Efoma’s best friend stood in the doorway, and the expression on Kelvin’s face told Efoma more than any confession could have.
Janette remained beside the open door, one hand still on the handle.
Nobody spoke.
Efoma looked from her friend to Kelvin.
Her friend’s eyes dropped first.
Kelvin cleared his throat.
“Janette, take your sister upstairs.”
Janette did not move.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because this is between adults.”
Efoma’s voice was quiet.
“No.
Stay.”
Kelvin turned toward her.
“Efoma—”
“Stay, Janette.”
Something in her mother’s tone made the girl step away from the door but remain in the room.
Efoma rolled her wheelchair backward slightly and looked at the woman she had trusted through the worst year of her life.
“You came here for Kelvin.”
It was not a question.
Her friend swallowed.
Kelvin answered instead.
“This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”
Efoma felt as if the bus had struck her a second time.
She remembered waking after surgery unable to feel her legs properly.
She remembered Kelvin sitting beside her, crying into her hand and promising he would never leave.
She remembered believing him.
Now he stood in their living room beside her best friend and looked more inconvenienced than ashamed.
“How long?” Efoma asked.
Kelvin rubbed the back of his neck.
“Does that really matter?”
Janette made a small sound of disbelief.
Efoma kept her eyes on him.
“Yes.”
Her friend whispered, “A few months.”
Efoma closed her eyes.
A few months.
The late meetings.
The phone turned face down.
The sudden errands.
The nights Kelvin claimed he needed space because the pressure at home was becoming too much.
All of it rearranged itself inside her mind.
When Efoma opened her eyes again, she looked at Kelvin.
“You started this while she was coming here to help me?”
Kelvin’s jaw tightened.
“It wasn’t planned.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her friend began crying.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
Efoma stared at her.
“You sat beside me after therapy while I cried because I couldn’t stand.
You told me Kelvin loved me.
Then you went home and called him?”
“I’m sorry.”
Efoma gave a small, wounded laugh.
Janette turned away, wiping tears from her cheeks.
