No miracle. No big breakthrough. Just a moment that doesn't hurt.The morning after I wrote the letter, I didn't feel lighter. I didn't feel healed. I felt emptied—and that was something. My anger had gone quiet, like a fan switched off mid-spin. It was still there, humming faintly beneath the surface, but it wasn't screaming anymore. Just… waiting.
I hadn't planned to leave my room. I was content to rot quietly under my bedsheet, but then there was a knock—gentle, hesitant.
I froze. Not the landlord. Not today again.
"Aunty Ada? You dey house?"
The voice cracked something in me.
Nneka. My cousin. Twenty. Half-woman, half-WhatsApp GIFs. I hadn't seen her in almost a year, since she moved to Ibadan with her mom. I didn't know she was in town. I pulled the door open. She beamed. "Ah-ah. You don lose weight o. Hunger dey show you pepper?" I laughed before I could stop myself. The sound felt foreign in my throat. Unpracticed. She pushed past me with small nylon bags and that noisy, beautiful energy only young people still have. Bread. Egg. Pure water. Malt. Gala. "Before you form hard girl," she said, "sit down, chop something."
I did. I sat. I chewed slowly. She talked—school gist, her new crush, the boarding house matron who always smelled like onions. She was chaos and warmth, noise and care, all wrapped in one, and for the first time in weeks, the room felt alive.
"I know say things hard," she said at one point, her voice lower, eyes gentler. "But you still be my favorite person." I blinked. "Why?"
"Because you no fake am. You dey always talk true, even when the truth na fire."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. She reached into her pocket and handed me ₦1,500. "It's not much," she said. "But use it buy indomie or airtime or whatever your heart needs."
I wanted to refuse. Pride stretched its throat.
But I took it. Because sometimes, surviving means accepting small mercies from unexpected places. Before she left, she hugged me. Tight. The kind of hug that says, I see you. I may not understand, but I see you. When the door closed behind her, I sat in silence. No miracle had happened. I was still broke. Still stuck. Still angry. But the ache was quieter. The shadows weren't pressing in as tightly, and in a world that hadn't given me much, a warm meal and a hug from someone who still saw me—that was something.
Not salvation. But mercy. Small. Quiet. Real.