Chapter Four: Not Everything That Bleeds Is Wounded
619 Words
Efe didn’t come the next day.
Or the one after.
Ade told himself he wasn’t worried.
But on the third day, he brewed tea for two anyway.
By the fourth, he stopped pretending.
She walked in late Friday afternoon, wearing a sun-faded ankara shirt over black trousers. She looked tired. Not the sleepy kind — the life-has-been-pulling-me-through-bushes kind. Her face was slightly puffy, her lips dry, her eyes carrying the weight of unshed sleep and quiet wars.
“I didn’t die,” she said, her voice rough. “If you’re wondering.”
He stood from behind the desk, slower than usual. “I was wondering.”
She didn’t sit.
“I almost didn’t come,” she said. “I spent yesterday staring at the ceiling. And the day before… well. Let’s just say my room has started to smell like someone gave up.”
Ade didn’t smile. He could tell — something had shifted.
“Sit down,” he said softly.
She didn’t move. Just looked at him with something between shame and stubbornness.
“I don’t want to be your project, Ade.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t want to be pitied either.”
“I don’t pity you, Efe.”
“Then why are you still doing this?” she snapped. “Why do you care?”
Her voice cracked, and so did the space between them.
Ade moved slowly, came around the desk, and stood a few feet away. Not too close. Just enough.
“Because I’ve buried too many people who didn’t leave notes. Didn’t plan anything. Didn’t even ask to be remembered. They just left. And I keep wondering — if someone had just sat with them, just listened… would they still be here?”
She looked away. Her shoulders trembled slightly.
He took a step closer.
“I’m not here to save you. I don’t think I can. But if sitting here every day helps you stay… even one more day at a time… then I’ll keep showing up.”
Efe finally sat.
She didn’t speak. But her hands stopped shaking.
And for the first time that week, Ade exhaled fully.
A silence settled, but it wasn’t empty. It hummed with a kind of safety, like the moment before rain, when everything is held still by the sky.
He poured her a cup of tea.
She didn’t drink it. Just held it like it mattered that it was warm.
“You ever feel like your sadness has teeth?” she asked suddenly, voice low.
He looked up.
“Like it’s not just inside you… It’s chewing on your bones, and nobody else can hear it?”
Ade nodded. “Every day, before this place opens.”
Efe gave a weak smile. “This place smells like grief and ginger tea.”
“That’s my signature scent.”
She let out a real laugh. Small, but real.
Then she looked at him, eyes a little softer. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not acting like I’m broken glass.”
“You’re not broken,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”
She tilted her head. “There’s a difference?”
“Yes,” he said. “Not everything that bleeds is wounded. Sometimes it’s just the body trying to feel alive again.”
Her eyes welled up, but no tears fell.
She stayed for two hours that evening. They didn’t talk much after that. But when she left, her shoulders weren’t as tight. Her eyes weren’t as glassy.
And Ade, as he stood by the window watching her walk into the dusk, knew something unspoken had changed.
She came back.
And maybe, just maybe, just maybe, she would again.
- Writer
