The Girl In the Yellow Dress

ChapterThree

Samuel didn’t plan to think about Amara every day that week. He told himself he’d tuck the meeting into a drawer in his mind, open it again on Friday, and live normally in between.

It was a good plan for about twelve hours.

By Monday, the pressed yellow petal on his desk was no longer just a token; it was a question. His mind kept returning to her words — We’ve met before. Ten years ago. When it rained. He’d catch himself zoning out in meetings, pen hovering over blueprints while the sound of phantom rain whispered at the edges of his focus.

Tuesday evening, after work, he walked past the station deliberately. No appointment, no train to catch. He stood at Platform 4, staring at the spot where she had been. Without her there, it looked ordinary again — just chipped paint, a steel bench, and the same clock with its smug punctuality. Yet somehow it felt like the place was waiting, too.

On Wednesday night, he pulled out a battered storage box from under his bed — the “old life” box. Inside were loose photographs, ticket stubs, and random items that had survived multiple flat changes. He shuffled through them, looking for something, anything, that connected to a rainy Valentine’s Day ten years ago.

There was a Polaroid of Chika holding a fish twice the size of his arm. A faded map of Tarkwa Bay from a beach trip. Receipts from design competitions. But between 2013 and 2015, there was… nothing. Just a gap, as if those years had been edited out. He frowned. That wasn’t normal.

Why did it feel like someone had cut a scene from his life and taped the edges together so cleanly he almost didn’t notice?

Thursday morning, he finally decided to call his father. Saturday’s promise was too far away.

“Morning, Dad,” he said into the phone.

“Morning, architect,” came the warm, measured reply.

“I’ve been thinking about… the station. Ten years ago. Valentine’s Day. Was there anything that happened?”

Silence hummed on the other end for a few beats too long. “I told you we’d talk Saturday,” Mr. Tunde said. “It’s not something for a quick phone call.”

“Why not?”

“Because some stories need time,” his father replied, in the same tone Amara had used. “And the right place.”

Samuel sighed. “Okay. Saturday.”

He hung up, but the conversation didn’t leave him; it curled up in the back of his mind like a cat refusing to be ignored.

Friday came again, the one Amara had promised. Samuel arrived early, carrying two takeaway coffees — because small offerings were a language, and he wanted to speak it.

The old pedestrian bridge between Platforms 3 and 4 was quieter than the main walkways. Its metal railings were chipped and faded, the boards underfoot groaning slightly with each step. The height gave them a view of both platforms — a place between comings and goings.

She was already there, leaning against the railing, looking down at the tracks like they were telling her secrets. Today, she wore a mustard-yellow cardigan over her dress, hair loose around her shoulders.

“You’re early,” she said, smiling when she saw him.

“So are you.” He handed her the coffee. “Peace offering. In case you were going to make me wait.”

She accepted it, wrapping her fingers around the cup. “Thank you. I don’t drink coffee often.”

“You can pretend for today,” he teased, and she laughed — a soft, genuine sound that curled into his chest.

They walked along the bridge, sipping in unhurried silence, watching trains arrive and leave. When she spoke, her voice was almost casual.

“You used to like walking here,” she said. “The height. You said it made the noise feel organised.”

Samuel glanced at her. “That… sounds like me.”

“It was you,” she said with certainty. “That day, before the rain started, we stood here for almost an hour.”

He let that sink in. “What were we talking about?”

She smiled faintly. “You told me you wanted to design a building that made people feel the way a good book did — like they could live inside it for years and never get bored.”

He blinked. That was something he still said to clients now. The memory fluttered close, almost within reach, but then it slipped away again.

They found a bench on the far end of the bridge. Below them, a train rattled past, the wind lifting strands of her hair.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“How do you know so much about me if we only met once?”

She looked at him for a long moment, then reached into her bag and pulled out a small envelope. Inside were neatly folded sheets of paper. “Because I kept these.”

He unfolded one. The handwriting was his — unmistakably his. The date at the top read: 14 February, 2015. The letter began:

Amara, I don’t know why I’m writing this when we barely know each other…

The words blurred for a second as his chest tightened. He scanned lines about laughter, about rain, about feeling like he’d known her for years. It was… tender. And completely alien. He had no memory of writing it.

“I gave you that letter the night we met,” she said. “After the accident, you forgot. I kept it.”

“Accident?” he echoed.

She hesitated. “Next time,” she said softly. “Not today.”

They sat in the afternoon light until the coffee cooled. He asked her about her work; she told him about a student who insisted the capital of France was “Eiffel Tower” and refused to be corrected. She asked about his projects; he described a residential design in Lekki that was fighting him at every turn.

It felt easy, but under the ease was a weight — the shape of something important yet to be said. Every so often, her gaze would drift, and he could tell she was elsewhere, in a memory he couldn’t access.

When they parted, she handed him a small notebook. “Write in it,” she said. “About your week. About what you dream. Bring it next Friday.”

“Homework?” he teased.

“Clues,” she said.

That night, he dreamed again of rain. This time it was heavier, pounding on a tin roof above a station. He was standing under the pedestrian bridge, holding someone’s hand tightly — so tightly his knuckles were white. There was a voice, laughing through the rain, saying, Don’t run.

He woke with his heart hammering. The notebook lay on his bedside table. Without thinking, he wrote the dream down.

He didn’t know if it was a memory or just his mind rearranging her words into something that felt like truth.