The Absence Of Evidence: A Verdict's Heartbreak - by Letters From Delight ⁠♡♡

In Law of Torts class, we talk a lot about damages. We learn that for every wrong, there must be a remedy; for every loss, a quantifiable cost. The law hates a vacuum. It demands evidence, witnesses, and a clear chain of causation.But as I sit in the back of the lecture hall, my highlighter hovering over a paragraph on negligence, I am privately litigating a case that no High Court in Abuja would ever take. The Plaintiff: My ego, bruised and demanding a refund for time spent. For lengthy late night calls. The Defendant: A ghost. A person who was once my "co-counsel" in life, now turned hostile witness.The Charge: Emotional Abandonment. The problem with being a law student in love is that you start looking for a "burden of proof" in a text message that never arrived. You go through the archives of your WhatsApp chats like they are bundles of evidence. You cross-examine old selfies, looking for the exact moment their smile stopped reaching their eyes—the moment the "breach of contract" actually occurred. In Law, we are taught that “he who asserts must prove.” I assert that I was loved. I assert that we had a "Memorandum of Understanding" regarding our future. I assert to his words of affirmation. But when I look for the signed documents, I find only fading reels and a half-finished book on my nightstand that they promised to read. There is a specific kind of "Rock Bottom" that happens when your logical brain meets your breaking heart. My legal mind wants to file an injunction against the memories. It wants to strike out the "he-said-she-said" of our final argument. It wants a clean verdict: Guilty or Not Guilty. But the heart isn't a courtroom; it’s a crime scene that never gets taped off. There is no judge to gavel down the noise in my head. There is no bailiff to escort the grief out of the room. There is only the "Evidence of Absence"—the way the seat next to me in the library feels heavier now that it’s empty. I am realizing that the most difficult "trial" of my youth isn't the Bar Exam. It’s the moment I have to stand up, look at the empty witness box where they used to be, and deliver the final judgment myself: Case dismissed. For lack of interest. For prevention of a worse heartbreak. For the sake of my own peace- I'd let this case go. I hope my next case doesn't land me in a court room judging between two opinions. <img src="/media/inline_insight_image/Screenshot_20260307-180414.jpg"/>

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