maybe coming here was just going to layer more things onto him and make him so heavy that he would fold… — Akwaeke Emezi

Maybe she should have known that if he didn’t love God the way she did, then he couldn’t have been the real answer to her prayers. This could have all been a false faith, and now her eyes were being torn open. If there was gratitude to give God for that clarity, that release from a lie, Aima couldn’t quite find it in her to send it up. Right now, she didn’t want to talk to God. All she had was a plate full of bitter silence.

Never mind if she sat out on her balcony at home sometimes and fought the urge to find him again, wondered what they could be like if they hadn’t crashed together the way they had, wondered what could have been in another timeline.

You could be so intimate, so familiar with someone’s skin and flesh and spirit, only to wake up one day and find that it had receded from you, suddenly, like a tide rushing back out into the sea, leaving you with dissolving foam and a damp heart.