Episode 4 — The Story We Tell
1697 Words
The silence in the car thickened like Lagos harmattan haze. Leo kept his eyes on the road, his grip steady on the wheel, but I could feel the tension radiating from him in quiet waves.
“They want a narrative,” I finally said, breaking the stillness. “A founder and her supportive partner. It’s cleaner. More… sellable.”
“And Dave fits that narrative,” Leo said, his voice neutral. Too neutral.
“Not to me.”
He glanced at me, his expression softening slightly. “I know.”
We pulled up to my apartment building, but neither of us moved to get out. The evening sun painted the sky in strokes of orange and purple—a masterpiece I’d usually point out to him.
“What happens if we tell them the truth?” Leo asked.
“Clara’s team might lose interest. The ‘ex-boyfriend helps former flame succeed’ story is messy. The ‘best friend turned partner supports her dream’ story is… complicated for their brand.”
“And if we don’t correct them?”
I looked down at my hands. “Then we lie. To the magazine. To everyone who reads it. And Dave… gets credit for something he didn’t do.”
Leo turned off the engine. “You should talk to Clara.”
---
Clara Adeyemi met me at a quiet café in Victoria Island two days later. She wore a stunning Ankara wrap dress and had an iPad open before her tea arrived.
“Your gallery is exactly what Lagos needs,” she said, getting straight to business. “Kemi’s exhibition will be monumental. Now, about this feature—we want it intimate. Personal. Our readers love seeing the person behind the vision.”
I took a steadying breath. “About that partner angle…”
Clara smiled. “Yes, Dave. He reached out to me actually. Said you were the most determined person he’s ever known. It’s quite romantic, really—how he’s supporting you even after your relationship ended.”
My stomach tightened. Dave had reached out to her? Why?
“Actually,” I said, my voice firmer than I expected, “Dave isn’t my partner. He helped with an introduction, but the person who’s been with me through everything… that’s Leo. My best friend. My actual partner.”
Clara’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes cooled slightly. “Leo. The friend who’s in the background of some of your gallery photos?”
“He’s not in the background. He’s been beside me from the beginning.”
She tapped her iPad thoughtfully. “Here’s the thing about storytelling. People want either a fairytale or a triumph. Dave as the supportive ex is a fairytale. You and a… friend… navigating business and romance is complicated. Our readers don’t buy magazines for complicated.”
“They might buy it for real,” I countered.
Clara studied me. “Let me think about it. The exhibition is still on, of course. But the magazine feature… we’ll see.”
As I left, my phone buzzed with a message from Dave.
Dave: Heard you met with Clara. Hope it went well. Let me know if you need me to talk to her again.
The timing felt too perfect to be coincidence.
---
At the gallery that evening, I found Leo helping Kemi’s assistant unload preliminary sketches. Seeing him there—competent, steady, entirely in his element—something in me settled.
“We need to talk,” I said, pulling him aside.
I told him everything—Clara’s reaction, Dave’s message, the choice between a clean lie and a complicated truth.
Leo listened quietly, his hand finding mine. “What do you want?”
“I want the feature. I want this exhibition to be huge. But…” I looked around at the space we’d built together. “I don’t want to erase you to get it.”
He pulled me into a hug, his chin resting on my head. “Then we find another way.”
---
The way presented itself unexpectedly during Kemi’s studio visit to Lagos a week later.
She arrived with minimal fuss—just her, a single suitcase, and eyes that missed nothing. As she toured Artereal, she paused before a series of photographs hanging in the back office. They were casual shots Leo had taken: me painting a wall at 2 AM, laughing with our first artist, sleeping on a stack of canvases.
“Who took these?” Kemi asked.
“Leo,” I said. “My… partner.”
She studied them with an artist’s intensity. “He sees you. Not the idea of you. The real you.”
Later, over dinner at a rooftop restaurant, Kemi turned to me. “Clara called me. Asked about you and Dave.”
I nearly choked on my water. “What did you say?”
