~ A GENTLE DRIFT….
1350 Words
For some couple of months she had to lay low…
November arrived gently, almost deceptively calm
Sunlight filtered through Mercy’s curtains in thin, patient lines, stretching across her desk and the stack of unread notes she had promised herself she would study. For a moment, she stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the distant sounds of the neighborhood coming alive vendors calling out, a motorcycle passing, her mother moving around in the kitchen.
Everything felt ordinary.
That was the strange part.
After nights filled with heavy thoughts and memories she could not silence, the simplicity of the morning felt unfamiliar. There was no buzzing phone. No dramatic confrontation. No sharp ache of panic. Just quiet.
But quiet, she was learning, could still hold temptation.
Her phone lit up around noon.
Christopher.
“Are you free today?”
Mercy stared at the message longer than necessary. She had classes. Two lectures she couldn’t really afford to miss. An assignment due next week. A normal day laid out in front of her.
And yet.
Her fingers hovered before she typed back.
“Maybe. Why?”
The reply came almost instantly.
“I just want to see you. No pressure. We can just talk.”
Just talk.
The simplicity of it settled something inside her. No grand declarations. No emotional intensity. Just… presence.
She told herself it was harmless.
By the time she dressed for school, the idea had already formed quietly in her mind. She would attend the first lecture. After that, she could leave. It wasn’t entirely irresponsible. She deserved a small break. She had been carrying too much for too long.
At least, that’s what she told herself.
Campus felt the same as it always did crowded corridors, scattered laughter, groups of students moving in clusters. Mercy walked through it all with a strange sense of detachment, as if she were slightly removed from the rhythm of everything.
She tried to focus during the lecture, but her mind drifted.
Christopher’s steady voice from the night before replayed in her memory. The way he hadn’t pushed. The way he had simply been there.
There was something calming about that.
When the lecture ended, she didn’t wait for anyone. She gathered her things slowly, almost carefully, as if giving herself time to reconsider.
She didn’t.
Instead, she walked past the next building, past the courtyard, past the place where she would normally turn for her second class.
Her steps felt deliberate.
She sent Christopher a short message.
“I’m coming.”
His reply was simple.
“Okay.”
No excitement. No overreaction. Just steady.
That steadiness felt safe.
Christopher lived only a short distance from campus, in a quiet residential area where the streets were lined with modest houses and trimmed hedges. When she reached his gate, she paused briefly, adjusting her bag on her shoulder.
This wasn’t dramatic. She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t making a reckless decision.
She was visiting someone who cared about her.
That was all.
He opened the door before she knocked.
“You made it,” he said, a small smile forming.
“I did,” she replied, mirroring his calm tone.
Inside, the house was quiet. A fan hummed softly in the living room. The curtains were drawn halfway, letting in enough light to keep the space warm but not bright.
They sat on opposite ends of the couch at first.
“How was class?” he asked.
“Fine,” she answered. “Normal.”
He nodded. “Normal is good.”
For a while, they just talked. About school. About random stories from his week. About nothing heavy. Nothing complicated.
Mercy felt herself relax in a way she hadn’t expected. There was no tension. No emotional pulling. No pressure to be anything other than present.
Time passed without her noticing.
When she finally checked her phone, her stomach tightened slightly.
6:47 PM.
Her mother would expect her home by now.
She stood up slowly. “I should probably go.”
Christopher glanced at the clock, surprised. “It’s that late?”
She nodded.
“Do you want me to drop you?”
“No, it’s okay,” she said quickly. “I’ll manage.”
But as she stepped outside, a new weight began forming.
She hadn’t planned for this part…
By the time she reached home, the sky had darkened completely. The familiar gate stood before her, unchanged, but she felt different approaching it.
Her mother opened the door before she could knock twice.
“You’re late,” her mother said, not harshly, but firmly.
Mercy swallowed. She hadn’t prepared an explanation.
“Something happened,” she began carefully.
Her mother’s expression shifted immediately. “What?”
Mercy felt the lie form before she fully processed it.
“Chioma had an accident,” she said. “We had to take her to the hospital.”
The words came out smoother than she expected.
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” Mercy replied quickly. “It wasn’t too serious. Just… some stitches.”
The lie grew details on its own.
Her mother exhaled slowly, pressing a hand to her chest. “You should have called me.”
“I know,” Mercy said softly. “It all happened fast.”
Her mother studied her face for a moment, searching for something Mercy hoped she wouldn’t find.
“Go and eat,” her mother finally said. “You look tired.”
“I am,” Mercy replied.
That part wasn’t a lie.
Later that night, alone in her room, Mercy sat on the edge of her bed, replaying everything.
The visit.
The calm.
The ease.
And then the lie.
She didn’t feel dramatic guilt. She didn’t feel overwhelming shame.
Just a quiet awareness.
This was how things started.
Not with explosions.
With small decisions.
She picked up her phone and saw a message from Christopher.
“Did you get home safe?”
“Yes,” she typed back.
A few seconds later:
“I’m glad you came.”
She stared at that sentence for a long time.
So was she.
But she couldn’t ignore the small shift inside her. Skipping class. Lying to her mother. Rearranging her responsibilities around a visit.
It wasn’t reckless.
But it wasn’t entirely harmless either.
She lay back against her pillow, staring at the ceiling again, just like she had that morning.
Today hadn’t been tragic.
It hadn’t been chaotic.
It had been steady.
And yet, she sensed something quietly unfolding beneath the surface.
Mercy wasn’t running from her past.
But she wasn’t fully facing it either.
Christopher felt like comfort. Like something stable she could step into without reopening old wounds. But comfort, she was beginning to realize, still required honesty both with others and with herself.
Her phone buzzed again.
“We can do this slowly,” Christopher wrote. “No pressure.”
She let out a soft breath.
Slowly.
That sounded safe.
But slow didn’t erase consequences.
As the room settled into silence, Mercy understood something small but important:
Healing wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t loud.
It didn’t always announce itself with clarity.
Sometimes it looked like sitting in a quiet room, realizing you had choices.
And for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t reacting.
She was choosing.
Even if she wasn’t entirely sure where those choices would lead.
Outside her window, the night stretched wide and calm. No storms. No whispers. Just stillness.
Mercy closed her eyes, holding onto that steadiness.
Tomorrow, she told herself, she would go to class.
Tomorrow, she would try to balance things better.
Tomorrow, she would be more careful.
For now, she allowed herself the quiet comfort of knowing she had stepped forward not in chaos, not in desperation, but in something slower.
Something uncertain.
Something steady.
And somewhere between the lie she told and the truth she hadn’t yet faced, Mercy felt the faint outline of growth beginning to form.
Perhaps it was maturity or mere self defense against her mother’s harsh scolding , she buried the feeling almost immediately.
- Writer
