I FOUND LOVE AT LAST
I met Halima during the dry season of my third year in the University of Jos. That dusty harmattan afternoon had no business being romantic, but somehow, it was. She walked past the Fine Arts building where I sat sketching alone, shielding her eyes from the swirling wind with one hand while clutching a textbook with the other. She didn’t notice me, but I noticed her.
Something about her presence lingered even after she disappeared down the hallway. Maybe it was her calmness, or the quiet dignity with which she moved. I didn’t know her name then. I didn’t know anything—but I wanted to.
A few days later, I saw her again in the library. This time, she was hunched over a table, deeply engrossed in a macroeconomics textbook, a green pen in hand and a bottle of kunu by her side. I sat across from her, pretending to read, but mostly watching.
“You’re not turning pages,” she said suddenly, without looking up.
I froze. “What?”
“You’ve been staring at the same page for twenty minutes,” she said, her eyes still fixed on her book.
I laughed, embarrassed. “Guilty. You caught me.”
She looked up and smiled. “Next time, try reading.”
That was the beginning of something I didn’t see coming. We started talking—first casually in the library, then longer conversations outside the Faculty of Social Sciences. She was in her second year, a transfer from Kano. Her dad had been moved to Plateau State for work. We clicked. Not instantly, but steadily—like water filling a jar, slowly but fully.
I was the kind of guy who spoke better with my art than my words. Halima, on the other hand, had this quiet fire in her. She wasn’t loud, but she was intentional. Every word she said carried weight. We spent hours talking about our lives, dreams, frustrations. I told her about my dream of becoming a painter, not just a designer. She told me about her pressure to become a banker, even though her heart wasn’t in it.
There were walks around campus, shared zobo drinks, stolen glances in lectures, and late-night chats about life. My friends teased me. “You don fall,” they said. I had. Hard.
One day, under a mango tree near the female hostel, she asked me, “Do you think friends can fall in love?”
I looked at her. “I think the best love starts with friendship.”
She smiled and looked away. But I saw her fingers twitch, as if they wanted to reach for mine. I didn’t push it. Love doesn’t always need to be rushed.
Just when everything was beginning to feel like a beautiful movie, life hit us with reality.
Her father lost his job. Her fees weren’t paid. She began missing lectures, and her smile faded like a drying stream.
“I might have to drop out,” she said one evening, tears pooling in her eyes. “My mum’s selling her wrappers already.”
I felt helpless. I was barely surviving on a scholarship. But I couldn’t watch her drown.
So I worked.
I sold pencil portraits for ₦1,500 each. I designed event posters, departmental logos, anything. I even entered a national art competition with a painting I titled Her Eyes in Harmattan. It didn’t win first prize, but I got a runner-up grant—₦50,000.
I gave it all to her.
She cried. “You did all this for me?”
“I’d do more if I could,” I said. And I meant it.
We grew closer. I never asked her to be my girlfriend. We just knew we belonged to each other. But the universe wasn’t done testing us.
After second semester, Halima traveled to Kano for the break. She promised to call. At first, she did. Then, silence.
Her messages stopped. My calls went unanswered. Weeks turned into months. I thought I had done something wrong.
Was I not enough?
I buried my pain in art, creating darker pieces. My final year project was a collection titled Absence. Everyone praised it, but each canvas was a cry.
Then, out of nowhere, she called.
“I’m sorry, Ify,” she whispered. “My dad had a stroke. Things got bad. I didn’t want to burden you.”
My heart broke all over again. “When are you coming back?”
She returned that semester. Thinner, quieter, but still Halima. We didn’t talk much about the past. We just picked up where we left off, like two pages of the same book finally meeting again.
After graduation, I moved to Lagos. Halima got posted to Abeokuta for NYSC. We survived on late-night calls and weekend visits. Distance didn’t break us—it refined us. We fought sometimes. Over missed calls, misunderstandings, money. But we never stayed angry for long.
After service, she got a job with a microfinance bank. I worked as a freelance illustrator and part-time printing press designer. We lived in separate rooms in the same compound in Ikorodu—poor, but close.
One night, while making eba in her small kitchen, she said, “Do you ever wonder when we’ll be able to afford a real life?”
I looked at her, flour on her nose, and said, “This is real life. It’s not perfect, but it’s ours.”
She didn’t say anything. Just hugged me from behind. And in that moment, I knew—I wanted her forever.
We got married the next year in Jos. A small church wedding. No event planner. No fancy cars. But everything felt right.
We moved into a one-room flat in Ketu. The ceiling leaked. The mattress was on the floor. But we filled that space with laughter, prayers, and struggle.
She enrolled for ICAN. I launched an online art shop. We burned midnight candles—her with ledgers and formulas, me with digital sketches and email marketing.
We talked about kids. We dreamed of owning a gallery one day. We fought over toothpaste caps. We made up over bowls of amala. We were building something—slowly, but solidly.
Then came the pain that changed everything.
Halima got pregnant.
We were overjoyed. We told our parents, bought baby clothes, downloaded parenting apps. She glowed. I planned to paint her pregnant silhouette as a gift.
Then one Friday, she screamed from the bathroom.
Blood. Too much blood.
We rushed to the hospital.
The doctor came out, shaking his head. “We’re sorry. You lost the baby.”
Everything went still.
Halima didn’t cry immediately. She just stared at the ceiling. I held her hand, willing her to say something. For days, she barely spoke. At night, she’d shake silently in my arms.
One morning, she looked at me and said, “Maybe I’m broken.”
I cupped her face. “You’re not. You’re strong. We lost something precious, but we haven’t lost each other.”
That morning, we cried together. And somehow, that marked the beginning of our healing.
Two years passed.
We didn’t rush another pregnancy. We focused on healing. On growing. She passed her ICAN exams. I got a contract with a foreign brand to design their visual identity. We saved, moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Yaba. I finally opened a small art studio.
We started to live.
One calm Saturday morning, she showed me two pink lines on a test strip.
I dropped my brush. “You’re sure?”
She nodded, smiling, crying. “I’m scared.”
“So am I,” I said. “But we’ll face it together.”
This time, everything went smoothly. She ate like a soldier. I became the Chief Officer of Back Rubs and Night Snacks.
Nine months later, Halima gave birth to a baby girl—our Adaeze.
She looked just like her mother.
Now, six years later, I sit in my gallery in Lekki, watching Halima and Adaeze laugh in the corner. My art hangs on the walls. She now works in a bank’s strategy team. We built this life—not because we had money, or luck, but because we held on when it hurt.
Love didn’t come in roses. It came in dusty harmattan wind, shared pain, and quiet choices. It came in zobo cups, faded wrappers, miscarriages, and midnight prayers.
It wasn’t perfect.
But it was real.
And it was enough
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