The first time I saw my mother cry, I was fifteen 

She sat by the window, the rain tapping against the glass like impatient fingers. Her hands were folded in her lap, as though bracing for impact. When I touched her shoulder, she turned, her eyes hollowed out.

"He’s not coming back," she whispered.

My father had left seven years before, promising to return when he had “found something better.” My mother never stopped believing him. She still set an extra plate at dinner. Still ironed a shirt that would never be worn. Still startled at every knock on the door.

Waiting had become a part of her.

Years later, I met a man who carried that same weight.

Kanmi.

He had the presence of someone always on the verge of leaving but never stepping forward. We met at a coffee shop where I worked, and at first, he was just a man who drank his coffee black and never stayed long. Until one evening, he lingered.

"You look like someone who knows how to listen," he said.

It wasn’t a compliment. It was an observation.

And he wasn’t wrong.

Kanmi was waiting too. Not for someone, but for something - a moment, a sign, permission to let go. Six years at a job he hated. Three years loving a woman who never loved him back. A lifetime telling himself maybe soon.

Some nights, we sat on the hood of his car, staring at the sky.

"Do you think people ever stop waiting?" he asked once.

I thought of my mother. Of the empty seat at the table. Of the way I had spent my whole life waiting for something I couldn't name.

"No," I said. "I think we just get better at pretending."

A year later, I left for Lagos.

Kanmi didn’t ask me to stay, and I didn’t expect him to. He had his own weight to carry. And I, well, I was done with mine.

Lagos was loud, impatient. It didn’t wait for anyone.

So I learned.

I stopped glancing at my phone, waiting for calls that wouldn’t come. Stopped searching for my father in crowds. Stopped wondering if my mother ever stopped setting that extra plate.

For the first time, I let go.

And I ran. 

Three years later, Kanmi found me.

No grand reunion. No dramatic embrace. Just two people sitting across from each other in a city too loud to hear their silence.

"You stopped waiting," he said.

It wasn’t a question.

I nodded. "You didn’t."

He smiled, but it never reached his eyes.

"I don’t know how."

I knew, then, that I couldn’t help him.

Some people carry the weight of wait until it becomes a part of them. Until they no longer know who they are without it.

And maybe love isn’t about saving them. Maybe it’s about understanding why they choose to carry it.

So I reached across the table, took his hand in mine, and said the only thing that mattered.

"You don’t have to."

His fingers tightened around mine, just slightly. And for the first time, I wondered..

Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t.