The alarm did not wake her.
Faye had been awake for an hour already, lying on her back with her eyes open, watching the ceiling fan turn in slow circles that matched the rhythm of her thoughts. She had not slept deeply. Every time she started to drift, the same image appeared behind her eyelids: the bus ride to Ikorodu, the door closing, the word reschedule hanging in the air like smoke.
She sat up and looked at her phone. The screen showed three missed calls from her father and a text from her mother that she had not opened. She did not open them now. Instead, she scrolled to the message Sheun had sent after their call, the address and the time, and she read it again to make sure it was still there, that it had not disappeared overnight.
It was still there.
