Behind me, my wife lay in bed. She had done her usual ritual — a quick peck on my cheek, a mumbled “Goodnight, babe” — and within minutes, she was snoring softly, her back turned to me, the distance between us wider than the entire bed.
I turned and studied her for a long time.
She looked peaceful. Untroubled. As if the conversation we had — the one where I had laid out my frustrations, my fears, my suspicions — had never happened.
Does she even care? I wondered. Or have I become invisible?
I turned back to my desk. Picked up my phone. Opened WhatsApp.
My thumb hovered over Inemesit’s name.
Then I typed.
“Hi.”
The reply came within seconds.
“Good evening, sir.”
I stared at the screen.
Good evening, sir.
Not Oga. Not Emmanuel.
Sir.
The most formal, the most distant, the most safe greeting she could have chosen.
Something had shifted.
“How are you doing?” I typed.
“I am fine, sir. Thank you for today. I really appreciate it.”
Short. Formal. Correct.
I felt a knot form in my stomach.
“Inemesit, are you okay? You seem… different.”
A pause. Then:
“I am okay, sir. Just thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“About earlier. When you stopped me. I thought… I thought you would be happy. I thought the only way to pay you back was to give you what you have always yearned for. But I thought wrong.”
I read the message twice.
“Inemesit, you don’t have to pay me back for anything. I did what I did today because I wanted to. Not because I expected something in return.”
“I know that now,” she replied. “But all my adult life, I have been configured to show appreciation with my body. It is all I know. When someone is kind to me, I think… this is what they want. This is the only currency I have.”
My throat tightened.
“That is not true,” I typed. “You have so much more to offer than your body. You are intelligent. You are kind. You are a good mother. You are a survivor. Those things have value. Real value.”
“I need to unlearn a lot of things,” she said. “Things that are currently occupying my head. Things that men have put there.”
“Then unlearn them,” I said. “One day at a time.”
“Thank you,” she wrote. “For seeing me. For today. For everything.”
I stared at the screen.
Then she wrote something that made my heart stop.
“I am scared, Emmanuel.”
“Scared of what?”
“Of falling in love with you.”
The words hung in the air like smoke.
“I know exactly how this will end,” she continued. “I have seen it before. I will open my heart, and you will close yours. I will give you everything, and you will give me nothing but memories. And in the end, I will be alone. Like I have always been alone.”
I sent her a “shush 
” emoji.
“I would think the same thing if I were you,” I typed. “But you don’t know how this will end. Because you have never been with someone like me before.”
“Goodnight, Emmanuel,” she wrote.
“Goodnight, Inemesit.”
She was about to go. I could feel it. The conversation was slipping away, dissolving into the darkness like morning mist.
And then something took over me.
Something bold. Something reckless. Something that could ruin everything — or change everything.
I typed.
Then deleted.
Typed again.
Deleted again.
The third time, I closed my eyes, pressed send, and opened my eyes slowly.
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
I stared at the screen.
Read. 9:03 PM.
The reply came.
An emoji.
“
“
Nothing else.
But she stayed online.
The little “typing…” indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared.
She was thinking. She was fighting. She was scared.
I could not bear to watch.
“Don’t stress your head, okay,” I typed. “If you are not comfortable with the idea, then let us pretend I never asked you. But if you need more time to think about it, you can take as much time as you wish.”
I took a deep breath.
“I will be waiting.”
“Sweet dreams, dearie.”
I closed the app. Locked the phone. Placed it face-down on my desk.
Behind me, my wife snored softly, oblivious to the earthquake happening just a few feet away.
I stared at the wall and listened to the silence.
The night was long.
Tonight, I have deadlines to deliver.
But tomorrow, let’s see what it holds…
TO BE CONTINUED…
🔥💖OGA I WAN KNACK💖 – EPISODE TEN – A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE 💖🔥
