I waited until it was raining to say it. Not because it made it easier. Because if I was going to fall apart, I wanted the roof to be making noise so no one would hear.

It was a Thursday night in late November. Harmattan had not yet come to take the wetness out of the air. It was stalling. Lagos was loud with generators and the occasional horn, and inside my apartment it was just me, Kemi the plant, and the yellow curtains I still called a cape when Jessica wasn’t around.

I had the journal open on the floor. The cat-sunglasses notebook from the market. Page after page...