.
Kwame fixed it with thread and a matchstick.
“Thank you,” she sniffled.
“We’ll get you new ones soon. I promise.”
He made many promises. Some he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep.
Ama messaged.
Still thinking about our talk. Thank you for not looking at me like I’m damaged.
He replied quickly.
You’re not damaged. You’re rare. Like moonlight in a blackout.
She replied with a heart emoji. It was simple. But it meant more than words Can I see you tomorrow?
She replied almost instantly “Yes please”
The next day, they skipped lectures together. It was Kwame’s idea, but Ama didn’t need convincing They met in the library garden again, and this time, Ama brought a small book of poems.
“I write sometimes,” she said, handing it to him.
He flipped through it gently. The handwriting was delicate, each word deliberate.
I am not the storm,
But the child who learned to stand still in it.
I am not the moonlight,
But the girl who hoped the moon wouldn’t leave.
Kwame looked up. “These are beautiful. You are beautiful.”
She blushed, looking down. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“I mean every word.”
Ama sat on the teacher’s desk, swinging her legs. “This feels like high school rebellion.”
Kwame leaned against the chalkboard. “What’s next? Should we write our names on the walls? KWAME + AMA = Trouble?”
She giggled. Then caught his gaze.
There was a beat. A pulse.
Inside that dusty classroom, a girl who had only known pain and a boy drowning in his own guilt found something like grace as they watched in each other’s eyes as though the world was on a standstill, time seems to have frozen around as they gazed.
A c***k in their darkness
“Have you ever kissed someone and regretted it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it didn’t mean anything. And I wanted it to.”
Ama’s smile faded. “I’ve never kissed anyone. Not really. Not because I wanted to. Only because I had to. Or because they didn’t ask.”
Kwame walked closer but stopped a few feet away. “Then let’s make a deal. If I ever kiss you, it will be only because you want me to. Not because I need it. Not because you feel you owe me.”
She nodded. “Deal.”
There was silence.
Then, softly, she whispered, “If I asked you to, now... would you?” Kwame’s breath caught. “Ama...”
Even on a moon that never felt solid beneath his feet. A request is made, called to a dance.
- Writer
