I had never searched for companionship. Poverty taught me silence early, and grief taught me how to survive inside it. I learned to keep my head down, my words few, my needs smaller than the world's cruelty. But Rimora did not fit into that discipline.
With her, silence did not feel like absence—it felt like understanding. She knew loss not as a story but as a wound that reopened every day. Our conversations began quietly, in the unnoticed corners of the café, between clinking cups and half-finished orders. She would pour my tea and stay a moment longer than necessary. I would speak, and she would listen—not to fill the air, but to hold it.
She told me about her father, trapped in that unmoving bed, about her mother's final breath, about the child who never entered the world. I listened, carrying her grief with the same care I carried my own.
In return, I spoke of my father, of Blue's impossible dreams, of my mother's weakening body. Somewhere between shared words and shared silences, something shifted. Loneliness loosened its grip. What began as familiarity slowly, quietly became something else.
Lbow noticed before any of us admitted it. He had always been my constant—the one person who made me forget how sharply the world divided people. But now, when the three of us sat together, something felt uneven.
My attention drifted toward Rimora without my consent. Her reactions softened only for me. Conversations turned inward, circling pain Lbow could not touch. He laughed, joked, stayed present, but jealousy crept into him like a slow infection.
He told himself it was her hostility that stung. The truth was harder. I was moving away from him, step by step, without meaning to.
Rimora fought herself in ways she never voiced. She had built her heart like a fortress—thick walls, no doors left open. Loss had taught her that survival demanded distance.
Yet I watched those walls weaken in moments she thought I did not see. Her eyes lingered. Her voice softened. Every accidental touch unsettled her. I could feel it, the fear beneath her restraint. Love terrified her, not because she doubted it, but because she understood its cost.
Still, she could not stop imagining a future where she was not alone. Neither could I.
I felt it growing too—something warm, unfamiliar, dangerous. For so long, my life had been defined by responsibility. Blue's future. My mother's survival. My father's shadow.
There was no room left for desire. But Rimora made me remember that I was still human, still allowed to want. When she smiled at my dry remarks, when she scolded me for being reckless, when her eyes softened despite her resolve, I felt something thaw inside me.
And with it came guilt. I saw the way Lbow watched us. I saw the hurt he tried to hide. Loyalty pulled me one way, my heart another. I stood between them, unsure which fracture would break first.
The café held all of it—every glance, every pause, every unspoken truth. I found excuses to return, sometimes with Lbow, sometimes alone.
Rimora became familiar in ways that unsettled us both. She challenged my dreams, then admired them. She criticized my stubbornness, then defended me when others did not.
Each day drew us closer. Each day the tension thickened. Even Lbow could feel it pressing down, souring his laughter, tightening his silence.
One evening, when the lights dimmed and the café emptied, Rimora stayed by my table. We spoke of dreams—hers of strength, of justice, of a world less cruel; mine of securing Blue's future, of honoring my mother's sacrifices. Our voices dropped until the air between us felt charged. When her fingers brushed mine as she cleared the table, neither of us moved. Time narrowed. Her eyes met mine, and in that moment, everything we refused to say existed plainly between us. Then the door opened. Lbow entered. The moment shattered.
I walked home with him that night. No words passed between us, but the silence burned. He wanted answers—I could feel it.
I wanted to give them, but I didn't have any that wouldn't wound us both. He told himself it didn't matter, that Rimora was insignificant, that our friendship was stronger. But I knew better. I could see it in the way his shoulders tightened, in the distance settling into his gaze. I was no longer the center of his world.
Neither of us said it.
Both of us knew it.
Rimora cried alone that night. Her tears were not only for what she felt, but for what it threatened to destroy. To care for me meant hurting Lbow. To deny it meant breaking herself. She lay awake, caught between longing and fear, knowing there was no path without blood.
And somewhere between her grief, Lbow's jealousy, and my silence, the triangle began to fracture—not loudly, not all at once, but enough that none of us could ignore it anymore.