Chapter 17
1473 Words
An Old Flame Vs the New One
It’s abnormal to find a young, beautiful girl in Nigeria without a guy in her life at any given time.
Not because Nigerian women can’t be single. They can. They do. But the social machinery doesn’t really account for it. Aunties will ask. Friends will assume. Classmates will set you up with their cousin “just to see.” Being alone for too long starts to look like a problem to solve, not a choice to respect.
David knew this. He’d never actually asked Chandeline if she had a boyfriend. He didn’t need to. He operated on the default setting: assume yes, unless proven otherwise. It saved time, and it kept him from looking stupid.
In Chandeline’s case, he was right.
Her boyfriend was Joshua.
Joshua was a carpenter in Kpeygi. He made doors, window frames, and the occasional wooden bed for people who couldn’t afford metal. His hands were rough, his nails were always stained with wood varnish, and his shirts had that permanent sawdust smell no matter how many times he washed them. He wasn’t tall. He wasn’t light-skinned. He didn’t have David’s confidence or David’s suits or David’s plot of land in Karshi.
What he had was Chandeline’s first yes.
They met in their first year at university. She was selling chinchin outside the lecture hall. He was fixing a broken desk for the department. He bought a bag for twenty naira, sat down beside her, and said, “You’re too serious for someone selling sweet things. Smile small.”
She did.
That was it. That was the start.
Joshua loved her with a kind of stubborn, quiet love that didn’t make announcements. He’d walk forty minutes to save transport money so he could buy her a bottle of malt after her exams. He remembered that she hated pepper in her noodles and that she slept with her phone under her pillow. When her phone died in 300-level, he spent two months fixing doors for free just to buy her a used Tecno.
“I can’t give you much,” he told her once, sitting on the floor of her room, sanding a small wooden box he’d made for her. “But I can give you me. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Chandeline believed him. She loved him back. Not the loud, dramatic kind of love you post on w******p status. The kind where you split a plate of indomie and don’t feel cheated. The kind where you could sit in silence and not feel awkward.
But love doesn’t pay rent.
And Abuja doesn’t care how much you love someone when NEPA brings a 12,000-naira bill and your department says “photocopy your project, 200 pages, or you don’t graduate.”
Chandeline watched her friends. They all had boyfriends. Not all of them were rich. But they had boyfriends who could send 2,000 naira for data, who could buy them puff-puff after class, who could say “come, let’s go to Jabi Lake” without checking their pocket first.
She hated that it mattered. She hated that it made her feel small.
Joshua saw it too. He saw the way her eyes dimmed when she talked about other girls getting taken out to eat. He saw her delete messages before he could read them. He saw her wear the same dress for three weeks straight and laugh it off like it was a fashion choice.
“I know I’m not enough right now,” he told her one evening, sitting on the edge of her bed. “But I’m working. I’m learning. In two years, I’ll have my own workshop. People will come to me.”
“Two years is long,” Chandeline said. She didn’t mean to sound harsh. It just came out that way.
Joshua nodded. “I know.”
That was the night she decided to force herself to unlove him.
Not officially. Not with a breakup speech and tears and a return of gifts. She couldn’t do that to him. He’d look at her like she’d kicked a puppy.
So she did it slowly. She replied slower. She made plans and cancelled them. She started saying “I’m tired” when he wanted to talk. She let the distance grow until it felt normal.
And then David happened.
David had money, or at least the promise of it. David had a government job, suits, a way of talking that made things feel possible. David didn’t ask her to split indomie. He took her to A1 spot and ordered a whole catfish.
She didn’t plan to fall for him. It just happened in the way things happen when you’re tired and someone makes it feel easy for five minutes.
Now she was in both places at once.
With Joshua, she was in Abuja. They still met. He still brought her water when she had lectures at 8 AM. He still fixed her broken chair without being asked. He still looked at her like she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
And she still kissed him goodbye, because breaking it off felt like cutting off her own finger.
With David, she was on the phone every night. Long-distance relationship, as close as 400 kilometers can be. He told her about Kano, about Daniel, about his property in Karshi. She told him about lectures, about baking, about how her foot hurt from standing too long.
She never mentioned Joshua.
David never asked.
Sometimes, at 2 AM, she’d lie awake and feel sick.
She’d think about Joshua sanding wood, his hands blistered, singing off-key because he thought she was asleep. She’d think about David in Kano, probably asleep too, dreaming about charts and land documents.
She’d think about how she was cheating both of them. Joshua, by letting him think he still had her heart. David, by letting him think he was the only one.
And herself, by pretending she could keep both and not break.
“Why do you look like that?” Joshua asked one afternoon. He’d come to drop off a small stool he’d made for her room.
“Like what?” she said, taking the stool.
“Like you’re somewhere else,” he said.
Chandeline forced a laugh. “Maybe I am. Project is stressing me.”
Joshua nodded. He didn’t push. He never pushed.
He set the stool down, wiped his hands on his trousers, and said, “When I finish this month’s jobs, I’ll take you to the new suya spot in Bwari. The one with the goat meat. You’ve been talking about it for weeks.”
Chandeline smiled. “Okay.”
She didn’t tell him that David had taken her to eat fish already. She didn’t tell him that David had talked about marriage like it was a conversation you could have over malt and grilled catfish.
She didn’t tell him that she didn’t know who she wanted to be honest with anymore.
That night, David called.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Fine,” Chandeline said. “Tiring.”
“Did you eat?”
“Yes.”
David paused. “You sound far away.”
“I’m just tired,” she said.
“Okay,” David said. “Sleep well, Chandeline from Adamawa State.”
She smiled despite herself. He still had her saved like that on his phone. She knew, because he’d told her.
“Good night, David,” she said.
She hung up and looked across the room at the small wooden box Joshua had made her. It sat on her table, holding her bobby pins and hair ties.
She picked it up, ran her thumb over the smooth edges.
Joshua had spent three days on it. He’d said, “So you can keep your small things safe.”
She set it down carefully.
She loved him. She did.
But love didn’t stop the landlord from knocking. Love didn’t buy data. Love didn’t make people stop asking why you were still single at 25.
And David… David made her feel like maybe she didn’t have to choose between being loved and being okay.
She hated that it felt like a choice at all.
Two days later, Joshua showed up with two pieces of suya and a bottle of malt.
“I know it’s not much,” he said, handing it to her. “But I thought you’d like it.”
Chandeline took it. Her throat felt tight.
“Thank you, Joshua,” she said.
He smiled, the same smile he’d given her in 100-level.
“Anytime,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chandeline nodded, because what else could she say?
Inside, she was already drafting the text she’d send David later that night.
And she hated herself a little more for it
- Writer
