Jade's POV
There are days when it still shocks me — how normal it feels to hold his hand in public. How natural it is to look up and find Zion's gaze steady on me, not glancing away when someone sees us. How, when we walk through Peace College together, the whispers are no longer knives but the sighs of people who never believed we could last.
I remember the first time Zion kissed me in the middle of campus — an ordinary Tuesday, the sun heavy and golden. He was waiting for me after Professor Mick's lecture, leaning against a pillar like he belonged there. My heart had jumped to my throat. We hadn't planned to meet; he hadn't told me he'd be there.
When I walked out and saw him, saw the way girls slowed to watch him — their heads tilting, whispering — I'd hesitated. And then he'd seen me, and everything else fell away. Zion walked straight to me, his eyes steady, his smile small and knowing. His fingers brushed my jaw, tilting my face up, and he kissed me. Openly. Shamelessly. The kind of kiss that left me breathless, stunned, and hot-eyed.
I had felt all those stares. Heard the rippling shock and disbelief. Zion and Jade. The preacher's son and the girl from the sex tape. I'd pulled back, a shaky laugh on my lips, my fingers pressed against his chest.
"Zion," I whispered, still breathless. "They're watching."
"Let them," he murmured, his forehead resting against mine, his voice a low, steady anchor. "I don't care."
And from that day, he never hid again.
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Zion's POV
I won't pretend it was easy.
Dad didn't speak to me for two months after I brought Jade home. Two long, tense months of unanswered calls, of standing in his office while he pretended to read his Bible like I wasn't there. I remember the first time Jade met him, the tightness in her smile, the way her fingers clung to my own.
Pastor Emeka had barely looked at her. Just a passing glance — a swift, assessing look — and then his face tightened. Jade had tried to say hello, polite and measured, and he'd only nodded before leaving the room. Mom had tried to smooth it over, but it had already cracked. Jade had spent the whole drive home staring out the window, her face blank. I hated that look — that guarded, careful expression. Like she had to lock herself up just to survive.
But Jade is stubborn. Fierce. She didn't give up on me, on us, even when I almost did. When Dad finally spoke, it was at Sunday service, his voice ringing through the sanctuary as he called me to the altar — not as a pastor, but as my father.
"Zion, I have watched you struggle," he had said, his voice steady. "Watched you wrestle with choices I do not understand. But I have also watched you love — fiercely, openly, without shame. And perhaps that is a love I need to learn."
His eyes had found mine, and there was a softness there I had never seen before. A breaking. A rebuilding.
That night, when I took Jade home, Dad met her eyes properly for the first time. He didn't say much, but he didn't need to. The look in his eyes was enough.
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Jade's POV
Aunt Linda, on the other hand, nearly had a heart attack.
"Zion!" she had screamed the first time she saw him waiting for me at the gate. "Zion Emeka! You mean you have no shame! A whole pastor's son! And you, Jade! After all my prayers! So you have finally added a pastor's pikin to your list of victims, ehn?"
The neighbors had peeked through their windows, amused and curious. Ife had ducked behind the curtains, dying of laughter, while Ada had watched with wide, disbelieving eyes. Aunt Linda had not spared anyone. She called Zion a lost sheep and called me the Jezebel who dragged him astray. She prayed loudly for God to break "this yoke of fornication" over my life.
But there was a shift eventually. A quiet acceptance that softened her bark. She still calls me Jezebel when she's angry, but I think she loves me. In her way.
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Zion's POV
Peace College still remembers. Sometimes I think they always will. Stephen __ or Samuel transferred the week after everything broke.
Jade didn't talk about it much, but I know what it did to her. The stares, the whispers, the looks from people who couldn't decide if they should pity her or envy her for having me.
Michael and Segun struggled. They tried to understand, but it took time. Michael had asked me once, "Are you sure about her, Zion? Are you sure this is love and not...I don't know, rebellion?"
I had looked at him, at his honest, cautious face, and I knew then that no one could fully understand. No one had seen Jade like I had — fierce and raw, vulnerable and brave. No one had heard her soft, scared voice at midnight, or her laughter when she felt safe enough to let it go.
But they came around. Segun likes to tease Jade now, a grudging respect slipping into his words. Michael still worries, but it's the quiet, protective kind. The kind of worry that means he loves me, that he wants me safe and happy.
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Jade's POV
Graduation is in a few weeks. It feels surreal. Sometimes, when I think about the future, fear curls in my stomach — that maybe the world outside Peace College will be less forgiving, that Zion's love will be tested in ways I can't control.
But then I see him. I see the way he watches me — proud and steady, unashamed. I see the way his hand slips around mine when we walk, the way he laughs with Miriam now like they were always friends.
And I think of that first kiss in the middle of campus, the moment he chose me openly, fiercely, like a declaration. I think of the first time he called me his girlfriend without hesitation, and how it made me feel whole, like I had finally become someone worth loving.
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Zion's POV
I think about the future a lot. Jade and I have plans — real ones. We've talked about living in Lagos, finding work, making a life together. My father asks about our plans sometimes, carefully, cautiously. I think he's learning to trust me, to trust us.
When I think about the past — about Extasy Drift, about Lucas' smirk and Stephen's betrayal — it feels like another life. Like someone else's story. Jade and I are more than that now. Stronger. Unbreakable.
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Jade's POV
Sometimes, when the campus is quiet, we sit in the amphitheater where we first met. Zion leans back, his head on my lap, his fingers playing with mine. There's a peace between us — a quiet understanding, a love that isn't afraid of being seen.
"Do you think we'll make it?" I ask sometimes, my voice barely a whisper.
And he always answers the same way, his eyes steady, his smile certain.
"I think we already have."
🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
THE END