Growing Pains

Chapter 5 Growying in pain

---

*Growing in Pain*

*Chapter 5: The Weight of Silence* _∼3,000 words_

The rain hadn’t stopped since Tuesday.

It fell on Ibadan like it had something to prove. Not a gentle rain. Not the kind that made children run outside with plastic buckets. This was the stubborn kind. The kind that drummed on zinc roofs until your thoughts started matching its rhythm. _Tap. Tap. Tap._ Like a finger reminding you: _you’re still here. You’re still hurting._

Sade counted the taps.

One for every lie she’d told this week.

Two for every time she said “I’m fine” and didn’t mean it.

Three for every night she slept with the lights on because the dark felt too much like the inside of her head.

NEPA took light at exactly 6:04pm. She knew because the fan above her head gave one last tired spin and died, and the room immediately got smaller. Hotter. Louder.

Next door, Alhaja’s generator coughed, sputtered, then roared to life. _Grrraaa._ The same sound her chest made every morning she woke up and remembered she still had to live this life.

Her phone was face-down on the mattress.

She didn’t need to flip it to see the message. She’d memorized it by accident.

_“We need to talk. I messed up. Can we meet at Bodija tomorrow? 3pm. Please.”_

Sent by: *Dele*

Tuesday. 11:47pm.

Three days ago.

72 hours.

4,320 minutes of her thumb hovering over that notification and never pressing it.

Mama’s voice cut through the wall, thin and tired. “Sade! Food don dey table. Come eat before e cold.”

“Coming,” Sade called back. It was a lie. The second one today.

The truth was the rice would taste like cardboard. The stew would taste like nothing. Everything had tasted like nothing for weeks now. She moved through the house like a ghost haunting her own life — brushing teeth, going to work at the boutique, smiling at customers, coming home, closing the door.

Growing up was supposed to look like something else.

It was supposed to look like graduation pictures with white and white. Like NYSC khaki. Like a job with an ID card and a salary that came on the 25th. Like buying Mama a fridge and finally fixing the leaking roof.

Nobody told her it would look like this.

Sitting on the edge of a bed in a room that smelled like damp clothes and old dreams. Counting heartbreaks like rosary beads. Wondering if pain was the price of becoming a person.

Her phone buzzed. Not the message from Dele. A different vibration. Short. Familiar.

She flipped it over.

*Tobi*

_“You still haven’t replied him. You can’t keep running, Sade.”_

Tobi. Best friend since JSS2. The only person who knew about the nights Sade cried in the bathroom with the tap running so Mama wouldn’t hear. The only person who showed up with Gala and Coke when Sade’s ex posted their pictures with a new girl.

Sade stared at the text until the screen went dark. Then she typed.

_“I’m tired of being the strong one, Tobi.”_

Send.

The three dots appeared immediately.

_“Then stop. Let it hurt. That’s how you grow. Pain is just proof you’re still alive. You don’t have to be strong for me. You just have to be real.”_

Real.

What did that even mean anymore?

Outside, lightning split the sky open. For one bright, violent second, her room was white. She saw herself in that flash — all of her at once.

Sade at 17, in her WAEC uniform, promising herself she would never beg a man for love.

Sade at 20, in UNIBADAN hostel, deleting Dele’s number for the first time and redownloading it at 2am.

Sade at 24, right now, with tired eyes and a phone full of unsent messages.

The light died. The dark came back, heavier.

She thought about Bodija. The market. The noise. The junction where danfos fought for space and boys sold pure water in black buckets. 3pm. He chose 3pm because he knew she closed early on Saturdays. He chose Bodija because it was public. Because he knew she wouldn’t make a scene.

He was right. She wouldn’t.

But she also wasn’t the same girl who used to run back every time he said “please.”

Another buzz.

*Tobi*: _“You don’t owe him a reply. But you owe yourself peace. Whatever that looks like.”_

Sade stood up. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. She walked to the small mirror nailed to the wall. The girl looking back had puffy eyes and a wrapper tied crookedly. Her hair was in a low bun. She looked 24 and 40 at the same time.

