Broken

Epilogue: One year later

One year.

It feels longer and shorter all at once.

Tayo’s 16 now. He’s tall enough that I have to look up when he teases me. He teaches self-defense at the community center three nights a week. “In case,” he tells the kids, with that serious face he got from Kade. Then he grins and adds, “But mostly so you can run faster to get jollof.” He’s still failing at cooking, but he’s trying. Every Sunday he makes a mess of the kitchen and calls it practice.

Kade runs a bookstore on a quiet street in Wuse. No weapons. No back rooms. Just shelves, sunlight, and terrible coffee that he insists on brewing himself. People come for the books and stay because Kade remembers their names. Sometimes I catch him staring at the door like he’s waiting for Reapers. He never says it. He just locks up, walks home with me, and lets his shoulders drop once we’re inside.

Me? I still see flickers sometimes. A car swerving. A child falling. Old instincts flare. But I don’t pick up the pen. I don’t write. I breathe, I call someone, I live past them. The scar on my palm is white now. The black ink never came back.

Tonight we’re on the roof again. Same place, different life. Abuja glows below us, gold and loud and alive. No sirens. No cracks in the sky.

Kade’s head is on my shoulder. Heavy. Safe.

Inside, Tayo’s already asleep on the couch with an empty plate of jollof on his chest and the TV still on.

The old bone book is on a shelf downstairs. Closed. Dusty. Ordinary.

No countdowns. No rules. No Halls.

Kade squeezes my hand. His thumb finds the scar and traces it.

“Happy?” he asks. Quiet, like he’s still afraid the answer could change.

I lean into him and smile. “Yeah. We chose this.”

And for the first time in a long time, the night was just ours.

No one was coming to take it. ❤️

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