NOT MY USUAL WORLD Novel Chapter 12

NOT MY USUAL WORLD
EPISODE 12
Tobe barely slept that night.
Jet lag kept him awake, but it wasn’t only that. Something about the city felt strangely familiar, like a place that had been waiting for him for a very long time.
By morning he decided to take a walk before going to check out the school.
The streets were already busy. Cars honked. People rushed past with coffee cups and briefcases. Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going.
Tobe walked slowly, taking everything in.
America.
But this time he was not the desperate boy who left Nigeria with nothing. Life in China had hardened him, shaped him. He had survived factory work, long nights of study, loneliness, sacrifice and uncertainty. Most importantly, he has money now. Not too much, but enough to stand tall and know he had built something for himself.
Still, he wanted something more.
As he walked past a row of shops, he noticed a small café on the corner.
He paused for a moment.
Coffee sounded good.
Inside, the café was warm and quiet. A few people sat with laptops while the smell of fresh coffee filled the air. Soft music played in the background and sunlight streamed gently through the glass windows.
He joined the short line, his mind wandering again as he waited.
Just as he reached the counter, the door opened behind him.
Ekene stepped in with Ronke.
She had just finished an early meeting and needed coffee and a small gossip session with her bestie Ekene before heading back to the office.
Her heels clicked softly against the floor as they walked in together. They were talking and laughing, her voice light as she practiced the Igbo words he had been teaching her a few days earlier.
Ekene laughed at her pronunciation and corrected her again.
Ronke shook her head and tried again, determined to get it right.
Two people stood between them and the counter.
Tobe stepped forward to order.
One black coffee, please.
His voice was deeper now. Older. Calm.
Ronke froze.
The smile on her face slowly disappeared.
Ekene noticed immediately and gently held her arm.
Are you okay
Her fingers slowly tightened around her phone.
That voice.
No.
It could not be.
Her heart suddenly began to pound so loudly she could almost hear it in her ears.
Ekene looked at her with concern.
What voice
But Ronke did not answer.
Slowly, very slowly, she lifted her head.
Tobe was collecting his coffee.
He turned.
Their eyes met.
For a moment the entire café seemed to fall silent.
Six years.
Six long years collapsed into a single heartbeat.
Tobe blinked as if his mind was playing a cruel trick on him.
Ronke
Her lips parted slightly as she stared at him, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Tobe
Neither of them moved.
Neither of them spoke.
The boy who had once stood outside a lounge in Lagos, repairing her car late in the night was now standing face to face with her in a café thousands of miles away in America.
Time had changed them.
Tobe looked older, stronger, the struggles of life written quietly in his eyes.
Ronke had changed too. She carried herself with confidence now, elegance and maturity wrapped around her like a second skin.
But in that moment none of those changes mattered.
All they saw was the past.
Memories rushed in like a storm.
Thier first night in Lagos.
The small mechanic space.
The letters never delivered.
The painful goodbye that never truly happened.
Tobe was the first to find his voice.
Ronke… is it really you
Ronke tried to speak but the words refused to come out.
Her body began to tremble.
Six years of buried emotions suddenly rose to the surface, breaking through every wall she had built around her heart.
Tears filled her eyes before she could stop them.
Ekene held her gently, surprised by the intensity of her reaction.
Pull yourself together please
But Ronke could not.
The man she had mourned for years was standing right in front of her.
Alive.
Real.
Looking at her the same way he used to look at her years ago.
Tobe stood motionless, his eyes moving briefly to Ekene’s hand resting on Ronke’s arm. For a brief second something passed through his chest, a quiet ache he could not explain.
People in the café had begun to notice them now. A few customers glanced over curiously, sensing the strange emotional tension hanging in the air.
But Tobe and Ronke saw no one else.
The world had reduced itself to just the two of them again.
Six years of distance.
Six years of unanswered questions.
Six years of wondering if the other still existed somewhere in the world.
And now fate had placed them in the same room again.
Neither of them had planned it.
Neither of them had expected it.
But there they were.
Standing only a few steps apart.
And for the first time in six years, the distance between them disappeared.
To be continued.