Chapter Three: The Snap
Samuel’s sanity began to fray. He started talking to himself. Pacing his room. Typing long, unsent text messages to Chiamaka.
He’d scroll through her pictures, zooming in on her smile, then zoom out to see the man beside her. In his mind, he saw the man laughing at him, mocking him. He heard her voice saying, “You were just a stepping stone.”
Then one day, he walked into a chemist’s shop in Otukpo and asked for sleeping pills. The pharmacist, suspecting something, gave him a multivitamin instead. That night, he laid on his bed thinking of ways to make her feel what he felt.
Closure. That was all he needed. Or so he told himself.
One rainy Friday evening, he packed a small bag, withdrew his last ₦85000, and boarded a night bus to Abuja. It was a long journey. He didn’t sleep. He stared out the window, playing out scenarios in his mind—some ended with apologies and tears, others ended in blood.
He arrived at her mother’s house in Gwarinpa early the next morning. He walked in unnoticed.
The moment Chiamaka saw him at the door, she froze.
“Samuel? What are you doing here?”
She tried to close the door, but he forced it open with a hard push.
