Anne and I have been friends since childhood, that even strangers often mistook us for siblings. We became friends when we moved into our house, a few blocks away from her maternal grandmother's, where she was raised after her parents died. I was ten, while she was nine. I think it was her tragic story that drew me to her, and in no time, we became inseparable. We studied together, I fought for her when she was being intimidated, consoled her when she cried, and celebrated with her when she was happy.
That day, my emotions were completely messed up. I was happy and sad at the same time and the bus station echoed perfectly, my chaotic mood. It was loud—conductors shouting out destinations, hawkers waving sachets of water, little children tugging at their mothers' wrappers, begging for the beautiful toys on display. It was truly a cacophony of unpleasant sounds, and I simply felt empty, like a piece of me was about to be ripped off of me.
Anne stood at the center of all that chaos, holding on tightly to the strap of her handbag while I went to buy her ticket. I could tell she felt the same way I did. Once or twice, I saw her dabbing her tears with a handkerchief when she thought I wasn't watching.
When I returned, I handed her the ticket and carefully placed her luggage in the back of the bus. Then I adjusted the strap of her backpack, making sure her admission letter to the university was safely tucked inside.
"So," she said, her voice sounding casual, though her eyes gave it all away, "I guess this is it."
I swallowed hard and smiled, "Yeah. You are a Lagos babe now. Don't forget us small town people when you get to Lagos."
She laughed though the sound was tense. "You know I can never forget you. Not in a hundred years."
Then a voice boomed from the loudspeakers “Lagos bus leaving! All passengers come on board.” The words hit me like a thousand volts of electricity jolting through my system.
“Anne…” was all I managed to utter. I wished to say so many things but no word found its way out.
I moved towards her and embraced her. It was not the casual hug one shares with a childhood friend; it was seeking, lingering, needy, like a confession of all the feelings I have bottled up inside. In my arms, I could feel the rise and fall of her chest and the warmth of her skin, and in those seconds, something passed through us, something that didn't need words to be spoken.
Reluctantly, she held back from the embrace. “I’ll write,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I’ll be waiting.”
When the bus pulled away, we continued to wave, until it totally disappeared out of sight. I stayed rooted on the spot, oblivious of every other movement around me. Only the ghost of her arms still wrapped around me lingered in my memory.
I had no way to reach Anne. And she never wrote.
The following year, I gained admission into the University at Enugu and with that, life took us farther apart from each other. Still, most nights, I watched the star-laden sky and wonder if Anne, the childhood friend I have come to love so deeply, ever thought of me too.
Years passed and I heard that she became a lawyer. I dated. I laughed. I celebrated milestones, but I never stopped thinking about the bus station, and that goodbye hug.
And then I would tell myself that whatever happened in the past belonged to the past. Maybe we just weren't meant to be together.
It was just another day at the bus station—now more modern, noisier, and more crowded. I was headed to Enugu for some unfinished business at the University.
Suddenly I stood transfixed, my breath hitched.
Across the station, tall and unmistakably familiar despite the years, stood Anne. She was even more beautiful now, her face more mature, her eyes—her eyes exactly the same. She was buying roasted plantain from a roadside hawker and I remembered instantly how much she had loved it since our childhood.
“Anne?” my voice was a whisper, but she immediately turned, somehow she had heard me across the noise. Her roasted plantain slipping forgotten from her hand.
“Babe…”
We moved toward each other, hesitant at first, then closing the gap with urgency.
“I can’t believe this,” she said, laughing in disbelief. “After all these years… here?”
“Perhaps our meeting again, was written in the stars,” I said before I could stop myself.
Her cheeks flushed.
But she only smiled, that same girlish smile I had carried in my heart for years. “Yeah… written in the stars.”
The silence between us hung heavily with all the words that had been left unsaid.
“Do you remember?” I asked at last.
Her brow furrowed. “Remember what?”
“That day. The bus station. The hug. When you promised to write.”
Anne's face softened, her eyes glistening with tears.“… I never forgot. I thought of you through the loneliest nights in Lagos, but I was drowning in studies, assignments. They literally choked me. My uncle insisted it wasn't wise to visit home often. And the few times I managed to return, I was told you were away at the University too."
My throat tightened. “How I longed for a word from you. Then I thought.... maybe it was just me, maybe I was foolish, holding onto something so small as a hug.”
“It wasn’t small,” she said firmly, stepping closer. “It was everything.”
Our eyes met for a moment, sending signals that we alone would understand, the years we've been apart finally melting away. We were no longer two grown adults with separate lives, but the same boy and girl clinging to each other in a crowded station, afraid to let go.
And this time, we didn’t.
I pulled her into my arms, and Anne sank into the embrace. The noise of the station, the buses, the hawkers, the shouting conductors, all of it faded.
In my spirit I could tell this time, this hug wasn’t goodbye, it was homecoming.
Because some things don’t fade with time.
Some things are written in the stars.
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