By Owie Aideyan
The Beginning of Us
The first time Kemi saw Tayo, it was at a hospital waiting room in Ibadan. She was clutching her mother’s test results, silently praying, when a stranger offered her a bottle of water. “You look like you need this,” he said softly. His voice was steady, but his eyes betrayed exhaustion.
They struck up a conversation in hushed tones. He was there for his younger brother, battling sickle cell. She was there for her mother, fighting breast cancer. Pain was the soil from which their friendship grew.
By the end of that week, Tayo was texting her every morning. “Have you eaten?” “How’s your mum today?” Little by little, he became the person she reached for in the dark.
When her mother died two months later, it was Tayo who held her hand at the graveside. He didn’t speak. He just stood there, a quiet presence in a storm of grief.
“I think I’m falling for you,” he told her one rainy night on the hospital rooftop. She laughed through tears. “You’re crazy.” But she felt the same.
Building a Life Together
They married two years later in a small ceremony at Bodija. They had no money for a big wedding, but what they lacked in luxury they made up for in dreams.
Kemi got a job at a radio station. Tayo started a small logistics company with two motorcycles and sheer will. Life was hard, but they believed in each other.
At night, they would sit on their tiny balcony, eating bread and akara, talking about the future. “One day we’ll move to Lagos,” Tayo would say. “We’ll have a real office. A real home.”
They had two children in quick succession. Kemi juggled motherhood and work while Tayo’s business grew. He was constantly on the road, expanding routes, taking risks. “It’s all for us,” he’d say.
But somewhere in the middle of their hustle, something began to shift.
The Secret Life
The first sign came as a whisper — a perfumed receipt in his glove compartment. A woman’s bracelet on the dashboard. Kemi tried to ignore it. “He’s just busy,” she told herself. “He’s stressed.”
Then came the late-night calls. The locked phone. The weekends “in Abuja” that stretched longer each time.
One evening, while folding his laundry, she found an unsent letter in his jacket pocket. It was addressed to a woman named “Amara.” The words inside burned her eyes: “You are my peace. You are my true home.”
Her hands shook as she put the letter back. She didn’t confront him. Instead, she carried the secret like a stone in her chest. For weeks, she smiled at family dinners, helped with homework, hosted his friends — all while her heart cracked quietly.
The Confrontation
It was their 10th wedding anniversary. She cooked his favourite meal, wore the dress he loved, set the table for two. He came home late, smelling of perfume that wasn’t hers.
She couldn’t hold it anymore. “Who is Amara?” she asked.
He froze. For a moment, silence filled the room like smoke. Then he sighed and sat down. “Kemi, I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was supposed to be just business.”
Her voice trembled. “You wrote she is your true home.”
Tayo buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I lost myself.”
In that moment, Kemi felt something break — not just trust, but the years of invisible labor she had poured into their love. She packed a small bag that night and took the children to her sister’s house.
The Letter I Never Sent
Weeks later, she sat at her sister’s dining table and wrote a letter to Tayo. She poured out everything she had swallowed — the hurt, the betrayal, the quiet sacrifices.
But she never sent it.
Instead, she folded the letter and placed it in her journal. It was her way of burying the old version of herself. She began therapy, returned to school for a master’s degree, and started a radio segment called “Straight from the Heart,” where people shared their own stories of love and loss.
Listeners called in, weeping, thanking her for giving voice to their pain. Her story had become a lifeline for others.
Today, Kemi still hasn’t gone back to Tayo. She co-parents with grace but keeps her heart guarded. Sometimes, she re-reads the letter she never sent. It reminds her of a woman who loved fiercely and learned painfully.
Her closing lines always bring her to tears:
“I gave you my rain and my sun, my hope and my youth. You gave me your smile and your betrayal. But I am still here. I am still light. And I will love again, but never at the cost of myself.”
That letter, unseen by him, became her freedom. And on the “Straight from the Heart” page, her story now reaches thousands — proof that even the deepest wounds can grow wings.
