PIECE OF ME

THE SOFT PLACE TO FALL

CHAPTER 7

“Steph, what the hell are you even saying?” My voice cracked, the anger sharper than I planned.

Steph crossed her arms and leaned against the wall of my small hostel room like she owned the air in it. Her face was tight, not the soft, laughing face I used to know. “I’m saying you need to stop playing victim, Uche. Everybody has problems. You act like you’re the only one carrying the weight of the world.”

I froze. My chest throbbed, but not from the healing stitches. It was deeper, rawer. “Victim?” I spat the word. “Steph, I am yet to bury my father, it’s barely one week he died. I almost died on an operating table because of an ectopic pregnancy you can’t even imagine, and the bastard responsible swore the child wasn’t his. And you stand here and tell me I’m playing victim?”

She shifted, but her eyes didn’t soften. Instead, she scoffed. “Don’t twist it. You’ve always made everything about you. Every single thing. Even now, you won’t even admit you chose Daniel for the money, not love. Tell me I’m lying.”

The words slapped harder than Daniel’s rejection. I staggered back against the edge of my bed, my hand tightening on the sheet. “So that’s what you think of me? After everything? That I was some desperate girl chasing his pocket?”

Steph’s silence was louder than her words. She bit her lip, looked away, then back at me, almost daring me to deny it.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I shot back, my throat burning.

“Oh, I don’t?” Her voice rose, a brittle edge in it. “I know he was never yours, Uche. Daniel was never going to marry you. You were a stopover. Everybody knows it. You just refused to see it.”

My stomach knotted. I wanted to scream, cry, throw something. “Everybody knows? Or you know because you’ve been in his mouth?”

Her eyes flickered. A mistake. A slip.

I caught it. My voice dropped. “What did you just give away?”

She stiffened. “Nothing.”

“No, Steph. Don’t stand there and lie to me. How do you know what Daniel told you he would or wouldn’t do? How do you know what he says when I’m not there?”

Steph tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “Don’t be paranoid.”

“You’ve been talking to him, haven’t you?” My chest heaved. “Behind my back. While I was bleeding and cut open, while I was trying to hold myself together. You’ve been feeding him my life.”

Steph’s jaw tightened. She avoided my eyes, but her voice sharpened. “You act like you’re the only one he talks to. Maybe he just needed someone sane for once.”

That cut. A blade straight through my rib cage.

“You’re calling me insane now?”

She stepped forward. “Uche, listen to yourself. You sound unhinged. Always accusing, always imagining everybody’s against you. Maybe that’s why Daniel pulled away. Maybe that’s why he—” She stopped, biting her tongue.

My heart lurched. “Finish it. Say it with your chest. That’s why he what?”

Her eyes flickered again, but this time she didn’t hide it fast enough. “That’s why he told me he couldn’t do this with you anymore.”

The room went silent. My ears rang.

“You knew.” My voice came out low, dangerous, shaking. “You knew before me that he was done with me.”

Steph opened her mouth, closed it, then stammered. “He… he didn’t mean it like that—”

“Oh, shut up!” I screamed, tears burning hot in my eyes. “Don’t you dare stand there and act like you’re my friend when you’ve been laughing behind me with him. What the hell did you two talk about? My father? My womb? My death?”

She snapped then. “You think the whole world revolves around you. Newsflash, Uche, it doesn’t! You think your grief gives you the right to drag everybody else into your pit? Your father died, yes. It’s sad. But people die every day. You don’t see me collapsing because of it.”

I blinked. My heart froze.

“You bitch.” My voice was a whisper now, shaking. “You dare talk about my father like that?”

Steph flinched, but her pride wouldn’t let her back down. “Your father wasn’t perfect either. You worship him like he was a saint. Maybe if you opened your eyes, you’d see he wasn’t who you thought.”

The words hit differently. Colder. Like she knew something I didn’t.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked slowly.

Her lips parted, then she pressed them shut, shaking her head. “Forget it.”

“No. Don’t ‘forget it’ me. Tell me what you know.”

She shifted, nervous now. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

My chest constricted. My breathing was shallow. “You’re hiding something.”

“Uche, drop it.”

“No!” I shouted, stepping forward. “Tell me what you know about my father!”

Steph’s eyes darted to the door like she was looking for escape. Then she whispered, almost too low: “Ask Daniel. He knows.”

The floor gave way beneath me.

“What does Daniel have to do with my father?”

Steph shook her head, panicked at her own slip. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, Steph. You’ve been running your mouth too much. You tell me right now—what the hell does Daniel know about my father?”

The air was thick, suffocating. I could hear my pulse in my ears.

Steph clenched her fists, turned to the door. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“You don’t get to walk away!” I screamed, my voice breaking. “Not after dropping bombs like that. You think you can tear my life apart with your tongue and just leave?”

Steph swung around, her face flushed. “Uche, you’ve always been too fragile for the truth. That’s why nobody tells you anything.”

The silence after that was deafening.

Something inside me broke. I wanted to tear the walls down. I wanted to grab her and shake the truth out of her. Instead, I just stood there, shaking, empty.

“You’re not my friend,” I whispered, the words like acid in my throat. “You never were.”

Steph’s face flickered with something—guilt? Fear?—before she turned and yanked the door open.

But she didn’t move.

Because standing just outside, in the corridor, was a shadowed figure. Broad shoulders, tall, face half-hidden by the dim light. He wasn’t moving, just standing there, listening.

Steph gasped. “How long have you been there?”

The figure didn’t answer. He just looked at me, then at Steph, then back at me. His voice was low, calm, but chilling.

“If she keeps digging,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine, “she’s going to find out things that will bury all of us.”

Then he walked away.

And for the first time, Steph’s face went pale.

(Steph slipped, tying Daniel to Uche’s father’s secrets. A shadow figure confirms danger and raises the stakes).