Snow had melted into rain by the time Chuka saw Amara again. It was a gray afternoon, the kind that muted the campus in tones of steel and smoke. Students hurried past with umbrellas, their laughter carried away by the wind. Inside the Anthropology Department's atrium, the air smelled faintly of old books and damp wool.
He hadn't expected to see her there.
Amara stood by a display case near the entrance, reading a plaque beneath a collection of West African artifacts. She looked different from the gala — less adorned, more human. Her hair was tied in a simple knot at the nape of her neck, and she wore a long camel coat over a cream turtleneck, the kind of effortless elegance that didn't demand attention but received it anyway. In her hands, she held a leather-bound notebook, open but unread.
For a moment, Chuka hesitated. The memory of their first meeting still hovered between them like static — that conversation about identity, about who gets to tell history's story. He adjusted his satchel, trying to quiet the pulse in his throat, and walked toward her.
"Didn't expect to find you among the relics," he said lightly.
She turned, a small smile curving her lips. "And yet here you are — the man who digs them up."
Her tone was teasing, but her eyes carried the same intensity as before. They stood for a moment in the hum of silence — two people orbiting the same gravity, unsure of who would move first.
"I come here when I need to think," she said finally, closing her notebook. "Sometimes it feels like these artifacts are more honest than the people who fund them."
Chuka studied her, intrigued. "Honesty isn't what the world rewards," he said. "Especially in our field. Truth has… sponsors."
Amara looked away, her jaw tightening. "Like my father."
The words slipped out before she could stop them. For a heartbeat, neither spoke. The rain outside pressed softly against the tall windows, a steady rhythm filling the space where conversation had faltered.
"I didn't mean—" she began, but Chuka shook his head.
"You did. And you're right."
He turned toward the glass case, his reflection merging with the artifacts behind it — Nok figures, weathered and patient, staring back through centuries. "Sometimes I wonder if we're all just curators of lies," he said quietly. "Cleaning what we're told to display, hiding what doesn't fit the story."
When he looked back at her, Amara's expression had softened. There was understanding there — and something else. Admiration, perhaps. Or the quiet recognition of shared loneliness.
"Maybe that's why I came," she said. "To find someone who still believes in the truth beneath the dust."
Their eyes met again, and in that charged silence, something shifted — not a confession, but a promise of one.
Then the sound of footsteps broke the moment. A professor passed through the hall, nodding curtly, and Amara stepped back, suddenly aware of herself.
"I should go," she murmured. "My father's expecting me."
Chuka nodded, but his voice was steady when he said, "Then tell him the artifacts are in good hands."
She gave a small, knowing smile before walking away, her heels echoing softly against the marble floor. Chuka watched her until she disappeared into the rain outside, his reflection fading from the glass.
For the first time since leaving Nigeria, he felt the ground shift beneath him again — not with the weight of discovery, but with the uneasy pull of destiny.