Episode 3: Letting Go, Watching Her Move On
The silence between us didn’t happen overnight. It started like a small crack—missed calls, late replies, awkward conversations. But over time, the distance grew into something we couldn’t ignore.
Amara stopped calling every night. She stopped checking up as often. Maybe she was trying to give me space. Maybe she was tired of being the only one holding on. Either way, the love we once shared began to dissolve in the background noise of survival.
I didn’t blame her. I still don’t.
The last real conversation we had was in October 2021. She had sent me a long message. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t desperate. It was honest. She said she didn’t understand what had changed, but she was hurting. That she had always seen me as her future, but now she wasn’t sure if she was even part of mine.
She ended the message with, “If you ever need me, I’m here. But I can’t keep waiting in the dark.”
I didn’t reply.
Not because I didn’t have words, but because none of them could fix my reality. What was I going to say? That I still loved her but had nothing to offer? That I was crashing on someone’s floor, applying to jobs I was overqualified for, and eating once a day?
Two months later, a friend sent me a photo.
It was from Facebook. Amara. Smiling in a dinner dress. Beside her, a tall man with broad shoulders and a fitted blazer. The caption read, “Forever begins now 💍”
I stared at the screen for a long time.
My heart didn’t break. It didn’t have the strength. It just sat there quietly, absorbing the truth.
She had moved on.
A few months later, her traditional wedding pictures surfaced. There she was, radiant in blue and gold, surrounded by family and joy. I saw the man again—her husband. A banker in Owerri, from what I heard. Stable. Responsible. Everything I couldn’t be at the time.
That night, I locked my door, turned off my phone, and wept.
Not because she betrayed me. She didn’t.
Not because I stopped loving her. I hadn’t.
But because I lost her to life. To the kind of adulthood where love isn’t enough. Where rent, bills, and bank alerts speak louder than promises and pillow talk.
Some of my friends tried to console me. “You’ll find another woman,” they said. “She didn’t wait because she didn’t truly love you,” another one claimed.
They were wrong.
Amara loved me deeply. But love doesn’t pay school fees. Love doesn’t solve emergency hospital bills or cover rent when the landlord is banging your door with a carpenter. Love is beautiful, yes. But love is not a financial plan.
It’s been three years now.
I’m doing better. I eventually landed a remote tech job, started earning in dollars, and moved into a small but decent place in Yaba. I even bought a used car last year. Life, in some small way, is starting to feel like something I can control.
But there’s still a part of me that belongs to 2019. That NYSC camp in Obubra. That walk under the stars. That girl with the soft voice and big dreams. I think of her sometimes—when I pass a school with little children in uniforms, or when I see those viral wedding videos on Instagram.
She deserved everything good that came her way. And I pray her husband sees in her the same beauty I did.
As for me, I’ve learned that sometimes love is not about holding on. Sometimes, the purest kind of love is letting go so the one you love can thrive—even if it’s not with you.
I loved her.
But I couldn’t marry her.
And that will remain the quiet ache I carry, even in the loudest victories.
