Zara stared at the stranger, heart racing. Yes, she had drawn him just once, quickly, when he passed by her window in the café. She hadn't thought he'd noticed. She especially hadn't expected to see him at her shop.
"You're Dayo, right?" she asked, recalling the name someone had whispered at the café.
He grinned. "So you've been asking about me."
Zara blushed. "Not... exactly. Just curious."
He handed over the sketchbook, and she took it gently, like it was a lost treasure.
"I looked through it," he said. "You're really good. You see things in people that most would miss."
She didn't know how to respond. Compliments made her nervous.
Over the next few days, Dayo kept showing up—first at the flower shop, then at the café. He wasn't from Elubi. He said he was from Lagos, here on a photography break. But there was something he wasn't saying. Zara could feel it. He always looked out at the sea for too long, like he was waiting for someone who never came.
Their conversations grew longer. She told him about her dreams, about the flower shop she wasn't ready to run. He told her stories about life in the city, about the people he photographed. He asked questions many of them and always about the town's past.
One night, as they walked home under umbrellas, he paused at the old train station.
"Do you know if anyone named 'Kemi' ever lived here?" he asked.
Zara's steps slowed. That name...
"There was a Kemi," she said. "She used to live near the cliffs. But she vanished. Years ago."
Dayo's grip on the umbrella tightened.
"Vanished? How?"
Zara frowned. "Nobody knows. She just... disappeared one night after the festival."
Dayo said nothing more. But as they walked, Zara felt the weight of something pressing between them a secret he wasn't ready to share.