02/09/2025
🌹 A Love That Took Its Time
Chika and David first met in 2016 at a mutual friend’s birthday in Lagos. It wasn’t fireworks at first sight, but more like a polite handshake and a few shared laughs over a noisy game of charades.
David was reserved, the type who spoke carefully and observed more than he joined in. Chika was his opposite: lively, outspoken, and quick with jokes. By the end of the evening, they had exchanged numbers, but neither expected much to come of it.
Over the next few months, they kept bumping into each other at group hangouts. Slowly, a friendship formed, one built on late-night WhatsApp chats about music, family struggles, and even frustrations at work.
By 2018, Chika had moved to Abuja for a new job. David stayed in Lagos, but distance didn’t weaken their bond. In fact, it deepened it.
Every Friday evening, David would call, and they’d talk for hours. Sometimes it was laughter over silly memes. Other times it was serious, Chika opening up about how hard it was to adjust to a new city, and David quietly encouraging her to keep pushing forward.
One night, after a particularly rough day, Chika texted: “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
David read the message three times before replying: “You’ll never have to find out.”
It was the first time Chika wondered if what they had was more than friendship.
Love, however, rarely comes without complications.
David, cautious by nature, hesitated to confess his feelings. He worried that Chika might not feel the same, and that risking their friendship would mean losing her altogether.
Meanwhile, Chika started dating someone else in Abuja, a relationship that looked good on the surface but left her feeling unseen.
When it ended a year later, she found herself dialing David’s number, not even to talk about the breakup, but simply to hear the one voice that always steadied her.
In late 2019, Chika returned to Lagos for Christmas. David offered to pick her up from the airport.
When she walked out of the arrival hall, tired but smiling, David realized what his heart had known for years. He didn’t just want to be her friend. He wanted to be her safe place.
That night, over suya and chilled malt, David finally spoke: “Chika, I don’t want to be just the guy you call when you’re sad. I want to be the man standing beside you every day.”
Chika froze. Then she laughed softly, shaking her head. “David, you took your time, but I’ve been waiting for this.”
The years that followed weren’t a whirlwind of grand gestures; they were quieter, steadier, and more real.
They learned to argue and reconcile without pride. They supported each other’s careers, even when distance came between them again. They celebrated little things: birthdays, promotions, and even cooking disasters in the kitchen.
Their love grew not in big moments, but in the small, ordinary ones: sharing Sunday rice, praying together before interviews, sending “got home safe” texts.
In 2022, under the glow of soft garden lights and surrounded by friends and family, David asked Chika to marry him.
There were no tears, only laughter, joy, and a resounding “Yes!” that felt like the answer to every unspoken question between them.
Today, Chika and David are not just husband and wife but still best friends. Their love story is proof that sometimes the strongest relationships aren’t the ones that begin with fireworks, but the ones that grow quietly, patiently, and steadily until they become unshakable.
