Episode 2: The Space Between Us
The air inside the apartment had grown still — not peaceful, but heavy.
Ifeoma stood by the window, her arms folded tight across her chest, as if holding herself together. Behind her, Tunde lingered, silent, hands deep in his pockets like he wanted to fix something he didn’t know how to name.
He’d confessed.
He’d told her about Ama.
A woman he hadn’t meant to fall for.
But he did.
“I should’ve told you earlier,” he said, finally. “But I didn’t want to lose you.”
She turned, her face blank.
“You didn’t want to lose me, but you started something with her anyway?”
His lips parted, then shut. He had no defense — just guilt in his eyes and a heart that no longer fit in her hands.
“How long?” she asked.
“Three months,” he replied. “But it only got serious a few weeks ago.”
“And yet… you still flew here.”
Tunde swallowed hard.
“I owed you this — a face-to-face conversation. You deserved that.”
She laughed again — that painful, sarcastic sound that carried years of unmet expectations.
“No, Tunde. I deserved honesty before you started tasting someone else’s lips.”
Silence fell again.
Not the comfortable kind that lovers share, but the awkward space between what’s said and what’s felt.
“Do you love her?” she asked suddenly.
He didn’t speak.
His silence screamed.
Ifeoma turned back to the window. Outside, Lagos moved on — loud, bright, alive. But inside her, everything stood still. She remembered their beginnings: the voice notes filled with jokes, the video calls where they shared dreams, the first time he flew in and kissed her like she was air and he had been drowning.
She thought they were building something rare — a slow-burn romance that defied distance.
But what they had… had become a detour in his story.
Not the destination.
Tunde stepped closer, reaching for her hand.
“Please, Ife. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for time. Let’s talk this through—”
She pulled away.
“You already made your choice. You can’t love two women and expect one to wait in limbo.”
“But I still care about you—”
“Care?” she snapped, her voice rising now. “Tunde, I don’t need your charity feelings. I needed a man who knew what he wanted.”
Her phone buzzed on the side table. She ignored it.
Her hands trembled slightly — not from fear, but from the adrenaline of grief. Because that’s what this was now. Not a breakup.
But a death.
The death of a dream, of midnight whispers, of mango-sweet kisses and journal entries that started with “When Tunde comes back…”
He had come back.
But not for her.
“You should go,” she said quietly.
“Ife—please. I didn’t mean to break us.”
“But you did.”
She turned to face him again, her eyes now glassy but fierce.
“You broke the ‘us’ I believed in. And that’s something even your sorry can’t glue back together.”
He stood still, helpless, his duffel bag still in the corner — untouched since he arrived.
“I don’t hate you, Tunde,” she added. “I just can’t trust the man you’ve become.”
He nodded slowly.
Walked to his bag.
Zipped it closed.
And just like that, the room shifted again — from shared space to a stranger’s final goodbye.
As he walked to the door, she asked the final question she knew her heart needed to hear:
“Did you ever mean it, Tunde? All the things you said. All the nights we planned a future together?”
He paused at the door.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I just didn’t protect it well enough.”
Then he left.
The door shut with the softest click.
But it echoed like thunder in her chest.
© A Coolvalstories Production
Valentine Nkemjika
