Wildfire (Part 1)

Tolu met Patrick because of a question in their Biology class.

That was the funny thing.

Out of all the dramatic ways people meet in movies and novels, theirs started because two SS1 students answered the same question at the exact same time in Baptist Secondary School, Ibadan.

“Photosynthesis,” they both said together.

The entire class laughed.

Even the teacher paused and looked up from his desk.

Patrick turned toward her immediately.

“You copied me.”

Tolu laughed.
“In your dreams.”

That was it.

Nothing spectacular.

Just two teenagers who somehow kept finding reasons to remain around each other afterward.

Tolu had just transferred from an all-girls school, so the adjustment to a mixed school felt strange at first. Boys were naturally loud, annoying, gross, and competitive.

Except Patrick.

Patrick felt familiar almost immediately.

Then they discovered they lived barely fifteen minutes apart.

After school lessons became walking conversations.
Weekend assignments became study sessions.
Small gist became long phone calls.

Before long, people stopped asking questions and simply assumed they were dating.

They looked good together.

Too good.

Even their silence around each other looked intentional.

By the time they got admission into the same university, their friendship already had years behind it.

Solid years.

The kind that survives WAEC stress, UTME tension, parental drama, and teenage mood swings.

At university, they became inseparable.

Everybody knew.

If Patrick wasn’t in Tolu’s hostel room, she was probably in his department.
If Tolu wasn’t sitting beside Patrick during lectures, she was waiting outside his faculty building.

Night strolls became their thing.

Those long Nigerian campus walks where lantern and candle lights, from distant hostel rooms, formed this beautiful view from afar, and random suya smoke floated through the air while students discussed life like they had it all figured out.

Patrick and Tolu could talk for hours.

About music.
About faith.
About their future.
About random things that made no sense to anybody else.

Sometimes they argued passionately about movies neither of them had even finished watching.

Sometimes they sat quietly under the Faculty of Arts staircase doing absolutely nothing.

And somehow…
that also felt complete.

Tolu’s roommate, Ife, was shocked the day she found out they were not officially dating.

“Wait… hold on. You people are not together?”

Tolu laughed from her bed.

“No.”

“Impossible.”

“I’m serious.”

“You guys literally behave like married people already.”

Tolu shook her head smiling.

“I like him sha… but he has never said anything. And I’m not asking a man out. If he asks, fine. But me? Never.”

Ife stared at her dramatically.

“My sister, that boy likes you.... I can see it in his eyes”

“Na you sabi. Eye gazer.”

“I’m serious o. It’s written all over his eyes.”

Tolu laughed harder.

“My mum says the same thing.”

And her mother truly did.

Every time Patrick visited their house during holidays, her mother suddenly became suspiciously cheerful.

“Patrick, have you eaten?”
“Patrick, greet your mother for me.”
“Patrick, this shirt fits you well.”

One evening after he left, her mum simply smiled and said:

“That boy reminds me of your father.”

Tolu didn’t reply.

But she secretly understood what her mother meant.

Patrick had that same steadiness.

That calmness that made people feel safe around him.

It happened during the first semester of their final year.

Patrick invited her for one of their usual evening walks.

Nothing seemed unusual at first.

Until they got near the old amphitheater behind the library.

That was when he suddenly became nervous.

Proper nervous.

Patrick that could talk for Africa was now adjusting his wristwatch every ten seconds.

Tolu noticed immediately.

“What happened to you?”

He exhaled slowly.

“I’ve been trying to say something for years.”

That got her attention.

Patrick looked directly at her.

“I think I loved you before I even understood what love was.”

Tolu felt her heartbeat shift.

“I didn’t want to rush it,” he continued.
“I didn’t want us to become one of those relationships that start fast and scatter fast. I wanted us to build friendship first. Something real. Something pure.”

Tolu stared quietly.

The words.
The sincerity.
The intentionality.

It felt rehearsed in the best possible way.

Like he had carried this speech inside him for years.

“I know we already fit naturally,” Patrick said softly.
“But I don’t just want friendship anymore. I want you. Properly.”

Tolu thought she had prepared for this moment long ago.

But suddenly all her rehearsed responses disappeared.

Especially because recently, part of her had already started accepting maybe it would never happen.

There was even one guy in her department trying seriously.
Though most guys eventually backed off after seeing her closeness with Patrick.

But now here he was.

Finally saying it.

And somehow saying it exactly the way she always hoped he would.

“I want to build a life with you,” Patrick added.
“When I think about my future, you’re there already. Everything just looks… right.”

Tolu laughed nervously through almost-tears.

Then nodded.

“Yes.”

Patrick blinked once.

“Yes?”

“Yes, Patrick.”

The relief that entered his face made her emotional instantly.

Then he pulled her into a hug and for a moment it felt like the entire university disappeared around them.

When Tolu told Ife later that night, Ife screamed so loudly somebody knocked on their hostel door to check what happened.

“I TOLD YOU!”

Tolu threw a pillow at her laughing.

When she told her mum, the woman practically started planning wedding colors immediately.

“I have always liked Patrick,” her mother confessed shamelessly.
“That boy has sense.”

Life moved quickly after graduation.

NYSC came and went.

Miraculously, both of them got good jobs almost immediately.

Adulthood arrived fast.

Salary alerts.
Traffic.
Work stress.
Weekend dates.
Wedding conversations.

Then one evening, almost ten years after that Biology class moment, Patrick proposed.

And it was ridiculously thoughtful.

He rented a rooftop space in Lagos.

Invited some of their old secondary school classmates.

Even their former Biology teacher sent a video message laughing about “Photosynthesis.”

At some point during the proposal speech, Patrick smiled and said:

“I already settled this matter in my heart years ago. This proposal is just formality. I married you mentally since Baptist Secondary School.”

The whole place erupted in laughter.

Tolu cried openly.

Her mother cried too.

And just like that, wedding plans began.

Everything felt perfect.

Until the wedding in Abeokuta.

Tolu almost didn’t attend.

One of those obligation weddings you go to because your friend will never forgive you otherwise.

She was already bored thirty minutes after arriving.

The MC was dry.
The hall was hot.
The food line was moving like immigration queue.

That was when she noticed him.

A man standing across the hall staring at her.

Not in a creepy way.

Just… intensely.

Tolu looked away immediately.

Then looked back again.

And froze.

Because somehow…

the man looked exactly like the fantasy she had carried privately in her head for years.

Not Patrick.

Patrick was comforting, familiar and safe.

This man looked dangerous in the way fantasy usually does.

Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Perfectly fitted senator outfit.
Sharp beard line.
Clean skin.

Even the tiny details matched absurdly well.

The dimple.
The gap tooth.
The deep voice she imagined since secondary school while listening to Boyz II Men late at night.

It honestly annoyed her.

Because why should somebody look this specifically designed?

The man eventually walked toward her.

Extended his hand.

Smiled.

And there it was.

The gap tooth.

“My name is Demola,” he said smoothly.
“You look like somebody I’ve known all my life.”

Tolu nearly laughed from nervousness.

Even the name matched.

Demola.

The exact name she once jokingly gave her “dream guy” while gisting with Ife years ago.

Something about the moment felt spiritually suspicious.

Like life was playing an expensive prank.

Still…

she shook his hand.

And unfortunately for her peace of mind…

Demola was even more interesting once he started talking.

To Be Continued...