Three Stories: Two Truths and A Lie

[NARRATOR (JOHN OYINLOYE)]: Let me speak.. wait! Waiting…Waiting for the perfect moment to step into the spotlight. And the warriors in this silent battlefield? Dan. Esther. Dee. [D.E.D] Locked in a war of love… A war where arrows fly endlessly— Definitely not from Cupid. Yet somehow…No one ever drops DEAD. ----------------- [ESTHER LAWRENCE] : I'm never the kind to get caught up in scandals, but somehow I actually enjoyed this one .... You see, I'm not just a reserved person. Silence is my thing, especially when I'm feeling out new people. But somehow and this was shortly before January waved its goodbye, something about that "message" to a guy I barely knew and never met felt sooo... right. A chapter I didn't know would open fully in the month of February. And that....is exactly how this wahala started. Not in school.Not even at a corporate event. But here.On TwoCents. Four hours. One phone call, and he was the perfect gentleman. Something about him felt safe. He didn't rush me...he didn't force conversations. It just flowed, so much that we chose sleep over hitting the end call button. That night ehh... We vibed hard. Too hard! The days that followed didn't feel complete without his voice on the other end of the phone. And suddenly, without even realising it, we became the reason behind each others' insights. "The Red Bottom Heels", "The Woman I Wanted, but couldn't Have", and a few you'd probably never guess. Things felt so in place, that we didn't even know we were doing a thing in public view, until others pointed it out. Then came the struggle of having to pretend it didn't mean more than we told, because I knew.... These stories, were not just insights. They were timed signals and his way of saying "I want the world to see you the way I do...and maybe just a fragment of what you've come to mean to me." As always, I watched from a distance. Afraid to begin...afraid to read the true meaning in those lines... Can we really shrink age gaps for love? February is done now, and it still feels like he's trying to tell me something without saying it outright. Will I let this scandal speak louder than my silence? Lol. I guess I'll never tell... -------------------------- [BIG DAN]: I think I may have gotten myself into trouble… the kind that doesn’t come with police sirens, but with heartbeats. You see, I’m sapiosexual. Not the loud social media type who throws the word around like seasoning on jollof. I mean the real kind. The kind that falls first for the mind before the smile, before the beauty, before the voice notes. And that… is exactly how this wahala started. Not at a party.Not in someone’s DM. But here.On TwoCents. It began with a simple insight someone posted titled: “The Man I Wanted, But Couldn’t Have.” The story was deep. Emotional. The kind of writing that sits in your chest for a moment before you breathe again. I read it once… then twice. Then I did what writers do when their minds get stirred. I replied. Not with a comment.With my own version of the story. And just like that… a spark happened. What started as one post turned into a series. People followed the thread. Readers engaged. Opinions flew everywhere like Lagos danfo conductors arguing over change. But me? I stayed a bit distant. Not because I wasn’t interested. Because age can be a strange referee in conversations like this. And I’ve learned that sometimes wisdom tells you to slow down even when curiosity wants to run. Then… the second story happened. A different insight. A darker one. A woman standing on a ledge. Not the poetic kind writers like to exaggerate. The real kind. She wrote about being tired of everything. Of standing alone in a world that seemed too loud for her thoughts. It felt less like writing… and more like someone whispering for help. So I reached out. Not as a savior.Just as a human being who noticed someone standing too close to the edge. She responded. We talked. Slowly… the ledge became a chair. The chair became conversation. The conversation became laughter in places where sadness used to live. And somewhere in the middle of all these words and late-night replies… something strange started happening. Two brilliant minds.Two different voices.Two different energies. Both writers.Both Gen Z. Both capable of turning a simple sentence into something that lingers long after you’ve read it. And somehow… both connected to me. One day a message came. “Dear Dan… thanks for checking on my health.” Another day another message came. “Hello Dan… I just wanted to check on your health.” That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t just having conversations anymore. I was standing in the middle of two emotional wards. And somehow… I had