Naliaka did not remember leaving the hospital.
She drove home through Nairobi's evening traffic on instinct alone, the city sliding past in blurred streaks of light and shadow — headlights, boda horns, vendors folding stalls beneath sodium lamps. Her mind remained behind, suspended in a corridor where Daniel's voice had said what he had never said to her.
You mattered.
The words moved through her like a second pulse.
By the time she reached her aunt's house, night had settled fully. The compound was quiet, bougainvillea dark against the wall, the porch light casting a soft amber pool over familiar stone steps. Inside, the sitting room held its usual stillness — woven cushions, framed photographs, the faint scent of eucalyptus polish her aunt always used.
She sat.
She did not turn on the television. Did not change clothes. Did not move.
Daniel had never stopped loving her.
The truth should have felt impossible. Instead it settled with terrible clarity, aligning every silence, every restraint, every measured word since her return. She pressed her palms together between her knees, staring at the tiled floor.
"I didn't know," she whispered to the empty room.
The doorbell rang.
The sound struck through her thoughts, sharp and immediate. She startled — breath catching — and looked toward the door as if waking abruptly from deep water.
No one visited unannounced.
Her aunt was still in hospital.
A flicker of unease moved through her as she stood and crossed the room. The bell sounded again, lighter this time, almost impatient. She reached the door, hand pausing briefly on the handle before pulling it open.
Lina stood on the threshold.
For one suspended second Naliaka's mind refused the image — Nairobi night behind her friend instead of London rain, warm air instead of winter coats. Then recognition surged fully into place.
"Lina?"
Her friend's face broke into the familiar, steady smile she had carried across years and continents — calm eyes, travel-worn softness, braids pulled back loosely from her temples. A canvas overnight bag hung from her shoulder.
"Hello, Nali," Lina said gently.
The sound of her childhood nickname — unused by anyone else in London, rare even now — broke something open inside her. Naliaka stepped forward without thought and pulled her into an embrace.
Warmth. Real. Immediate.
Lina's arms wrapped around her with quiet certainty, holding without pressure, as if she had always known this moment would be needed. The scent of travel — airport air, fabric, a trace of familiar perfume — grounded her abruptly in the present.
"You're here," Naliaka said into her shoulder, disbelief threading the words.
"Of course I am," Lina replied.
She drew back slightly, hands still resting on Naliaka's arms, gaze moving over her face with perceptive care. Whatever she saw there erased the remnants of her smile.
"You've seen him," Lina said.
It was not a question.
Naliaka's throat tightened. "How did you—"
"You only look like this for one reason," Lina said softly.
The precision of it — the knowing earned across years of shared confidences in small London kitchens and late-night conversations — removed the last of Naliaka's composure. She stepped aside wordlessly, letting Lina enter.
The door closed behind them.
They stood facing each other in the quiet sitting room — past and present converging: Nairobi walls, London history, the love neither of them had ever stopped naming.
Lina set her bag down slowly. "Tell me," she said.
The invitation was simple. Absolute. Safe.
Naliaka felt the truth rising again — Daniel's voice, the corridor, the unbearable confirmation of what she had once feared and now knew.
Her voice broke as it came.
"He never stopped loving me."
Lina did not look surprised.
She stepped forward and took Naliaka's hands, steadying them between her own.
"I know," she said. "You didn't either."
The words landed with quiet inevitability — not accusation, not comfort, but recognition.
And for the first time since hearing Daniel's truth, Naliaka allowed herself to stop holding it alone.