The Love Story She Never Wrote.

People always ask when your life changed.As though change announces itself. Sometimes it begins on a Thursday. She had written hundreds of love stories. Women fell in love in her pages. Men crossed oceans. They fought, forgave, waited, and found each other. She knew exactly where to place the first accidental touch, the first lingering glance, the confession that made readers throw their phones across the room. She could write a proposal that made strangers cry. She knew how to make two fictional hearts find home. But every time life handed her the pen… She forgot how to write. Because love on paper gave you an eraser. Real love gave you uncertainty. Her characters always knew what chapter they were in. She didn’t. Her name was Bami. Every morning began the same way. The distant wail of sirens. The impatient chorus of car horns. The familiar weight pressing against her chest before her eyes had even adjusted to the morning light. Outside her apartment window, Lagos had already started negotiating another day. A danfo conductor shouted destinations with enough confidence to make anyone believe every bus would actually get there on time. A woman selling akara laughed loudly at something her customer had said, her voice rising above the rumble of impatient engines. Somewhere in the distance, the first call to prayer faded into the morning air before being swallowed by the city’s endless rhythm. Lagos was awake. Bami wished she could say the same. She tried to sit up. Nothing. Her wrists refused to move. Her ankles wouldn’t budge. Panic spread through her body like wildfire as she struggled against invisible restraints that held her firmly to the bed. Her breathing became shallow. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears until it drowned out everything else. “No…” She pulled harder. Nothing. “Help!” The bedroom door swung open. “Bami!” She jolted upright, gasping for air. The room was quiet. No restraints. No sirens. Just the familiar cream walls of her bedroom, the air conditioner humming softly in the corner, and Ranti standing in the doorway with the same worried expression she’d worn almost every morning for the past three months. “The dream again?” she asked softly. Bami couldn’t bring herself to answer. She simply nodded. The silence between them carried the weight of a conversation they had repeated too many times. Before another word could be spoken, the familiar migraine settled behind her eyes. It always arrived the same way—a dull ache that slowly tightened around her temples until even the morning light felt too bright. Ranti didn’t need instructions anymore. She crossed the room, reached for the bedside table and picked up the two orange prescription bottles. Pouring a glass of water from the flask beside the bed, she handed everything to Bami with the ease of someone who had memorised the routine. “Here.” Bami whispered a silent thank you before swallowing her anxiety medication alongside the pills for her migraine. It was becoming a ritual neither of them had chosen. Ranti sat beside her for a moment. “You slept for almost four hours.” Bami managed a tired smile. “So… progress?” “If waking up screaming is progress.” “It means you slept.” Bami looked down at the glass in her hands. She hated that this had become something worth celebrating. Twenty minutes later, she stood in front of her bedroom mirror dressed in a crisp beige blazer and matching trousers. The clothes were carefully pressed. The gold hoops rested neatly against her ears. Her makeup concealed the sleepless night almost perfectly. She had become remarkably good at looking like someone who was okay. Funny how people thought she had it all together. By eight o’clock, she’d probably receive another message from a reader thanking her for making them believe in love again. No one knew the woman who wrote those stories could barely sleep through the night. No one knew she woke up every morning feeling as though she had escaped something she couldn’t remember. She stared at her reflection a second longer. “You’ve got this.” The woman in the mirror looked unconvinced. “Bami!” Ranti’s voice floated in from the kitchen. “You’re going to miss the staff meeting.” Bami glanced at the clock. 8:12 a.m. Late. Again. “I know!” She hurried into the dining area, the smell of toasted bread and scrambled eggs filling the apartment. “I made breakfast.” “I’ll eat at work.” “You said that yesterday.” “And the day before,” Ranti added, folding her arms. Bami smiled sheepishly before stealing half a slice of toast from the plate. “There.” “I suppose that’s better than nothing.” “It’s everything.” Ranti reached over and brushed an invisible speck of dust from Bami’s shoulder. It was such a small gesture. But it reminded Bami that care didn’t always arrive in grand declarations. Sometimes… It looked like someone making sure you’d eaten before facing the world. She grabbed her laptop bag, shoved her charger inside, checked twice for her migraine medication, and hurried toward the door before stopping abruptly. The manuscript. She almost forgot it. A stack of neatly printed pages sat on the dining table with The Love Story She Couldn’t Write boldly written across the first page. The irony almost made her laugh. Almost. She picked it up, stared at the title for a few seconds, then sighed before slipping it carefully into her bag. Maybe today she’d finally write Chapter Two. Maybe. Lagos greeted her with its usual chaos. Conductors leaned dangerously from moving buses, shouting destinations as though volume alone could outrun traffic. Hawkers threaded effortlessly between rows of impatient cars, balancing everything from bottled water to phone chargers on their heads. The aroma of roasted corn drifted through the humid morning air, mixing with exhaust fumes in a way only Lagos somehow made normal. The city never slowed down. It didn’t wait for heartbreak. It didn’t pause for nightmares. It simply kept moving. Most days… Bami envied it.