The first few days after she left, my phone wasn't just a phone, it was a lifeline.
We only talked in the first few days after she left. She told me she'd found her mother and that she would give me updates. She sent me pictures of her mother's apartment, of the yellow taxis outside her window, of a slice of pizza so big it didn't fit the plate. I told her about school, about Auntie Miriam nagging me to eat more, about the little things that made me think of her.
But the replies started to slow.
First, she'd take hours instead of minutes to respond. Then it became days.
I'd open our chat thread over and over, scrolling through the old messages, re-reading her words like they could somehow make her present again. My last "Hey, how are you?" sat there with a single grey tick for almost a week.
When she finally replied, it was short: Sorry, busy. Talk soon.
"Soon" stretched into weeks.
I kept telling myself she was just adjusting new city and new life. I wanted to believe it wasn't personal. But the truth was, every time my phone buzzed and it wasn't her, I felt a little hollower.
Back in Nairobi, I buried myself in routines. School, homework, sleep, repeat. I thought if I stayed busy enough, I wouldn't notice the absence. But it was everywhere. In the quiet walks home when I used to call her. In the inside jokes I had no one to share with anymore. In the urge to send her a photo or a random thought, only to stop halfway because I knew she might not answer.
But no matter how much I tried to forget, the memories slipped in.
Her laughter echoing in the stairwell.
The way her hair fell across her eyes when she was tired.
The night we sat on the rooftop, our shoulders touching, staring at the lights of Nairobi below us like they were promises.
One night, I sat on my bed staring at our chat, thumb hovering over the keyboard. I typed: I miss you. Then I erased it. Typed it again. Erased it. In the end, I sent nothing. It was easier to stay silent than to risk another grey tick.
Months passed. She didn't block me. She didn't delete me. She just… faded.
Her last message was in July. A simple Hope you're good. No emojis, no warmth. I replied right away, but she never answered.
That's when something in me shifted. If she wasn't going to reach back, I had to learn how to stand without her, but I also knew I couldn't let go completely. Part of me kept the hope alive, tucked away like an ember that refused to die.
Those moments became my ghosts. And the only way I knew to fight them was to give myself a mission. I decided I would leave Nairobi. Not just to escape the city that had become a map of her absence, but to put myself in the kind of place where maybe, just maybe, I could find her again.
Stanford became my obsession. I told myself if I could get there, if I could put an ocean between me and the streets where I kept seeing her face, I'd find a way to trace her. Maybe through records, maybe through connections. I didn't know how. I just knew it was the only thread I had left.