“I’m getting married,” Tolu announced, stirring her cappuccino slowly. Her voice was calm, but her eyes flicked nervously toward Jide across the café table.
Jide blinked. “Wow. Kunle?” he asked, although he already knew the answer. Tolu nodded, her fingers tightening around the ceramic mug.
“Congratulations,” he added after a pause, forcing a smile. “He’s a good guy.”
Tolu smiled, but there was a flicker of something else—regret? doubt?
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They had been friends since childhood, first crayons, then WhatsApp chats, then surviving NYSC together. From crushes to heartbreaks, they had seen each other through everything. And yet, neither of them had crossed that line.
Until recently.
Back in university, Jide dated Sharon, beautiful, bold, and totally wrong for him. She always rolled her eyes when he mentioned poetry, laughed at his idea of starting a creative agency. Their fights were fireworks, their silences louder.
Tolu, on the other hand, had once dated Olamide, a doctor. He had been sweet at first, but soon his ambition turned controlling. When Tolu quit her job to chase photography full-time, Olamide called it a “hobby with no future.”
It was Jide who told her, “You’re the most patient photographer I know. The world will see it.”
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It wasn’t a confession of love. But it lingered.
The shift came subtly.
After Tolu broke up with Olamide, she stopped replying to Jide’s jokes with her usual eye-roll emoji. She laughed longer, called him just to say hi. When Jide’s relationship with Sharon ended in flames, Tolu sent him a long voice note: “You deserve better. You love deeply, you always have. Don’t settle for someone who sees that as weakness.”
One night, after dinner at Tolu’s place, Jide stayed back to help clean. The conversation turned intimate. They sat on the floor, backs against the wall, their fingers just barely touching.
“I wonder why we never tried,” Tolu whispered.
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Jide chuckled. “Maybe we were too scared to ruin this.”
“Maybe it’s already ruined,” she replied softly. “Or maybe… it could be more.”
But life was messy.
Just as things were getting clearer, Kunle happened. He was kind, stable, attentive, everything Tolu thought she needed after years of emotional chaos. Jide saw it coming, felt her slipping through his fingers again. So, he stepped back.
Until that day at the café.
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Two weeks before the wedding, Tolu found herself staring at her wedding dress, heart racing. Kunle was lovely. But something felt off.
Later that evening, she texted Jide: “Do you believe in marrying your best friend?”
He didn’t reply immediately. But when he did, it was a single line: “I was hoping you would ask that before saying ‘I do’ to someone else.”
Tolu cancelled the wedding.
It wasn’t easy. Her parents were furious. Her friends were confused. Kunle devastated. But Tolu knew she needed to be brave. For the first time in her life, she chose the uncertain over the convenient.
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And Jide? He was waiting. Not with a grand gesture or a ring, but with the kind of love that had always been there. Quiet, steady, patient.
They took things slowly.
They dated intentionally, discussing finances, family expectations, and spiritual values. They read books together, fought over guest lists, cried during premarital counselling. Jide’s mother once said, “You people were pretending before. Now the world can see what we saw since secondary school.”
Their wedding wasn’t lavish, but it was full of laughter, ugly crying, and whispered vows.
At the altar, Jide said, “I’ve loved you for a long time. I just didn’t realize love could be so quiet and constant.”
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Tolu smiled through tears. “You were always home. I just didn’t know it until I left.”