The city had quieted since Dimeji left.
Amara could still hear the street vendors calling out prices, the hum of the traffic, the rhythm of daily life. But inside her, something had gone silent — a softness that used to echo when Dimeji leaned in close, when he laughed, when he whispered her name like a vow.
He had been gone for almost a month now. Lagos had taken him — not forever, just for the residency — but it still felt like absence had moved in, renting space inside her chest.
She didn't cry. Not really.
Instead, she made herself busy. She tried new things — started attending poetry readings on weekends, cooked meals she'd never dared before, and began teaching a few young girls in the neighborhood how to bake. But everything she did, everything she touched, still held the scent of him.
Especially the rain.
Every drizzle felt like a memory trying to climb back into her bones.
And then one quiet Thursday morning, she opened the kiosk early and found a package tucked between the bags of flour and the fresh loaves. Her name was scrawled across the top in Dimeji's unmistakable handwriting — long, slanted, always slightly rushed like his thoughts were spilling too fast for his hand to catch.
Inside, a letter.
Her breath caught. Her fingers shook as she unfolded it.
> My fire in the storm,
Lagos is loud. Busier than I remembered. I get swallowed by it some days, and other days I rise like smoke above it. I miss you most in the mornings — the way you always reach for the kettle before opening your eyes, like your body already knows what warmth it needs.
I've painted seven pieces. All of them are about you, though the critics would never know. I try not to paint your face — it feels too sacred, too soon — but your spirit is in every brushstroke. In every corner of color.
You're with me, Amara. Every single day. And not even this city's chaos can drown the way I love you.
- D.
Amara held the letter close to her chest, as if it could fill the space he'd left behind.
---
That night, for the first time since he left, she didn't sleep alone.
Not really.
She laid his letter beside her on the pillow, folded neatly, with the edges slightly frayed from where her thumbs had traced the words.
The next day, she wrote back. A real letter — not a text, not a voice note. She wanted her thoughts to have weight, permanence.
> My stubborn, storm-chasing artist,
The kiosk misses your footsteps. I've started saving the last bun at the end of the day — the one you always said tasted best when it was almost burnt.
I walk by the little bookstore we never entered and think, 'We should've gone in.' I think of all the tiny moments we let pass because we thought we had time. And maybe we still do. But I'll never take another one for granted.
I've been sewing again. Aprons this time. For your students. I hope they're still messy with paint and laughter.
Come back to me with stories, Dimeji. But come back.
Because I am waiting. Always.
Yours,
Amara.
She sealed it with trembling fingers, kissed the envelope lightly, and mailed it the next morning.
---
In Lagos, Dimeji stood in his studio, surrounded by canvases that reeked of oil and longing. The one he worked on now was different. It was not abstract. It was her — not clearly, not perfectly, but wholly.
He had painted her back — the way it curved slightly as she leaned over dough, the slope of her neck, the gentle fire she wore like skin.
The piece was called "Patience" — because that's what she had always given him, without question.
---
The day his gallery preview opened, Dimeji was a storm of nerves. People wandered through the space, sipping wine, nodding thoughtfully, saying words like texture and emotionally raw. But Dimeji didn't hear any of it.
He was waiting.
Not for applause.
For a message. A sign. Anything.
It came at 9:37 PM. A voice note.
Amara (Voice Note):
"I saw a little boy today drawing clouds in the dust on my stall's counter. I asked him what he was making. He said, 'Rain that brings people home.'
I hope that's what the rain is doing for you.
I hope you're painting your way back to me."
"Come home soon. I miss you in the places I didn't know you'd reached."
He slipped away from the crowd, stepped outside the gallery into the humid night, and looked up at the sky.
No rain.
Not yet.
But he swore he could feel the clouds shifting.
---
Back in Port Harcourt, Amara finished the last of the aprons, packed them into a box, and stared at it like it was a question. Her hands had made something for his world. And she would send it, even if her heart felt like it traveled with it.
That night, she lay in bed with the window cracked open. The sound of rain — soft, steady — wrapped around her like a lullaby.
She smiled, whispered his name into the quiet, and for the first time in weeks, slept without ache.