LOVE FROM A DISTANCE

Chapter 6 — Unraveling Ties

Chapter 6 — Unraveling Ties

Isabella stared at the screen long after the call had ended, her reflection shimmering faintly on the glass of her laptop. Lamin’s smile lingered in her memory—steady, warm, unpretentious. It was a smile that pulled her out of the polished, hollow world she lived in. Yet, as the minutes passed, the sound of footsteps outside her door reminded her of the walls closing in.

Her mother’s voice floated through the hallway. “Isabella? Dinner with the Bensons tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

The Bensons. Her mother’s favorite allies in their carefully curated social circle. Isabella pressed her palms against her eyes, fighting the sting of frustration. How could she sit across from those judgmental eyes and pretend she wasn’t building a secret life of her own? How could she pretend Lamin didn’t exist?

In The Gambia, Lamin was facing his own unrest. He had just returned from the pepper farm, his hands still stained with soil, his muscles aching from the day’s labor. But his heart carried something heavier—the weight of a dream that felt both close and impossibly far. He scrolled through their old messages, reading her words again: “You see me in a way no one else does.”

But then doubt whispered: Do you really belong in her world?

He shoved the thought aside and sat down at his small desk. The power flickered twice before the bulb held steady. Lamin turned on his phone’s camera, waiting. He wanted to see her, hear her voice, remind himself this wasn’t a fantasy.

When the screen lit up and Isabella’s face appeared, something inside him steadied.

“Hey, you,” she said softly, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Her room glowed with warm light, shelves lined with books and photographs of a life Lamin had only glimpsed in pieces.

“Hey,” Lamin replied, his smile tugging at tired lips. “Long day?”

“The longest,” she sighed. “Meetings, expectations, smiles I didn’t mean. And tomorrow it’s dinner with my parents’ friends. More of the same.”

He leaned closer. “And what about you? What do you want?”

The question made her laugh, but it wasn’t joy—it was disbelief. “What I want doesn’t matter in my world. What matters is what looks good, what keeps the whispers quiet.” She paused, her eyes clouding. “Sometimes I feel like I’m suffocating, Lamin.”

His chest tightened. “Then let me be your air,” he said simply.

The words startled her into silence. She swallowed, staring at the screen as if she could step through it. “You always know how to say the one thing I need to hear.”

He shrugged. “Maybe because I say what I feel. No filters, no masks.”

“Then I wish I could live in your world,” Isabella whispered. “Because mine feels like a prison.”

Their connection wavered for a second, the screen freezing on her pained expression. Lamin clenched his jaw, willing the network to hold. When the image cleared, Isabella’s eyes were glassy.

“You ever feel like this won’t last?” she asked suddenly. “That one day reality will pull us apart?”

He hesitated. “Sometimes. But then I remember—we met against all odds. Maybe that means we’re stronger than the odds.”

Isabella bit her lip. “Lamin, if my family finds out… they won’t understand. They’ll say you’re after money, that you don’t belong with me. They’ll call me foolish.”

He took a deep breath. “And what do you call it?”

She smiled through her tears. “Love. That’s what I call it.”

Silence stretched between them, tender and fragile. Lamin wanted to reach through the screen and take her hand, but all he could do was hold her gaze.

Then, from Isabella’s side, voices rose—her mother calling her name again, her father’s deeper voice joining in. Isabella flinched.

“I have to go,” she whispered urgently. “I’ll message you later. Please… don’t stop believing in me.”

“Never,” Lamin said, his voice steady even as the call ended.

He sat in the dim room long after the screen went black. Outside, the night hummed with crickets and the rustle of wind in the palm trees. But Lamin’s thoughts were on her—on the invisible line that stretched across oceans, binding them even as the world threatened to cut it.

And though doubt prowled the edges of his mind, he whispered into the darkness, “She’s worth it. No matter the cost.”

The Benson dinner was a performance with a polished floor.

