Like every other teenage girl in her final year of secondary school, Zina had her own dreams. She knew what kind of man she wanted — tall, thoughtful, someone who would let her grow and be soft. Her idea of love came wrapped in pages of novels and borrowed CDs from her cousin's room.
She was seventeen, but some days, she felt a hundred years old.
"What are your plans after graduation?" Zitel, her best friend, asked as they gathered their books, the classroom half-empty now that school was nearly over.
Zina smiled faintly. "University. I want to get into Adimma or Nsukka."
Zitel muttered, "You're lucky." Her voice broke just slightly.
Zina turned, her brows furrowed. "Why would you say that?"
Zitel bit her lip, but the tears came anyway. "They're marrying me off."
Zina's mouth parted, but no words came. A chill ran through her. Suddenly, the air around her didn't feel like her own.
---
What Zina didn't know was that her own path had already been decided for her.
One Sunday afternoon, while the wind flirted with the curtains and birds whistled like they had nothing to grieve, a man she barely knew walked into their compound. He came with a familiar woman from the village — someone Zina used to greet politely, never knowing she was scouting a wife for her brother.
They exchanged pleasantries, sat in the parlor, and when her mother called her in, Zina saw the truth waiting on the man's face.
"Do you like him?" her mother asked, softly but with expectation.
"No," Zina replied without hesitation. "I'm not interested in marriage."
The guests left quietly, her mother apologizing for the inconvenience.
But later that evening, when her father came home, the softness was gone.
"You said no to a good man?" he asked.
"I don't like him, and I'm not ready," Zina replied, voice shaking but clear.
"You will learn to like him," her father said without looking at her. "You're a woman now. Act like one."
Zina cried for hours that night.
She cried for the boy she hadn't met, the admission letter she hadn't received, the dreams that wouldn't see light.
---
The lace dress didn't fit.
A little loose at the waist, a little too heavy on the shoulders. The makeup artist didn't ask her what she wanted — just smeared red on her lips like sealing a deal.
Her father didn't smile. Her mother's eyes were soft but unreadable. Her aunties ululated and clapped like they were shipping her off to paradise, not handing her over to a stranger.
No one asked if she was ready.
The groom — Daniel — barely looked at her. He was older, quiet, successful, the kind of man fathers respected. He had promised, "I'll take care of her." And somehow, that was enough.
When they arrived at his house, he didn't ask about her day or her favorite color. He turned off the lights and asked only one question:
"Are you still a virgin?"
Before she could gather her breath, he whispered, "We're husband and wife now. You should act like it."
She didn't cry. Not because she was brave. But because she didn't know where to begin.
---
The marriage lasted five months.
There were no broken bones. Just broken words.
No yelling, just silence. Accusations. Suspicion.
He said she was "too proud," then "too cold," then "too cursed." He said she didn't act like a wife. That she didn't know how to respect a man.
He stopped coming home some nights. She stopped asking questions.
One morning, she came outside and found her bags on the front porch. The gate was locked behind her.
"Tell her to go back where she came from," Daniel told the gateman, who wouldn't meet her eyes.
---
She went home.
Her father didn't ask if she was hungry or safe.
He seized her phone before she could call her mother.
"You embarrassed me," he said. "He said you were disrespectful — and I believe him."
She stood there, silent, as he broke her SIM cards in half. The sound reminded her of bones.
---
The room she was given at home had no fan. No curtain. No one asked if she was okay. The villagers whispered her name like it was a warning. "She couldn't even keep a man," one woman hissed in the market. A man whistled, "Na so marriage dey hungry am."
Only her mother stood by her. Quiet hands. Steady support.
The rest of the world treated her like a rumor.
Then came the letter.
> You've been offered provisional admission into Adimma State University.
She held it to her chest like oxygen. Like God had not forgotten her after all.
---
She folded her pain between semesters, zipped it into her school bag, and boarded a bus to her future — not to become someone else, but to feel again.
Even if love would keep breaking her open.