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Tio Sage I am a copywriter and digital marketer. @ Adekunle Ajasin University
In Africa 2 min read
The Treehouse
<p>Tucked between two crumbling oaks at the edge of the old neighborhood woods, the treehouse hadn’t changed much. The rope ladder was gone, the wood sagged under years of rain, and vines now curled up its sides like fingers clinging to memory.</p><p><br></p><p>But it was still there.</p><p><br></p><p>Lena stood at the base of the tree, hands buried deep in her coat pockets. She hadn’t been back in almost seventeen years. Not since everything shifted.</p><p><br></p><p>Not since Jonah left.</p><p><br></p><p>They built the treehouse together when they were ten, fueled by juice boxes and dreams, hammering crooked nails into splintered boards with more heart than skill. It became their world—secret meetings, flashlight stories, escape plans. Their own sacred sky between branches.</p><p><br></p><p>When they were thirteen, he told her he’d love her forever.</p><p><br></p><p>She said nothing.</p><p><br></p><p>She was too afraid to ruin the magic, to name it, to make it real.</p><p><br></p><p>He left town that summer. His parents divorced. Just like that, he was gone. No goodbye. Just an empty swing and one final note in her locker:</p><p><br></p><p>“I waited. But maybe it was never ours after all.”</p><p><br></p><p>She cried for weeks. Then, slowly, she stopped returning to the treehouse. It hurt too much to sit where he wasn’t.</p><p><br></p><p>Now she was twenty-nine, with a job, a fiancé, a life. And yet… here she was again. Drawn back by a dream she couldn’t shake. A voice in the dark calling her home.</p><p><br></p><p>She climbed the tree slowly, her boots slipping a little on the bark. The trapdoor still creaked open.</p><p><br></p><p>Inside, it smelled like dust and old summers.</p><p><br></p><p>Then she saw it.</p><p><br></p><p>Carved into the wall with a pocket knife, faded but clear:</p><p><br></p><p>"L+J – if we forget, the trees will remember."</p><p><br></p><p>She pressed her fingers to it, and something broke—softly, like a whisper.</p><p><br></p><p>Maybe he never came back. Maybe he never would. But in this little wooden box above the world, time stood still for them.</p><p><br></p><p>And some part of her would always be waiting at.</p><p><br></p>

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