THE ILLUSION OF PERFECTION 6

The moment Tayo stepped away from the balcony and retreated into the shadow of his high-rise apartment, Nadia slowly stood up, stretching her back with a soft groan.

She made a mental note to buy a new chair as she gathered the scattered bolts of fabric and her sketchbook.

It was only when she turned to enter her own room that the earlier interruption registered fully. She glanced up at the opposite balcony, which was now empty.

That man.

She paused, ink-stained fingers resting on her door handle. She hadn't consciously looked up when the man was there, but she’d felt the presence—a tall, restless silhouette against the sky, a familiar posture, a certain way he’d been leaning on that balcony. Her initial instinct had been a flash of recognition.

"Tayo?" she murmured to herself, the name feeling old, almost forgotten and dusty on her tongue.

She shook her head, dismissing the thought. It couldn't be. The last she'd heard—through the neighborhood gossip network after his mother’s third, quick marriage—was that they had packed up and moved to one of the highbrow, overly manicured sections of Lagos, far away from this respectable, but far less flashy neighborhood. The old apartment he used to share with his mum was now rented out to new tenants.

The man on the balcony had looked undeniably sophisticated. Too sleek and polished to be the Tayo she remembered, who was always trying too hard and was too focused on attaining a dazzling, high-profile life.

She pulled out her phone and, purely out of curiosity, opened her Instagram. He wasn’t on her friends list, not after their last encounter, but she could still remember his IG name. She scrolled straight to his old profile and gasped softly. 

Tayo’s feed was a blinding mosaic of perfection: dinner with celebrities, a cascade of luxury watches, and endless champagne toasts in grand restaurants. One of the most recent posts was a captivating shot with the geotag: Maldives.

Nadia let out a small, quiet laugh. "Nope. That was definitely not Tayo."

The man she saw was here, in Lagos, on a slightly dusty balcony in her building complex, while speaking urgently on the phone. Her Tayo was supposedly thousands of miles away, sipping piña coladas or something more overpriced. His posts were proof enough. 

That man was just a sophisticated look-alike, an illusion cast by her own nostalgic memory and don’t call him 'your Tayo', she chastised herself as she slid her phone back into her pocket, the brief surge of curiosity extinguished.

Nadia opened the door to her apartment, the scent of fresh cotton welcoming her home. The identity of her mysterious neighbor suddenly became far less interesting than the curve of the new cuff design she needed to finalize. 

She focused on her creation, entirely oblivious to the tiny, forgotten "Hello stranger..." message still hovering in the depths of Tayo's old chat app.

CONTINUE