“I said the only partnership I’ve seen here is between you and the quiet man who makes sure you eat.” She shrugged. “Clara’s a brilliant curator but a terrible romantic. She wants stories that fit in boxes. Real life doesn’t fit in boxes.”
“Will it affect the exhibition?” I asked, my heart pounding.
“Not if I say it won’t.” Kemi leaned forward. “My art is about truth in fragments. About the spaces between what we show and what we hide. If you let them publish a lie about your life, how can you honestly showcase my work?”
Her words landed with the weight of revelation.
---
That night, I drafted an email to Clara.
Dear Clara,
Thank you again for this opportunity. Regarding the feature—I’ve given it considerable thought.
The truth is that Artereal was built with Leo Okafor, my partner, who has been my constant support since long before this gallery existed. Dave provided a helpful introduction to Kemi, but the daily work, the vision, the partnership—that’s Leo and me.
If that story is too complicated for your feature, I understand. But it’s the only story I can tell honestly.
I hope we can still work together on Kemi’s exhibition, regardless.
Sincerely,
[My Name]
I hovered over the send button for a full minute before Leo’s hand covered mine.
“Send it,” he said quietly. “Whatever happens, we’ll handle it.”
I clicked send.
The response came faster than expected—not from Clara, but from Dave.
Dave: Clara forwarded me your email. I’m sorry if I overstepped. I just wanted to help.
Me: Why did you tell her we were together?
Dave: I didn’t. I said I was proud of you. She assumed the rest. I… didn’t correct her. I’m sorry.
The confession was small but significant. He hadn’t lied, but he hadn’t told the truth either. The space between felt familiar.
Clara’s response arrived the next morning:
I appreciate your honesty. Kemi has made it clear that her participation is contingent on authentic storytelling. We’ll proceed with the feature—focusing on you as a founder, with Leo mentioned as a business partner. The romantic angle will be minimized.
It’s not the story I wanted, but it’s yours.
Let’s move forward.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the full truth. But it wasn’t a lie either. It was a compromise—that adult, uncomfortable middle ground where real life usually lived.
---
Two nights before the exhibition opening, Leo found me in the gallery, staring at Kemi’s centerpiece installation—a stunning mixed-media piece called “Between the Truth and the Story.”
“You okay?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
“I keep thinking about that list,” I said, leaning back into him. “The one we made after Dave broke up with me.”
“What about it?”
“I did everything on it. Cleaned my apartment. Saved money. Started the gallery. Became ‘responsible.’” I turned to face him. “But becoming ‘wife material’… that was never about a list. It was about being with someone who sees me. Not a project to fix, but a person to love.”
Leo’s eyes softened. “You were never not wife material. You were always you. Dave just couldn’t see it.”
“And you?” I whispered. “What do you see?”
He cupped my face, his thumb brushing my cheek. “I see the woman who buys too many shoes and spends too much on art she loves. The woman who cries at bad movies and laughs so loud it’s embarrassing. The woman who built something beautiful from a broken heart. I see you. All of you. And I love every part.”
In that moment, surrounded by art that spoke of truth and fragments, the last piece of my old self—the one that needed a list to feel worthy—quietly dissolved.
---
The opening night of Kemi Akinola’s homecoming exhibition was everything we’d dreamed of and more.
The gallery glittered with Lagos’s elite, but my eyes kept finding Leo across the room—talking to journalists, guiding guests, always steady, always there.
Midway through the evening, Clara found me. “It’s a success,” she said, her professional mask slipping to reveal genuine admiration. “And for what it’s worth… the story you’re living is better than the one I wanted to tell.”
As the night wound down, I stood with Leo on the gallery’s small balcony, the sounds of celebration drifting out to us.
“Remember when this was just a list?” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder.
“I remember,” he said, pressing a kiss to my hair. “Look how far we’ve come.”
“Where do we go from here?”
He turned me to face him, his eyes serious. “Wherever you want. As long as we go together.”
Below us, Lagos glittered—a city of millions of stories, of truths and fictions, of lists made and broken. Our story was just one of them. But it was ours. And for the first time, that felt like more than enough.
- Writer
