The room I walked out of
The rules from last year worked. A story that changed, an address that moved, and a bus I got on instead.
I am writing this so I remember the rules work. A boy, online, three weeks of talking, a photo, a voice note, a video call that he kept cancelling. Camera problems. Then: come today. Then the address, in a part of Owerri off the Aba road that I do not know. Then, when I said daylight and public, a long silence, and then: my cousin will be there too, is that a problem?
That was the sentence. Rule four. The story changed.
I had the Nokia in my pocket and the smartphone at home and E. had the address, and I still nearly went, because he was handsome and because three weeks is a long time to be talked to kindly. I stood at the bus stop for ten minutes. Then I got on the bus going the other way and rode it to the end of the line and back, which cost me a hundred and fifty naira and possibly my life the other way round.
I do not know that it was kito. I will never know. That is the thing they do not tell you: the rules do not give you certainty, only odds. E.'s friend in Lagos took the bus toward. I took the bus away. Same city, same year, two phones.