Chapter 3 Eyes Across the Courtyard

Chapter Three

It started with a glance.

Not one of those long, deliberate stares that boys threw at girls in the village - hungry, possessive, careless. No. This one was different. It came like an accidental beam of light slipping through tree branches - quick, soft, surprising.

It was Wednesday morning.

The school compound was already warming under the sun, the red earth dry and cracked in places. Morning assembly had just ended, and students began to scatter into their classes. But Kemi remained still, clutching her books tightly to her chest as she watched the white NYSC uniform approach the staffroom.

Corper Tunde.

His white shirt billowed lightly in the breeze. He walked with that same quiet stride - not in a hurry, not seeking attention, but drawing it anyway. When he passed by the JSS3 classroom, he looked up - just briefly - and his eyes met Kemi's through the open window.

She froze.

Her first instinct was to look away. But something in his gaze held her. It wasn't invasive or flirtatious. It was more like curiosity - like someone seeing a page in a book they wanted to understand.

Then he smiled.

It was small, almost nothing. But it landed like a pebble in her chest, sending ripples through everything she thought she could keep still.

She turned quickly to her desk and sat down, hoping no one noticed the faint pink blooming in her cheeks.

But of course, someone did.

Adunni leaned in from the desk beside her, grinning. "He looked at you."

"No, he didn't," Kemi said, too quickly.

"He smiled at you."

Kemi tried to focus on her open notebook, the lines suddenly blurring.

"You're lucky," Adunni whispered. "If I were you, I'd smile back. Maybe he'll marry you and take you to the city."

Kemi didn't respond. Not because the thought didn't cross her mind. But because the idea scared her more than it thrilled her.

At break time, Kemi didn't go to the back wall. She went to the school library - a single dusty room with wobbly wooden shelves and worn-out textbooks. It was rarely visited. That's why she liked it.

She sat cross-legged in the corner with a poetry collection in her lap. She turned the pages slowly, savoring the softness of words like yearn, tender, ache. The poems spoke in ways she could not.

Then the door creaked open.

She looked up quickly, heart racing - but it was only Musa, the assistant teacher, searching for an attendance sheet. He barely noticed her.

She exhaled.

Still, her thoughts wandered. Back to Tunde's eyes. To the smile. To the way he had written "Literary Circle - Thursdays" in neat, hopeful letters.

Would he still want her there? Would he remember?

She wasn't the kind of girl people remembered. She had learned to disappear in rooms without being asked to. To be present, but unnoticed. But something in his gaze that morning had stirred a part of her that had long been asleep.

By late afternoon, the sun was beginning to descend, painting the sky with oranges and bruised purples. School was over, and students had begun the walk home - in pairs, in noisy groups, some barefoot, some dragging their bags.

Kemi lingered behind.

Her fingers brushed against the Literary Circle card in her notebook. Her feet carried her, slowly, toward the courtyard. She told herself she wasn't looking for him, that she only needed to pass by the staffroom to take the long way home.

But there he was.

Sitting on a bench beneath the mango tree, a book in one hand, a bottle of water in the other. He was reading, absorbed, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

Kemi didn't mean to pause - but her legs stopped.

As if sensing her presence, he looked up.

Again, their eyes met. Again, he smiled.

This time, she smiled back - small, uncertain, but real.

He didn't wave or speak. He simply nodded once, as if to say I see you again, and returned to his book.

Kemi walked on, her pulse quickened, her mind spinning.

That night, under the baobab tree, Kemi sat with her back pressed to the trunk, her notebook open on her lap.

She drew a single line across the page: "The way he looked at me was like turning a page I didn't know I was in."

She didn't know what it meant yet.

But it felt true.

And the wind in the baobab leaves seemed to agree.