"Brilliantly done... the reader is lured into a journey with Osas and nothing will ever prepare you for the ending." - Bookause Review.
Osas Ediku was just four years old when her father, a devoted police officer, was tragically taken from her life. Left with no education and no inheritance, her mother Ruth made a quiet, ferocious vow: Osas would never be left behind. Ruth shaped their lives around the privileged children of her late husband’s colleagues, forging ahead with unthinkable sacrifices and humiliating compromises to give her daughter the future she deserved.
Two decades later, Osas arrives in South London to begin her master’s degree, an achievement hard-won. At Ruth’s insistence and in spite of her reservations, Osas reconnects with Paul, Bayo, and Edafe, the sons of her father’s former peers, men who are now rich and highly ranked in the force. Osas settles, safe in the assumption she’s finally caught up, finally worthy of the same space they occupy.
But belonging isn't bought with ambition alone. Osas will soon find that she may have made it here like the boys, but the path she and her mother had taken isn't a well kept secret, and her journey, more than her destination has become her identity.
1
With the tingling tune of a new beginning jumping between her ears, Osas knelt beside the cardboard box marked Kitchen. She pressed her thumb on the edge of the seal, peeling back the tape with a borrowed key she reckoned opened one of the back doors to the building. The room smelled faintly of bleach and someone else's perfume, floral, synthetic, and lingering in the curtains. Her side of the room was still bare, one suitcase, one pillow, one folded Ankara dress laid carefully on the desk as a totem.
Yelen lounged on her bed, legs crossed, scrolling absently through her phone. Her side was already lived-in and homely: posters, plants, a mug with chipped enamel that read Only Talk to Me Post My Existential Crisis.
Osas pulled out a drawer in the kitchen corner, “Ahh, stuff’s in here already,” she muttered more to herself, “sweet.”
“You’ll want to get a kettle,” Yelen said, not looking up. “Trust me. The kitchen ones are always crusty. ”
Osas nodded, unsure if she was meant to laugh. She didn’t know what crusty meant in this context. “Noted. Meaning someone is definitely going shopping sometime soon.” She turned to Yelen, “Anything else I may need to buy while I’m out,” making a mental shopping list.
Yelen looked up from her phone, “I don’t know, Breakfast stuff. Whatever that is to you. You want to always leave home to school with a full stomach.”
Osas nods.
“And tea’s basically currency here. Stock up on them.”
Osas left a thoughtful gaze on Yelen’s red toenails. She didn’t know what counted as tea in this context, Lipton? Ovalteen? Milo? She shrugged and got back to unpacking.
Still, she liked the way Yelen spoke. Casual, but not careless. Like someone who’d learned to make space for herself in a city that didn’t offer it freely.
It’s strange, Osas thought, how quickly someone can become familiar.
They’d met in class two days ago, an awkward shuffle of seats, a shared glance when the lecturer mispronounced her name, and then a conversation that stretched past the seminar and into the walk home. Yelen had offered her half a sandwich and a story about her first winter in London. Osas had laughed, genuinely, for the first time since that brief banter with the Air Peace hostess in Gatwick.
I didn’t expect kindness to come so soon.
She’d braced herself for loneliness, for the cold, for the ache of missing things she couldn’t place a finger on quite well. Her mother’s voice. The greyscale wall photo of her late father’s photograph that turned every short walk between her bedroom and the kitchen seem like an emotional trip to a past she never knew. The smell of petrol on their back veranda and of fried Titus outside their kitchen window where they would sit on evenings with power outage. The way Lagos held you, even when it pushed you to the edge of your sanity.
But Yelen had made space. And now, here they were, two women sharing a room, a city, a moment.
“Also,” Yelen added, “don’t let anyone guilt you about your accent. You speak beautifully. People here just pretend not to hear what they don’t understand.”
Osas looked up. That landed somewhere deep.
Beautiful.
From the first hello she said at the airport, she had become conscious of her accent. All of a sudden, she listened to her voice when she spoke. Something she never did all her life. To hear a person who doesn’t share her skin tone describe her accent as beautiful may just be the best feeling she’s had in this country yet.
She hadn’t felt beautiful in any way since she left. Not in the way she spoke, not in the way she moved through unfamiliar streets, clutching her phone like a compass, second guessing very turn she made. But maybe here, in this room, with this person, maybe she could begin reimagining herself and beauty once again not being a hyperbole.
Outside, a siren wailed past. Inside, the radiator clicked to life. Osas sat back on her heels, surrounded by fragments of home and pieces of advice she didn’t yet know how to hold.
Maybe things won’t be so bad, she thought. Maybe this is the beginning of something good.
