The rain had started by evening, soft and steady, tracing silver lines across the windshield.
Kene sat in the driver's seat, waiting. Zara was in a meeting at one of her father's high-end real estate branches. She'd left the car an hour ago without a word—heels clicking, perfume trailing, confident as always.
He stared straight ahead, his hands resting calmly on the wheel, but his mind was drifting.
*To four years ago.*
---
*He was twenty.*
It was Amaka's cough that woke him. Dry, sharp, persistent. The kind of cough that meant something wasn't right.
Their mother had died when he was sixteen. Their father disappeared soon after.
Kene worked two jobs—washing cars by day, carrying cement bags at night. Amaka was just thirteen, her frame too small for the fever that wouldn't go away.
The pharmacist had said 6,000 naira for antibiotics.
He'd only saved 2,300.
That night, Kene sat outside the pharmacy, the faded nylon bag of groceries he couldn't afford tucked under his arm, Amaka's voice echoing in his head.
*"I'm fine, Kene… it's just catarrh."*
But it wasn't. He'd seen that look before. In their mother. Weeks before she died, she'd said the same words — *"I'm fine."*
He remembered gripping the edge of the plastic chair outside the shop, biting his lip so hard he tasted blood. People passed. No one noticed the boy sitting still in the shadows, deciding between pride and survival.
And for a brief second...
He almost stole.
Almost.
The woman had left her car door slightly open. Her purse—just there on the seat. If he moved fast…
He didn't.
Instead, he walked to his boss's one-room shop the next morning and begged—face down, knees on cold tiles, pride forgotten.
The old man gave him 3,000 naira and a warning: *"Don't ever let desperation eat your conscience, boy. You won't get it back."*
He never did.
—
Back in the present, Kene didn't realize Zara had returned to the car until she quietly opened the door and slid into the back seat this time.
"You okay?" he asked, surprised by her change of position.
She didn't answer at first. Just looked out the window. Then:
"I hate this life sometimes," she whispered.
He glanced at her through the rearview mirror. "You mean the rich, flawless one?"
Her laugh was small. Hollow.
"You think money fixes everything," she said. "It doesn't. It just… hides the cracks better."
Silence.
Then she added, voice almost childlike, "Do you ever wish you could start over? As someone else?"
He met her eyes in the mirror. "Every day. But I still wake up as me."
Zara shifted forward slightly, elbows on her knees. The rain fell harder now, beating rhythmically against the roof like it was drumming out their truths.
"Do you have anyone?" she asked. "A girlfriend?"
Kene paused. "No. Never really had the time."
"Would you make time?" she murmured.
He didn't answer right away.
Then softly: "If it was worth it."
Their eyes met again. And this time, the silence between them wasn't just thick.
It was *charged*.
They were no longer just driver and passenger.
Something was shifting.
Quietly.
Dangerously.
Zara was the first to look away, but not before something flickered behind her lashes. Vulnerability? Curiosity? Regret?
She leaned back into the seat, drawing in a slow breath.
"Pull over," she said suddenly.
Kene raised a brow but obeyed, guiding the car to a quiet curb beneath a row of dim streetlights.
The rain had softened to a drizzle, the drops tapping gently on the windshield.
Zara shifted to the front seat beside him.
"Tell me something real," she said, voice low.
Kene turned slightly. "Like what?"
"Anything. No filters. No careful answers."
He studied her for a moment, then exhaled.
"I think… I've been angry for a long time," he said. "At life. At people who leave. At not being enough."
Zara's face softened.
"I used to think money was the answer to that kind of anger," she whispered. "Now I know it just distracts you from it."
Kene nodded. "The anger doesn't go away. You just get better at hiding it."
Another silence.
Then she said, "I've never told anyone this, but… when I was fourteen, I ran away from home."
He turned sharply.
"My dad had just slapped me for something small. Something stupid. I remember thinking, *This is not my life. This can't be my life.* So I left. I slept in a hotel lobby that night, pretending I was waiting for someone. I lasted twelve hours before I was picked up."
"Why'd you go back?" he asked quietly.
She blinked. "Because I didn't know where else to go."
Kene looked at her for a long moment, as if seeing past the flawless skin, the expensive perfume, the attitude. What he saw made his voice softer than before.
"You're not who I thought you were."
"And who did you think I was?"
"A spoiled girl with daddy's credit card."
Zara gave a small smile. "You're not wrong. But that's not all I am."
Lightning flashed in the distance. She looked out the window, as if ashamed of how much she'd said.
Kene's voice broke the quiet. "I don't know what this is between us."
"Neither do I," she said. "But I feel it."
"Me too."
And for a second, just one suspended heartbeat, they didn't speak. Didn't move. Just sat there, breathing the same charged air.
Zara reached for the door handle.
"I should go inside," she murmured.
"Yeah."