“Okay,” she whispered to the mirror. “Okay.”

She didn’t know what she was agreeing to yet.

Downstairs, Mama had dished the rice. Two pieces of chicken. Stew that had cooled and formed a skin on top.

“Sit,” Mama said, not looking up from her own plate. “You’ve been in that room since you came back.”

Sade sat. The chair creaked.

They ate in silence for a while. The only sound was rain and the generator and spoons on plates.

“You and that boy,” Mama said finally. “Dele.”

Sade’s spoon stopped halfway to her mouth.

Mama never said his name.

“I’m not stupid,” Mama continued. She still didn’t look up. “I see you. I see you not sleeping. I see you checking your phone like it will bite you.”

“Mama—”

“Eat your food first.”

So Sade ate. Cold rice. Tough chicken. It didn’t taste like cardboard. It tasted like salt and memory.

When they were done, Mama stood and took both plates. At the sink, she said, “When I was your age, a man broke my heart too. Your father’s brother. I thought I would die. But I didn’t. I grew. It hurt like hell, but I grew.”

She turned, hands wet. “Whatever you decide tomorrow, decide it for you. Not for him. Not for me. For you.”

Sade nodded. Her throat was tight.

Back in her room, the rain was lighter now. A drizzle. The generator had gone off. NEPA hadn’t returned.

She picked up the phone again. Opened Dele’s message. Read it a fourth time.

_“I messed up.”_

Yeah. He did. Three months ago. With her coworker at the boutique. With the girl who wore red lipstick and called customers “babe.”

Sade had found the texts by accident. A notification while she was charging his phone.

She didn’t shout. She didn’t cry in front of him. She packed his hoodie and left it at his gate at 5am.

And he hadn’t reached out until now.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.

What could she even say?

_“No.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Why now.”_

_“I hate you.”_

_“I miss you.”_

All true. None of them enough.

She typed: _“I’ll think about it.”_

Deleted it.

Typed: _“Don’t wait for me.”_

Deleted it.

Finally, she locked the phone and put it down. She didn’t reply.

Instead, she opened her note app. A blank page.

And she started writing. Not to him. To herself.

_“Dear Sade,

Today you chose not to answer.

Today you ate food even though you weren’t hungry.

Today you listened to Mama.

Today you remembered that you survived before him and you will survive after him.

Growing hurts. But not growing hurts more.”_

She wrote until her fingers cramped. She wrote about the boutique and the customers who haggled and the boss who paid late. She wrote about Tobi and Gala and 2am talks. She wrote about the rain.

At 1:17am, she stopped. Her eyes were dry. That was new.

She lay down. The ceiling was dark. No fan. Just the sound of rain slowing down.

She thought about 3pm tomorrow at Bodija. She thought about not going. She thought about going and saying nothing. She thought about going and saying everything.

For the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel like she was drowning.

She felt like she was swimming. Tired. But moving.

Pain was still there. Sitting in the corner of the room like a guest who wouldn’t leave.

But it wasn’t driving anymore. She was.

Before sleep, one last thought: _If growing hurts this much, then maybe I’m finally growing._

---

The next morning, the sun came out like it was trying to apologize.

Sade ironed a yellow dress. She hadn’t worn yellow in months.

She put on earrings. Small gold ones.

She didn’t check her phone until she was already on the bus.

No new messages from Dele.

One from Tobi: _“Whatever you do, I’m proud of you.”_

The bus dropped her at Bodija at 2:53pm.

The market was loud. Sweat and pepper and exhaust.

She stood under the big tree near the junction. 3pm came and went.

3:07.

3:15.

He didn’t come.

She waited until 3:30. Then she laughed. One short, surprised sound.

Of course.

She bought pure water. Drank it. Turned around.

And walked home.

Not running. Not crying.

Walking.

The weight of silence was still there.

But now, it felt like her weight to carry. Not his.

---

*End of Chapter 5*

---