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The rain began with a whisper, a gentle nudge that quickly swelled into a deafening roar. In the sleepy town of Ipetumodu, where the rich red earth met a vibrant tapestry of green, the air crackled with tension. Thunder danced with lightning like two angry lovers in a furious embrace, and the townsfolk believed the gods wept when a heart broke beyond repair. But that evening, the storm did more than weep—it howled.
Adejoke sat on the bamboo bench outside her mother’s hut, dressed in the remnants of her engagement ceremony—her gele expertly pinned yet now marred by mud, her pristine white lace gown soaked in betrayal. Whispers fluttered through the village like restless spirits, but nothing resonated louder than the turmoil in her own heart.
“He’s gone,” her cousin Temi gasped, bursting through the rain, breathless and soaked to the bone. “Akin is gone.”
Gone, as in vanished. The man she was meant to marry in mere hours had disappeared from Ipetumodu without a trace, not even a note to explain the cruel absence. There was no shame in his retreat.
Some said cold feet had claimed him, others whispered of a spiritual curse, and a few convinced themselves they saw him in Osogbo with another woman just days before. All Adejoke knew was that Akin, the man who once cupped her face as if it were made of crystal and kissed her fingers after every meal, had evaporated like smoke in the wind.
Just like that, she became the girl left at the altar—though no altar ever materialised.
Her father nearly suffered a stroke, her mother sank into despair, refusing food for days, while her twin brothers, Korede and Kolapo, vowed to track Akin down and serve him justice. Yet none of their grief compared to the crushing ache in her heart.
Three long years passed. Life in Ipetumodu continued, as towns tend to do. Her suitors came and went—a banker from Ibadan, a doctor from Lagos, even a UK-based engineer—but love felt like a rusted latch on a door long sealed.
Then came the night of the flood. It began with the worst storm in decades. Roofs were torn from homes. Trees bowed to the tempest, and the River Orisun swelled menacingly, spilling over its banks. Panic swept through the town, homes submerged, lanterns flickering out amid cries of despair. Children wailed while drums beat urgently in the palace compound, calling for help.
Adejoke, volunteering at the clinic, was in the thick of the chaos when a drenched figure stumbled inside. For a moment, she thought the lightning played tricks on her eyes, but then she recognised the scar—a small line near his jaw she used to trace with her thumb.
“Akin?” she breathed, frozen with a syringe clutched in her hand.
He looked different—thinner, darker—like a man who had traversed desolate paths and returned not quite whole. Their eyes locked, and for a heartbeat, the world paused.
“I came back,” he croaked, almost swallowed by the storm’s wails outside.
Temi dropped a tray of gauze, her expression a blend of shock and disbelief.
The truth spilt out that night, tangled in broken sentences and shaky hands. Akin had been ambushed on the way to their wedding. An ex-girlfriend, Folakemi, whom he'd helped during his NYSC in Kogi, had deceived him, claiming to be pregnant and in despair. One moment of distraction led to another, and before he could reach out to Adejoke, he was drugged and imprisoned in a remote house in Okene for months. When he finally escaped, he had lost everything—his phone, ID, even his money. By the time he returned to Ipetumodu five months later, the news of his disappearance had become old, and the village’s scorn was fresh.
“They would have stoned me if I’d come near your place,” he confessed, regret thick in his voice. “Your father… your brothers… they wanted blood.”
“And I wanted silence,” she replied, trembling.
“I wrote letters, left them at Mama Oye’s shop. I even waited behind your church for months.”
Her heart beat loudly. Anger threatened to explode, yet she managed only a flood of tears as she brushed her fingers against that familiar scar.
“You should have fought harder,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“You should have come to me, not hidden like a coward.”
“I know.”
Thunder rumbled ominously, but silence wrapped around them—heavy, expectant.
He fell to his knees, eyes pleading. “I’m not asking you to forget, Joke. Just to forgive. Even if we never find our way back, let me earn your peace.”
She studied him, soaked, broken, yet unmistakably Akin—the boy who once danced barefoot with her in the rain, who carved her name into a wooden bookshelf he’d crafted with love.
Tears streamed down her cheeks—not tears of pain or rage, but of release.
She knelt opposite him, cupped his face in her hands, and said the words she hadn’t realised her heart ached to say. “I forgive you, Akin.”
And just like that, the storm began to subside. The thunder ceased its fury. It was as if the heavens themselves had been waiting for this moment.
That night would forever be etched in the town’s memory—not merely for the flood that almost swallowed Ipetumodu whole, but for the night the gods restored what the storm had sought to shatter.
