The shape of her Absence 2 - by David Lilly-West

Since you guys liked the first one i bring you the second part of the story, does femi get his happy ending, does morayo return for good this time, do they live happily ever after, you just have to read and find out….. 🫶 Morayo returned to Lagos on a morning that smelled like rain.She stood at Femi’s gate longer than she needed to, hand pressed lightly against her chest. The illness had not yet learned how to be loud, but it was already there—settling quietly in her lungs, waiting. Leaving Femi had not freed her the way she once believed. The pain followed her into every city, every quiet night she spent convincing herself she was strong enough to endure it alone.The habits came later—not rebellion, not carelessness, but anesthesia. Something to numb the ache of loving someone from afar. By the time the coughing began, she already knew what it meant.The doctor confirmed it gently.Eight months.Morayo cried in the back of a taxi, not for the time she was losing, but for the life she almost had. The only place she wanted to spend what remained was the place she had been too afraid to stay.That was why she called. Femi did not ask questions when he opened the door and saw her. He only said her name, like a word he had been carrying unfinished for years.“You came back,” he whispered.“I missed you,” she replied.And just like that, the years collapsed.They learned each other again in quiet ways. Morning tea on the balcony. Burnt toast laughed over instead of replaced. Evenings where the city hummed below them and nothing needed to be said. Somto took to her instantly—she listened to his stories like they mattered, teased him gently, danced with him in the kitchen when music played without warning.Once, during a power outage, they sat on the floor playing cards by candlelight. Morayo laughed until she had to press a hand to her side, breathless and glowing. Femi watched her like this moment alone was worth every year he had spent without her.In the evenings, she insisted on holding his hand, her thumb tracing slow circles into his palm, as if reminding him she was real. He did not let go.“You’re here,” he told her once.“I am,” she said softly. “For now.”He didn’t hear the warning. She began to fade in small ways.She paused on the stairs. Rested longer than she admitted needing to. Turned away when she coughed. Femi noticed, but love makes cowards of careful men.One night, as rain tapped gently against the windows, he asked, “Why did you really come back?”Morayo leaned into him. “Because I was tired of being brave alone.”What she did not say was that she had come to be forgiven—and to forgive him too. The months passed gently, cruelly beautiful.Somto learned how to cook from her. Femi learned how to stop answering work calls at dinner. They became a small world, complete in a way that felt earned.And Femi was happy.Not loudly.But fully.On the last night, the power went out.Candles flickered across the living room. Morayo lay against Femi’s chest, her breathing shallow now. Somto had gone to bed reluctantly, sensing something he did not yet have the words for.“There’s something I never told you,” she whispered.Femi smiled softly. “We have time.”She shook her head.“I needed you to say you were sorry,” she said. “Not because you were cruel—but because you were gone when I was still here.”The words broke him open.“I’m sorry,” he said through tears. “I’m sorry I loved you with plans instead of presence. I’m sorry I didn’t stay.”Her smile trembled.“That’s all I came back for,” she whispered.She rested, then gathered what little strength remained.“I have a child,” she said.Femi froze. “What?”“A girl,” Morayo continued. “I had her after I left. I didn’t tell you because I was scared. I never replaced you.”Femi sat upright. “Where is she, Morayo?”Her lips parted.No sound came.“Morayo?” he begged. “Where is she?”She looked at him with a love so full it hurt to witness.Her fingers tightened once around his.Then loosened.The candle flickered.And Morayo was gone. They buried her quietly.At the funeral, The church was full, yet unbearably quiet.Morayo’s photograph rested beside white flowers—her smile frozen in a moment none of them had known was borrowed. Somto sat in the front row, hands clenched together, watching his uncle stand when it was time to speak.Femi walked slowly to the podium.He did not open with poetry. He did not speak of time or fate or illness. He spoke of mornings she made brighter just by being awake. Of laughter that filled rooms she never tried to own. Of a love that left once out of fear—and came back only to teach him how deeply it had always lived inside him.His voice faltered when he spoke of forgiveness. When he spoke of how she returned not to be saved, but to be understood.“She loved quietly,” he said, tears streaking freely now. “And she carried pain so gently that we mistook it for strength.”The room held its breath.Femi gripped the edge of the podium, chest heaving, eyes fixed somewhere far beyond the congregation—somewhere only she existed.Then, breaking completely, he said,“There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to say one more I love you.”With tears in the eyes of Femi, he said goodbye to the only woman he ever loved..

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