CHAPTER ONE
May didn't hear the door close the morning Nathaniel walked away.
She only felt it — a sharp, invisible pull in her chest, like someone had tugged a thread connected directly to her soul.
Later, she would learn the truth:
soul-bonds do not break when people do.
But that morning, all she knew was pain.
The sunlight filtered weakly through her curtains in East Legon, painting her room gold. Everything around her still smelled like him — the faint scent of sandalwood from his cologne, the warmth of his touch on the pillow beside hers, the ghost of his laughter hanging somewhere in the air.
He was gone, but the room didn't know it yet.
May sat on the edge of her bed, hands trembling, staring at the message he left on her phone.
"I need space, May. Maybe we rushed everything."
"Don't call."
Space?
How could he ask for space when he had taken half of her with him?
Her heart wasn't beating normally; it was tugging, pulling, reaching — as if searching for something it had already lost. The sensation was soft but unmistakable, a thread tightening inside her chest. A warmth, a pulse, a call.
Nathaniel.
She pressed a hand to her heart.
"Why does it feel like you're still here?"
Her phone buzzed.
For a second, hope lit her eyes — but it was only Ama, her best friend.
Ama: "May, talk to me. You've gone quiet."
May typed nothing. She couldn't. Her throat felt tight, heavy, like it would collapse if she tried to speak.
Because the truth was simple and terrifying:
She could still feel him.
Not emotionally.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Every heartbeat carried an echo of his.
Every inhale whispered his name.
Every silence felt like he was standing right behind her, even though he was miles away.
She felt him moving.
Walking.
Somewhere — she couldn't explain how she knew — near the old footbridge at Medina.
It didn't make sense.
Nothing made sense.
They had broken up.
He had left.
So why was her soul still reaching for him like he was hers?
May stood up slowly, trying to breathe through the ache. But the moment her feet hit the floor, her vision blurred — and a rush of images flashed in her mind.
Nathaniel's hands tightening around a railing.
His chest rising with fast breaths.
His eyes closed like he was fighting something unseen.
A surge of emotion hit her — sharp, burning, overwhelming.
Fear.
His fear.
Her knees buckled, and she grabbed the wall.
"No… no, this cannot be real."
The soul-bond.
Her grandmother had warned her about it once — a rare, ancient connection that ties two hearts beyond time, distance, and reason.
A bond that never chooses wrong… but always demands painful truth.
She had laughed back then.
But she wasn't laughing now.
Because the boy who claimed he didn't want her?
The boy who walked away?
The boy who broke her heart with a text?
He was hurting too.
Somewhere.
Right now.
And she could feel every breath of it.
May grabbed her bag, shaky but determined.
The bond was pulling again — urgent, magnetic, impossible to ignore.
"I'm coming, Nathel," she whispered.
Even if he didn't want her.
Even if he told her to stay away.
Even if her heart had to break all over again…
She needed to know why the bond refused to let go.
And why he couldn't either.