The air was different. Crisper. Colder. And filled with a quietness that felt more like listening than silence.
London.
I stepped off the plane wearing the thickest sweater Mama had packed, but it didn't do much against the morning chill. My breath misted in the air as I waited for my bag at Heathrow, my heart pounding louder than the wheels of the luggage carousel. I was here. In a city I had only seen in newspapers and on television. A city that wasn't mine, yet somehow, I had been invited into its heartbeat.
The fellowship team met me with a placard that read "Mercy Ajayi." The woman holding it had auburn curls and a scarf wrapped stylishly around her neck.
"Welcome to the UK," she said with a smile. "I'm Clara, one of the program managers. We've been looking forward to meeting you."
I muttered a polite thank you, trying not to sound too nervous. My tongue still shaped words with my accent, thick and warm, clashing slightly against the clipped British tones around me.
They took me to a shared flat in North London. The building was a narrow brick structure, the kind I'd only seen in foreign films. I was sharing the apartment with two other fellows — Amina from Kenya and Roseline from Cameroon. We greeted each other like long-lost cousins.
"I was so scared they'd stick me with someone boring," Roseline said as she unpacked. "Glad to see you look like you can dance."
I laughed, grateful already.
That first week was a whirlwind. Orientation at the BBC headquarters, training sessions, mentorship introductions. I met producers who had covered world wars, reporters who had shaken hands with presidents, and interns who reminded me of myself — hungry, wide-eyed, burning.
But even amidst the dazzle, there was a quiet ache in me.
Nigeria felt far. Tunde felt farther.
We texted sometimes, but the hours between us stretched conversations thin. I'd wake up to his messages, warm and funny, but delayed. My replies came when he was asleep.
"I saw your name trending again," he texted one night. "Proud of you. Always."
I didn't reply immediately. I wanted to tell him everything — about the train rides, the cold, the way tea didn't taste like Mama's Lipton back home. But I didn't want to weigh him down with a new world he couldn't step into.
So I typed only, "Thanks, Tunde. Miss you."
Three weeks into the program, I was given my first major assignment: a feature piece on African immigrant families in the UK. It was perfect — close enough to home to feel familiar, but foreign enough to challenge me.
I spent days visiting Nigerian restaurants in Peckham, Ghanaian salons in Brixton, Congolese churches tucked between old factories. I heard stories of struggle, adaptation, and small victories — a woman who built a catering business from a single recipe, a man who sent all his wages back to Enugu to pay for his siblings' school fees.
Their resilience reminded me of Mama.
At night, I would record my notes, outline my narrative arc, and then sit by the window staring at the moon.
"I hope you see the same one tonight," I'd whisper, thinking of Tunde. Thinking of home.
It was on one of those nights that I received a voice note.
"Mercy… I just heard your latest radio clip. You're making magic. I wish you could hear how proud I sound when I say your name to my friends. I miss you more than I know how to say."
It broke something in me. Or maybe, it healed something.
I recorded a reply, my voice low:
"I miss you too. But I'm also growing. And I hope that doesn't scare us."
He replied, minutes later:
"Never. Grow, Mercy. Just don't grow away from me."
As the weeks turned to months, I grew bolder. My voice on air steadier. My questions sharper. I pitched ideas without fear. I started mentoring new interns — girls who reminded me of myself: unsure, but capable.
One day, Clara pulled me aside.
"Have you ever thought about staying?"
I blinked. "Staying?"
"In London. After the fellowship. We'd be lucky to have you here. There are roles opening up."
It was tempting. So tempting.
But I thought of Mama. Of my room in Ajegunle. Of the smell of rainy season on red sand. Of the little girls who listened to my community radio shows and dreamed louder because of them.
"I'll think about it," I said. And I meant it.
Chapter Eleven ends not with a decision, but a question:
What does success mean if it costs you your roots?
And what does love mean when it's stretched across oceans, but still beats strong?
As I walked home that night, I looked up again. The sky was different here — clearer, colder.
But the stars? Still the same.
Under the same sky, I whispered into the air,
"I'm not done yet. Not here. Not there. Just… becoming."