The morning after Adaora's quiet surrender, Jane woke before the sun.
She sat by the window wrapped in her shawl, watching the horizon turn from charcoal to coral, waiting for the moment the sea would catch the first light.
She had imagined this moment differently—some kind of peaceful resolution, the silence of closure. But there was no such stillness in her heart.
There was only the ache of knowing someone else had been broken by the same love that was healing her.
Her parents noticed the change in her.
"You haven't smiled in days," her mother said gently, handing her a bowl of warm pap.
Jane stirred the porridge absentmindedly. "I don't know if I belong here anymore."
Her father, who rarely spoke of matters of the heart, looked up from his paper. "You came here to rest, not to run."
She nodded. "I also came here to forget. But I've remembered too much."
Her mother gave her a long look. "Sometimes remembering is what helps you become whole again."
Later that day, Chuka came by with Ezinne.
The little girl ran to Jane as if nothing had changed.
"I picked this for you!" she beamed, holding out a crooked seashell with faded pink swirls.
Jane smiled and took it carefully. "It's beautiful."
Ezinne's eyes narrowed in mischief. "Papa said you might be leaving. Is it true?"
Jane's chest tightened. She looked at Chuka, who said nothing—just watched her with a quiet fear in his eyes.
"I haven't decided yet," Jane said softly.
The little girl frowned. "I don't want you to go."
Neither did Chuka.
But Jane needed space. To think. To breathe. To remember who she was before all of this.
"I'm going to the city for a while," she told Chuka as they stood by the garden gate. "Just a few weeks. I need to clear my head."
He nodded slowly, even as his eyes pleaded with her not to disappear.
"Will you come back?" he asked.
She took his hand in hers—firm, real, warm. "I don't want to leave to forget you. I just want to leave to remember me."
Two weeks later, Jane stood by the same beach, suitcase at her side, waiting for the taxi that would take her back to the city.
The villagers were busy with their lives. No one paid her much attention. And that felt strangely comforting.
Chuka arrived with Ezinne in tow, the little girl holding back tears as she hugged Jane one last time.
"Will you write to me?" Ezinne asked.
"I'll do better," Jane promised. "I'll visit. Often."
Chuka looked at her, eyes full of things he wouldn't say.
And she knew in that moment: he would wait.
Not out of desperation. But because sometimes love—real love—waits with dignity, not demands.
As the taxi drove away, the sea came into view one last time. The waves crashed gently along the rocks, eternal, unbothered.
Jane smiled faintly, fingers gripping the seashell Ezinne had given her.
She didn't know what the future held.
But she knew this:
Some tides pull you in.
Some push you away.
And some… wait until you're ready to swim again.