My First Time

Two Weeks

Two weeks.

The number sat in my head like it had been carved there. I stared at Chioma’s message until the screen went dark, then lit it up again just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. They just booked the transport. Two weeks. No soft language. No “maybe.” Just a clear, brutal countdown.

I didn’t sleep after that. I lay on my back and watched the ceiling change colour as morning approached, doing the maths over and over. Fourteen days. Fourteen more mornings. Fourteen more chances to see her at the gate. Fourteen more walks to the wall before the wall became just another place.

By the time I got to school my body felt heavy. Yoma was already there, standing near the notice board with Chioma. When she saw me she smiled, but there was something careful in it. Like she already knew the atmosphere between us had changed.

“Hey,” she said when I reached them.

“Hey.”

Chioma gave me a look that said I told you without needing words, then quietly excused herself. Yoma and I were left standing in the middle of the morning noise.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” The lie came automatically. “You?”

She hesitated. “I found out more last night. About the move.”

My throat tightened. “Okay.”

“It’s in two weeks.”

Hearing it from her made the number heavier. I nodded once, like I was accepting a fact in class instead of something that was quietly rearranging my life.

“I wanted to tell you myself,” she said. “Before anyone else did.”

“Thank you.”

We stood there for a moment longer, surrounded by students who had no idea that the ground had just shifted under two people in their middle. The bell rang. Neither of us moved immediately.

“Can we talk properly after school?” she asked.

“Yes.”

The day dragged. Every period felt longer than the last. I kept catching myself staring at the clock, then at Yoma when she was in the same class, then back at my notes without absorbing anything. Tunde tried to talk to me during break. I gave short answers until he finally said, “You’re not here, bro,” and left me alone.

After the final bell I met Yoma at the gate. We didn’t go to the wall immediately. We walked in silence for a while, past the shops, past the usual turns, until the noise of school faded behind us. When we reached the wall we sat in our usual places. The space between us felt different. Not distant. Just charged with everything we hadn’t said yet.

“I don’t want to spend the next two weeks being sad,” Yoma said eventually. “I know that’s hard. But I don’t want our last days to feel like a funeral.”

I stared at the road. “I don’t know how to act normal knowing the date.”

“You don’t have to act normal. You just have to stay.” She turned to look at me. “Can you do that?”

I nodded slowly. “I can try.”

She reached for my hand. I let her take it. For a while we just sat there, fingers locked, watching the light shift. A part of me wanted to memorise everything — the exact shade of the sky, the sound of her breathing, the way her thumb moved against my hand. Another part of me wanted to stop time completely.

“I’m still your girlfriend,” she said quietly. “Even if I’m leaving. That doesn’t change unless we let it.”

The word girlfriend still did something to me, even now. I squeezed her hand.

“I know.”

We stayed longer than usual. When we finally stood up, she didn’t let go of my hand until we absolutely had to. At her junction she hugged me tightly, her face pressed against my chest for a few seconds longer than normal.

“We’ll make the time count,” she whispered.

I wanted to believe that was possible.

That night the conversation was softer. We didn’t talk about the move in detail. We talked about small things — a teacher, a song, the fact that her brother had finally broken a plate she actually liked. The ordinary rhythm of it almost fooled me into thinking nothing was wrong. Almost.

Before I slept she sent a voice note.

“I keep looking at the calendar and getting angry at it. Is that dramatic?”

I listened to it twice, then replied.

“If you’re dramatic, then I’m worse.”

I could picture her smiling at that. The thought hurt and helped at the same time.

The next few days settled into a strange new rhythm. We still met after school. We still texted late into the night. We still sat at the wall and talked until the light faded. But everything had a quiet urgency underneath it now. Every joke felt like it needed to be remembered. Every silence felt like it might be one of the last comfortable ones.

I started noticing things I hadn’t paid enough attention to before. The exact way she laughed when she was caught off guard. The small scar near her wrist. The way she always adjusted her bag strap when she was nervous. I stored them away without meaning to, like someone packing for a journey they didn’t want to take.

On the fourth day after the news, we were sitting at the wall when she rested her head on my shoulder and said, “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”

I thought for a moment. “I’m scared that once you leave, you’ll realise you don’t need this as much as I do.”

She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “I’m scared of the same thing. But about you.”

The honesty sat between us, raw and uncomfortable and necessary.

We didn’t fix it. We just stayed close until it was time to leave.

That night I lay in bed with my phone on my chest, scrolling slowly through our old messages. The early awkward ones. The long night conversations. The morning texts that had become routine. I stopped on the message where she had first called me Mr. Sweaty and stared at it until my eyes burned.

My phone buzzed.

Chioma: “Her dad confirmed the date with the school today. They’re processing the transfer papers.”

I closed my eyes.

Another buzz.

Yoma: “Are you free to come over on Saturday? My parents will be out for most of the day. I just want to spend time with you without watching the clock.”

I stared at the second message until the words blurred.

Saturday.

A whole day with her. In her house. With no school and no junctions and no countdown visible on the wall.

It should have felt like a gift.

Instead it felt like the beginning of the end, wrapped in something soft enough to make it hurt more.

I typed “Yes” before I could talk myself out of it.

Then I put the phone down and stared at the ceiling, already wondering how I was supposed to walk into her house knowing that every hour we spent there would be one hour closer to goodbye.