Ruth's POV
I was tired of counting.
Tired of rooms. Tired of names I forgot before morning. For months I moved through men like I was moving through doors, one after the other. I told myself it was power. That I was taking back what they took. The nights ran together. The store in the day. The rest at night. Nothing stuck. Nothing filled it.
Then one afternoon the danfo was too full and too hot.
I squeezed in by the window because I wanted air that wasn't other people's breath. The conductor was shouting. Someone's phone was playing music too loud. I kept my eyes on the road outside.
That's when his arm touched mine.
Just a brush. Skin on skin for half a second because the bus hit a pothole.
I didn't look at him. I never looked anymore.
But he moved like he'd been burned.
I glanced over because of the sudden jerk. Young guy. Early twenties maybe. Plain shirt. A small bible under his arm like people carry in this city. Earpiece in, but nothing was playing. He was staring at me. Not the way the others did. He looked confused. Scared, even.
His mouth opened like he wanted to say something, then shut.
"Move," I said, because his shoulder was in my space and I was already annoyed.
He didn't. He just kept looking at me like I was a question he didn't know how to ask.
The bus lurched again and I turned back to the window. I forgot him in ten seconds. Men stare all the time.
"Oshodi, Oshodi," the conductor yelled.
I stood up. The crowd pushed me toward the door. As I stepped down onto the road, I heard him behind me.
"Wait."
I didn't stop. I never do.
I walked into the noise of Oshodi and let the city swallow me.
I didn't know his hands were shaking. I didn't know something had passed between us when our arms touched. I didn't know he saw a table, a child, a quiet house, me laughing without it being fake.
I just kept walking.
Back to the store. Back to my room. Back to the drawer with the paper I still hadn't torn.
But that night, for the first time in a long time, I couldn't sleep right away. Something about the way he looked at me sat wrong in my chest. Not lust. Not fear. Something else I didn't have a name for.
I rolled over, pulled the blanket up, and told myself it meant nothing.
It was just a bus.
He wouldn't leave me alone.
That young man from the danfo. The one who looked at me like I was a question. I didn't know his name. I didn't want to. But at the store I would be folding clothes and his face would show up between the racks. At night I would close my eyes and see that startled look again. Like my skin had shocked him.
I told myself it was nothing. Just a bus. Just a glance.
It wasn't.
Three nights later, sleep finally took me hard.
I was standing in a dark room. No windows. No door I could see. The air was heavy and cold. I was wearing black cloth. Mourning cloth. The kind women wear when everything has ended.
I was crying. Not the quiet kind. The kind that breaks your ribs. I couldn't stop.
Then the dark got softer, like someone lit a lamp I couldn't see.
A voice came. Not from the walls. From everywhere.
"Ruth, my child, in whom I most love."
I looked up, angry. My throat was raw.
"No," I said. "You do not love me. If you did, why did you leave me? You let them sell me. You let them use me. I feel so worthless."
The words tore out of me. All the things I never said out loud at the store, or to any man, or to the ceiling at night.
The voice didn't flinch. It didn't get small.
"I am the Lord your God. As far as I am not worthless, no child of mine is. I will heal you. I will grow you. The world will marvel at it."
The dark room was still cold. My black cloth stuck to me.
I couldn't breat.
I looked up. I couldn't see a face, only light that didn't burn.
My mouth shook. "For what? What's left of me?"
Then the room changed. The dark pulled back a little, and I saw it.
Me. Not in a room. On a street. Talking to a girl with my same tired eyes. She was crying. I was holding her hand. And she stopped shaking. Another scene. A store. A woman who came in hard and left soft. Another. A room where people sat in a circle and didn't hide.
The voice spoke over every picture.
"I will use you to win souls. That is what you were meant to do from the beginning, before the devil came to interrupt. He took years. He took peace. He did not take your purpose. I am taking it back."
The words hit me like water.
"Before the interruption, I marked you," He said. "For comfort. For testimony. For the ones who think they are too broken to be called. You will tell them what I told you tonight. That no child of mine is worthless."
I was still crying, but it wasn't only rage now. It was fear too.
"I don't know how," I whispered.
"You won't do it in your strength," He said. "I will heal you. I will grow you. Then you will go."
The light got warm. The black cloth on me felt lighter.
"I am with you, Ruth," He said. "Even in the nights you walked away."
I woke up with my face wet and my chest shaking
I fell to my knees in that black cloth. The room was still dark, but the crying changed. It wasn't just rage anymore. It was something cracking open.
I woke up with my face wet. My room was quiet. Agege was quiet too, just before sunrise.
My chest felt different. Not fixed. Not light. But not empty in the same way.
And that young man was still in my head. Now with a voice on top of him, saying my name like it mattered.
I sat on the edge of my mattress and stared at my hands.