The Hard Way

My name is Dima, and this story is one that still carries so much weight on my heart whenever I seem to remember it.

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The area where I grew up is this small, bustling neighborhood where everybody just knows everybody. You actually can’t sneeze without three neighbors saying “Bless you.”
That is actually the kind of place it is. A place of no secrets and just stories. I must have been in my early teens when Ada and her mom moved into the compound next to ours. From the first time I saw her, I knew we would become very close.

She had this quiet beauty that struck you when you looked at her—soft eyes, slender figure and always looking like she had just stepped out of a magazine.
But it wasn’t just her looks but the way she carried herself, with grace and gentleness, like the kind of girl nothing ugly in the world could touch.
Ada was the kind of friend you didn’t need to explain yourself to. She just understood.

We played together and also shared so many dreams. We would sit close to her mom’s stall where she sold fruits, to gist about so many things especially about the kind of universities we wanted to attend.
She always said, “I want to study Mass Comm. I want to be on TV, you know? Presenting news, looking sharp.”
I would tease her and say, “So you will be famous, and I will be the nerd writing your scripts in the background.”

We laughed a lot back then, like the world was ours to take.

Then life started to separate us little by little. It started when I got my admission into the university but Ada didn’t.
Her WAEC result was withheld for reasons we couldn’t understand and she was so devastated.
I remember how her face fell when she got the news. I wanted to fix it for her, but I obviously couldn’t.
So I promised her that I would keep calling, that we would stay in touch and that I would help however I could.

True to my word, I always visited her when I came home on holidays. She had picked up hairdressing as a skill while waiting to rewrite her exams, and funny enough, she became my go-to stylist.
I would sit for hours as she made my hair, and we would talk about school, about boys and about life in general. She never stopped being happy for me, even though I could tell deep down that she wished she was in my shoes.

Then came the change I never expected.

She started seeing this guy on our street. I didn’t like him the first time I saw them together. He looked so rough, like someone who had no business being around someone like Ada.
He was a known drug addict, a cultist and one of those boys parents usually warned their sons and daughters about. But Ada, my very own sweet Ada, was in love. Or something that just looked a lot like it.

I tried talking to her. “Ada, this guy will only bring you pain. You’re better than this, babe.”

But love had covered her eyes. “He’s not as bad as people think o,” she told me one day while braiding my hair. “When he’s sober, he’s the calmest person ever. He listens to me and makes me happy.”

Even her mom warned her and begged her to leave him. But Ada called her mom overbearing and controlling.
Said she just wanted freedom. Before we could even understand what was happening, she had packed her bags and moved in with the guy.

That was the day Ada threw caution to the wind.

I still remember how I felt- so helpless, angry and disappointed. I went to talk to her. I told her to at least finish her education first. Like, focus on getting her life together. “School is still waiting for you my dear. You are not too old,” I said. “Just fix your papers, and you can still chase those dreams.”

She smiled weakly and said, “I just want to have a child now. I’ll go back to school later.”

Months passed. Then the news broke out that Ada was pregnant.

And as expected, the guy vanished into thin air. Just like that. No single trace, no goodbye, nothing.
He left her with a belly full of child and a heart full of regret. She moved back to her mother’s house in silence. It was a quiet and shameless return. One full of sorrow.

But from that sorrow came something beautiful.

When she gave birth to that baby boy, I saw him and my heart melted. Zikora was the name she called him.
Fair-skinned, curly hair with eyes like his mother. A reminder that even in the middle of mess, life can still bring something pure.

By the time, I was in my third year already. Ada had started selling small items like ankara(Nigerian made wrappers), attachments, slippers, all in a bid to just take care of her baby. She told me she no longer had the strength for school. “I’ll just focus on business. I need to take care of Zikora.”

I nodded, but inside, I was broken. This wasn’t the Ada I knew. The girl who once dreamed of being on TV now counted gain and loss at the local market.

Sometimes I wonder what it could have been if she had listened to everyone. If she had just waited a little longer. If she hadn’t thrown caution to the wind.

But life isn’t made of ifs at all. It’s made of choices. And some choices, you only get to make them once.

Ada is still my friend. We still talk; although less often, but the love is still there. Every time I see her, I see strength. But I also see the ghost of a dream that never got the chance to live. And that really hurts.