After the loss, Katriel's world seemed to slow down.
The days passed, but she barely noticed. Her notebooks lay untouched, her textbooks stacked like strangers on her desk. The once busy campus now felt cold and distant ,a blur of faces and voices she could no longer connect with.
Every time she tried to study, her mind wandered. Memories of Trez, of the baby, of what might have been they crowded her thoughts like shadows that refused to leave. She stopped attending some classes, telling herself she just needed a little more time. But time, instead of healing, deepened the ache.
Weeks later, the inevitable happened. Her grades dropped sharply, and at the end of the semester, she received a notice from the university administration. She had been discontinued for failing to meet the academic requirements.
The paper trembled in her hands.
It wasn't just about losing her place at school ,it felt like she was losing the future she had dreamed of.
That night, she sat on her bed staring at her phone screen, waiting for a message from Trez. But he had stopped calling as often. The distance, once only measured in miles now felt emotional too. He still cared ,she knew that but grief had carved a quiet distance between them both.It was during that lonely stretch that she met Calvin.
He was a quiet ,handsome classmate someone she'd seen around before but never spoken to much. One afternoon, while she was sitting under a tree near the campus library, tears quietly slipping down her cheeks, he approached her gently.
"Hey," he said softly, holding out a bottle of water. "You look like you could use this."
She almost refused at first, but something in his tone (calm, kind, without judgment )made her accept it. They talked,not much that day, but enough.
Over the weeks that followed, Calvin became a constant presence. He didn't push her to talk about what happened, but he listened when she needed to. He'd find small ways to make her smile sharing funny stories, walking her to the cafeteria, reminding her to eat when she forgot.
Little by little, Katriel began to breathe again.She started going for walks, studying a little, and writing in her journal not about the pain this time, but about hope. Calvin's quiet support didn't erase the past, but it helped her carry it with less weight.
One evening, as they sat by the campus fountain watching the sunset, Katriel turned to him. "You know," she said softly, "I thought I'd never smile again."Calvin smiled back, his eyes warm. "You just needed someone to remind you that you could."
For the first time in months, Katriel felt peace -fragile but real. She wasn't sure what the future held. Trez was still far away, their love buried under distance and sorrow. But for now, she was learning to stand again, piece by piece, heart by heart As days turned into weeks, Calvin's presence grew deeper in her life. He became her confidant, her laughter in the quiet moments, the one who reminded her that she still deserved happiness. She found herself looking forward to his messages, to his calm voice that could silence even her darkest thoughts. What began as friendship slowly started to bloom into something gentler and more dangerous.
Katriel didn't realize when it happened, but one morning, as she watched him help her carry her books across campus, her heart fluttered in a way it hadn't for a long time. She knew then she was falling in love with Calvin.But just as she began to rediscover herself through this new light, a message appeared on her phone one she never expected.
It was from Trez.
He was already on a flight.
He was coming to Nigeria to see her.
Katriel froze, her heart torn between the past that once defined her and the new love quietly shaping her future. The wind rustled through the trees and for a moment, everything stood still as if the universe was holding its breath, waiting to see which way her heart would turn.