Crystal laughed under chandeliers, silver chimed, and conversation flowed like a river that never asked where it was going—only that it looked good getting there. Isabella wore a navy silk dress her mother approved of and a smile her own heart did not. The table was a still life of roses and restraint.

“So, Isabella,” Mrs. Benson said, tilting her head like a magazine cover, “I hear you’ve been… busy online.” The pause before online carried a bouquet of suggestions.

Isabella’s fork paused above her plate. “Work has gone digital for everyone,” she replied smoothly. “Boards, meetings, charity planning.”

Mrs. Benson’s eyes glittered. “Of course. And the… networking? I’m told you’ve broadened your circles.” She sipped. “Refreshing.”

Across the table, her mother’s hand tightened around a napkin. Her father, who preferred directness when the room wasn’t looking, switched topics with a politician’s grace. “We’re considering a new foundation initiative,” he said, and the conversation obediently obeyed.

But the word had been loosed. Networking. Circles. Online. Isabella felt it tracking her through the meal like a camera lens.

After dessert, in the powder room’s mirror, two of the younger Bensons adjusted their lipstick and forgot she could hear. “She’s glowing,” one whispered.

The other smirked. “A man, obviously. Question is—which continent?”

“Don’t be cruel.”

“I’m not. I’m curious. Imagine the headlines if she elopes to Zanzibar for a beach wedding.”

“Or Banjul,” the first giggled. “Exotic.”

Isabella stepped out of the stall as if she hadn’t heard. “Your mascara’s smudged,” she said kindly, and left them blinking at their reflections.

The car ride home was a quiet war. Her mother stared at the passing dark. “People ask questions when they care,” she said finally. “That’s not malice.”

“Sometimes questions are knives with sugar on them,” Isabella replied.

Her father cleared his throat. “We’ll always protect you,” he said. “But we can’t fight shadows. Are you going to tell us what this is?”

She considered. Telling them would mean handing the story to people who edited reality for sport. Not telling them meant becoming the villain in a tale they were already writing.

“I’m getting to know someone,” she said. “He’s kind. Decent. He grounds me.”

“Grounds you?” Her mother’s laugh was small and sharp. “What does he do?”

“He works,” Isabella said evenly. “Harder than anyone at that table tonight.”

Silence again. Then her mother: “We raised you to choose well.”

“I am,” Isabella whispered.

In her room, she locked the door and put her forehead to the windowpane. The city below glittered with a thousand choices she hadn’t made. Her phone pulsed on the desk. Lamin: You okay?

She typed back: Dinner was… a play. I was the prop.

Lamin: Props can become the set. Then the scene can’t happen without them.

She smiled despite herself. They know, Lam. Or think they do. The whispers are getting teeth.

He called. When his face lit her screen, she could breathe again. “I hate that you’re carrying this alone,” he said.

“I’m not,” she said. “You’re here.”

“Through a rectangle,” he said gently. “I want to be more than a rectangle.”

She swallowed. “Then let’s change the shape.”

His brows lifted. “How?”

She hesitated, then exhaled the idea that had been stealing sleep for weeks. “I’m thinking of coming to The Gambia. Quietly. Just for a few days. I know it’s risky. I know it’s mad. But I’m tired of loving a voice without a hand.”

He stared, startled and suddenly vulnerable. “Isabella—if they find out—”

“They already suspect,” she said. “And if they’re going to write a story about me, I want at least one chapter to be true.”

Silence held. She watched him think—practical, protective, terrified to hope. “Come,” he said at last, reverent. “But we do this carefully. No posts. No cards. You land in Dakar or Bissau first, then connect. I’ll arrange a guesthouse where nobody asks questions. If anything feels wrong, we cancel.”

Isabella nodded, relief and fear mixing like salt and sweet. “I’ll book tonight. I’ll send you the details encrypted.”

He laughed softly. “You say encrypted and I remember you’re from a world where even secrets wear suits.”

“Get used to it,” she said, smiling. “You’re my world now.”

