CHAPTER SEVEN — The World Outside the Gate
1170 Words
Morning didn’t come with sunlight.
It came with knocks on the wall.
Chinyere’s voice filtered in through the c***k of the wooden door.
“Zara… Lani… Madam say make una dey go before seven o.”
I didn’t move.
Lani didn’t either.
We were already awake.
Sleep didn’t come easy in a place where the ground remembers every broken dream laid on it.
I stared at the grey ceiling, wondering how we’d gotten here so fast. One kiss, and the world folded. One truth, and everything we called “home” spit us out like it had been pretending to hold us all along.
Lani turned toward me. Her eyes were swollen, but dry. She hadn’t cried again since last night. Maybe she didn’t have any tears left.
“We can go to your dad,” she said.
I shook my head. “He’s not mine. Not in that way.”
She didn’t argue.
We both knew the truth.
He was the kind of father that came home when he liked, dropped money like an apology, and disappeared before the questions could come.
He wouldn’t take us in. Not together.
Not after this.
—
We left the compound with two bags between us.
No one said goodbye.
The gateman didn’t look up. Madam didn’t step out. Chinyere watched from the balcony like someone watching a funeral from a distance — too far to mourn, too close to ignore.
As the gate closed behind us, I felt something in me lock shut.
The road stretched in front of us, uncertain and unfamiliar.
I didn’t even know where we were going.
Lani did.
“There’s a hostel near Yaba,” she said quietly. “My friend Shade used to stay there before she moved in with her sister. It’s not fancy, but it’s safe.”
I nodded.
Safe sounded like heaven.
We took a bus to Yaba.
The sun was up now — sharp and unkind, burning into the skin like judgment. Lagos never hides her madness. Everything moves fast: people, buses, noise, life. And here we were — two girls trying to hold hands without touching, trying to figure out how to survive love in a place that hated its shape.
—
The hostel was three floors, painted a tired yellow.
The gate squeaked when we knocked.
An old woman answered. Her face was rough with time, her eyes suspicious.
“Who una be?”
Lani smiled politely. “Good afternoon, ma. My name is Lani. My friend and I are looking for a room. Just a small one. We can pay.”
The woman stared at us for a long time.
Then sighed.
“Na students?”
Lani nodded. “Yes ma.”
She grunted and opened the gate.
The room she gave us was small — mattress on the floor, small window with broken louvers, bucket in the corner for bathing, fan that didn’t turn. But it had a door that locked and a roof that didn’t judge.
For now, it was enough.
—
We slept all afternoon.
We didn’t talk about last night.
We didn’t talk about school.
We didn’t talk about Madam.
We just existed — like people trying not to fall apart too loudly.
By evening, we sat outside the room, sharing a plate of rice and fried egg we managed to buy from a kiosk across the road.
A girl from the next room came over and introduced herself.
“I’m Tega,” she said. “You new here?”
Lani nodded. “Just moved in.”
Tega looked at both of us — the closeness, the tension, the shared plate — and smiled knowingly.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “People mind their business here. As long as you no dey shout or fight, nobody go disturb you.”
I wanted to believe her.
I needed to believe that maybe here, we could breathe.
—
Later that night, the lights flickered off.
NEPA had done their usual.
We lit a candle, sat on the floor, and finally let the silence break.
“I’m sorry,” Lani said, voice low.
“For what?”
“For dragging you into this. For being the reason you had to leave home.”
I touched her arm gently. “You didn’t drag me. I chose it.”
“But if I hadn’t—”
“You did nothing wrong, Lani.”
She looked up at me, eyes glistening.
“Then why does it feel like we’re being punished for existing?”
I had no answer.
Only more questions.
We sat in that dim light, our hands close again but not touching. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to kiss her again. But I also wanted her safe. And in this country, those two things didn’t always go together.
“Maybe we should stop,” I whispered.
Lani froze.
My heart cracked a little as I said it, but I needed to say it out loud.
“For now, at least. Maybe if we… pull back a little, people will forget. Maybe we can just be friends. At least till things calm down.”
She didn’t respond immediately.
Then she stood up, walked to the window, and whispered, “You kissed me first.”
I swallowed hard. “I know.”
She turned to face me. “You held my face like you were holding something fragile. Like I mattered. Do you know how long it’s been since someone looked at me that way?”
I stood too.
“I still look at you that way.”
She stepped forward. “Then don’t ask me to be your friend.”
“Then what do we do?”
She was close now.
“I don’t know. But whatever it is… don’t let the world name it for us.”
Her voice trembled.
I didn’t kiss her this time.
She kissed me.
Soft.
Painful.
True.
But when she pulled away, the fear was still there.
It didn’t leave.
It just slept quietly between us.
—
We resumed school the next week.
But nothing was the same.
People stared more. Whispered more.
Even teachers began to treat us differently — small things like skipped questions, ignored hands, strange glances.
We sat at the back now, not by choice, but because it was the only place we weren’t made to feel like walking taboos.
One afternoon, during break, a note was slipped into my locker.
God will judge you both. You’re an abomination.
I didn’t show Lani.
Some things don’t need repeating.
But the message was clear: the world wasn’t done with us.
And still, we held on.
—
That night, after homework, after dinner, after pretending to laugh at something shallow on i********:, I asked her:
“What if it never gets better?”
Lani looked up.
“Then we get stronger.”
And just like that, I knew.
We wouldn’t run.
We wouldn’t hide.
We’d walk through this fire with our heads up, even if our hearts burned.
Together
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