become the patient. Yes. Right now I am sick between two wards. A patient… without patience. Lost in a world with two choices I didn’t plan to make. One studies in Ilishan, and somewhere between poetry and laughter I made a promise to visit her there one day. The other studies in Yaba, the loud intellectual heart of Lagos, where creativity breathes through cafés and campus corridors… and I promised I would visit her too. Two promises. Two brilliant minds. Two stories still unfolding. And I can’t help but ask myself something I still don’t have the answer to… When I held one hand to pull her away from the ledge… Did I accidentally jump into a conclusion of my own? But maybe my version of this story isn’t the only one that matters. Because every story has other narrators. So before you judge the patient lying between two wards… Maybe you should hear from the two doctors of my confusion. Esther in Ilishan. And Big Dee in Yaba. Because if this story has just begun… Then the real question is: What exactly did they see in me? ------------------------ [BIG DEE]:I never come online to cause trouble. I come here to write. To think out loud. To exist in the margins of other people's stories without fully stepping into the frame. But here I am. In the frame. Somebody's chapter. Somebody's narrator. Somebody's wahala. Dan will tell you we're just two writers who found each other's frequency on a platform full of noise. And honestly? He's not wrong. What he won't tell you, because it's not his part to tell, is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that kind of attention. The quiet, consistent, I-see-you kind. The kind that doesn't announce itself. Doesn't perform. Just shows up. In posts. In replies. In a conversation that started as a check-in and ran longer than either of us planned. I kept my distance at first. Not because I didn't want to engage, but because I understood the assignment of my own life. The one I had already signed for. In ink. With a witness. With a witness. Moving on. We wrote together. Laughed. Built something in public that most people read as creative chemistry and nothing more. And maybe that's all it was. Maybe words between writers always feel like more than they are. Maybe. But then he said RSVP. Victoria Island. Just the two of us. Seven o'clock. And listen, RSVP is not a "we're just writers" kind of suggestion. That is not a thinking-out-loud restaurant. That is a somebody-made-a-decision kind of place. I got dressed. Looked at myself in the mirror a little longer than usual. Then I walked out. The evening was easy. Surprisingly easy. The kind of easy you don't fully trust. We talked the way people talk when they have already decided to be honest with each other but haven't figured out about what yet. About writing. About life. About the strange way TwoCents keeps pulling people into rooms they didn't knock on. It did same with us. And then at some point he said something that wasn't trying to be anything special. It didn't need to be. I felt it land somewhere it had no business landing. I did not respond the way I wanted to. The rest of the evening was cool, surprisingly. Maybe because of what he said or how he said it. It was time to leave. He pulled out his phone quietly, ordered a ride and stood with me while we waited. When it arrived we said our goodbyes, a brief one. The kind that knows its place but still lingers a second too long. I got in. Watched him through the window as the car pulled out. The ride home felt quiet. Too quiet. I couldn't wrap my head around why it felt that way. I got home. The car pulled up at my place and for a moment I sat still. I cannot tell what made the driver extra patient. He said nothing. I looked at my hands. They felt too cold. I stepped out of the car. The evening suddenly felt too cold as well. The driver drove off and left me to myself. I looked at my phone, picked it up and dialed a familiar number before I could think myself out of it. What happened after that? Well. Some stories are still being written. And the smartest thing I have learned from being a writer is this: You don't reveal the plot twist in the same chapter you plant it. -------------- [NARRATOR (JOHN OYINLOYE)]: Directed by something deeper— Something unseen.Not by their eyes… But by their hearts, and guess what? My eyes saw everything. But my heart… My heart carried no arrows. So I remained where I was— Watching. Observing. With envy…Not the bitter kind that wishes harm, No.But the quiet envy that chooses to remain in the shadows. The kind that loves to peep for a moment, then slowly crawl back into its shell. But something still bothers me. Three Stories. But which is the lie?

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