A knock rapped at her door. Her mother’s voice: “Isabella?”

She muted, pressed a finger to her lips. Lamin nodded, eyes serious. “Later,” he mouthed.

She opened the door. Her mother stood there in pearls and wounded concern. “You know I adore you,” she said without preamble. “That’s why this… frightens me.”

“What, exactly?” Isabella asked calmly.

“You. Hiding. Swerving. Smiling at strangers on screens,” her mother said. “Be careful what countries you invite into your life.”

“I invited a man,” Isabella said. “Not a country.”

Her mother flinched at the word. “And what does he want?”

“To see me,” Isabella said. “Which is more than I can say for half our friends.”

Her mother’s eyes glossed with something that might have been love or power. “You don’t know what you’re risking.”

“I do,” Isabella answered softly. “For once, I do.”

Her mother exhaled, defeated for now. “Sleep, darling.” She left. The lock clicked like a seal.

Isabella messaged: I’ll fly in two weeks. I’ll route through Dakar. Don’t tell anyone. Not even your best friend.

Lamin: My best friend is trouble. I won’t. A pause. But I need to tell one person—my sister. If something goes wrong, someone must know where you are.

She thought of safety, of headlines, of a girl from a different life and a boy with calloused hands. Okay. Only her.

Across the ocean, Lamin’s heart beat a new rhythm. He left his room and found his sister, Aja, sitting on the veranda shelling groundnuts under moonlight. “You’re walking like you’re about to ask me to hide a goat,” Aja said without looking up.

He sat. “Bella—Isabella—is coming.”

Aja’s hands stilled. “Here?”

“Here. Quietly. I need you.”

She studied his face, then nodded once. “We tell no one. Not even our shadow. I’ll arrange the guesthouse. Not near the tourist strip. Somewhere simple.”

“Thank you,” he breathed.

“But Lamin,” she added softly, “love that must hide learns to run. Make sure your feet are strong.”

He nodded. “They are.”

“Good. Then teach your heart to be stronger,” she said, tossing a nut to the floor for luck.

They made a list under the mosquito coil’s lazy smoke. Names to avoid. Routes to choose. Markets to skip. Places to be seen—on purpose—so if a photo leaked, it would tell the right story. The plan felt like stitching: small, careful seams that would hold if no one tugged too hard.

Back in his room, Lamin typed: We have a plan. I’ll send location close to the day. Delete our messages every night. If any detail feels off, we abort. No apologies.

Isabella: Deal. A beat. I can almost feel the heat on my skin. Hear your ocean.

Lamin: It’s waiting for you.

For the first time in months, they ended the call laughing.

But their joy was not alone in the dark. Across town, a woman at a dinner table opened her phone to a message sent by a discreet friend who liked being useful. “Heard your daughter’s planning a trip. Dakar first. Thought you’d want a heads-up.”

Isabella’s mother read the words twice. Her chest tightened around a fear she refused to name. She typed back: “Who told you?”

The reply came with a smiling knife: “The internet has ears. We all do.”

In The Gambia, Aja checked the guesthouse one last time before sleep, speaking to the manager in Wolof and then Mandinka to make sure nothing got lost. On her way home, she passed a boy who was always on his phone by the road, selling data bundles by day and gossip by night. He looked up as she passed, curious as cats are.

“Evening, Aja,” he called.

“Evening,” she answered, neutral as water.

When she reached the gate, she saw it: a motorcycle she didn’t recognize parked half in shadow. A silhouette straddled it, helmet visor down, watching. For a heartbeat, fear reached for her throat. Then the rider revved and rolled away, slow, unhurried, like someone promising to return.

Aja shut the gate and slipped the bolt. Inside, Lamin’s lamp still burned. She tapped on his window. “We won’t have a smooth road,” she said when he opened. “But we’ll have a road.”

“And she’s worth it,” he said.

Aja’s smile was fierce. “Then we make sure the road remembers her name.”