Yelen set her phone aside and leaned back against the wall, her gaze softening. “Do you have any family here? In the UK?”
Osas hesitated, fingers brushing the edge of a spice jar wrapped in newspaper by her mother a week ago. “A distant cousin, I think. Somewhere in Manchester or maybe Birmingham. We haven’t spoken in years.”
She didn’t say more. Didn’t explain the awkward WhatsApp thread that was mostly one sided, the unanswered messages, the way distance sometimes stretches even between blood.
Yelen nodded, like she understood. “Well, you’ve got me now. And tomorrow, I’m taking you to the African shop in Camberwell. You need proper food. Not just Tesco sadness.”
Osas laughed, surprised by the ease of it. “I don’t know if I can cook anything impressive. Just the basics. Jollof. Egusi. Maybe fried plantain if the oil cooperates.”
Yelen grinned. “Perfect. You’ll teach me. And I’ll teach you pierogi. Or bigos. Or at least how to survive on pickled things when you’re broke.”
Osas smiled, and it reached her eyes. This is what she hadn’t dared to hope for.
Not just survival, but connection. A shared kitchen. A friend who didn’t ask her to explain herself but offered space to be. She decided she could get used to this, while silently praying it lasts.
She looked around the room again. Still half-empty, still unfamiliar. But now, it felt less like a landing pad and more like a beginning.
“Deal,” she said. “But only if you promise not to judge my jollof.”
Yelen raised her hand solemnly. “I swear on my existential crisis mug.”
Osas giggled to the sound of groaning buses and echoing footsteps on the street below them, the sky turned a deeper grey. She could tell something had shifted. A promise made over spices and stories. A friendship is beginning in the quiet corners of a shared room holding a shared realities for the near future.
Later that evening out of sheer boredom, Osas had bothered Yelen to take her to the African shop instead of waiting for the next day. They had gone in an Uber after which Osas did the Naira-Pounds conversion in her head and decided she wasn’t going to be making a habit of it. The trip back required two buses travel, but she was fine with it.
The bus lurched forward, a low groan of gears and tired suspension. Osas clutched the metal pole beside her seat, balancing her phone between shoulder and cheek, talking with her mother. Outside, South London blurred past, grey buildings, corner shops, a man in a tracksuit arguing with his reflection in a window.
“Hello, Mummy,” she said, voice low.
“Osas,” Ruth’s voice crackled through the line, warm and firm. “How are you settling?”
Osas glanced around the half-empty bus. A woman in a hijab was nodding off. A child pressed his face to the glass, watching the world like it was an episode of Pepa Pig.
“Better than I expected if I’m being honest.”
“Ahh, my dear. You have made some Nigerian friends, I’m sure.”
“Not really.”
“You have to. What is stopping you?”
“It’s been about a week,” she said. “I’ve mostly had time for just classes. Nothing else, really.”
Ruth sighed. “You need to make time. Network. Meet people. Important people. You didn’t go there to hide in books.”
Osas smiled faintly. Books are easier than people, she thought, but didn’t say it.
“I met someone,” she offered. “Yelen. She’s Polish. We share a room.”
“Hope she isn’t one of those racists”
“Mummy,” she sighed, “I don’t even think I know how to tell, but she seemed so nice to me.”
“Good. Keep her close. You never know who God will use.” There was a pause. Then Osas asked, “Do you have the number of that your cousin, Aunty Patience? The one in Manchester?”
Ruth’s voice shifted, tightened. “You don’t need to bother with her.”
“But...”
“She has kept her distance from us for so long. Better to leave things that way. She didn’t help us when we needed her. When I was struggling, she was treating me like a nuisance. Now that we’re okay, let’s not even think of her. No. We don’t owe her anything.”
Osas looked out the window. A Bulgarian flag fluttered from a corner shop. She felt the ache of distance, not just miles, but years of silence, pride, and pain.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Focus on your future,” Ruth continued. “Make the right friends. Build your name. That’s what matters now.”
The line went quiet. Osas hung up just as the bus turned onto a street she didn’t recognize just like every other one. She exhaled slowly, the phone warm in her hand.
Family was supposed to be a bridge, she thought. But sometimes it’s just another border.
The bus rattled over a pothole, jostling Osas in her seat. She pressed the phone tighter to her ear, Ruth’s voice still crisp despite the distance.
“You should find and reconnect Paul, Bayo, and Edafe them,” Ruth said. “The boys from Ikeja Barrack. They’re all doing well now. I’ve been keeping up with them on Facebook.”
Osas blinked at the name Paul. He used to find every reason to hang out with the boys where she would notice them while pretending he is unaware of her existence. Bayo, the one she fell in love with, in ways she’s still too ashamed to admit to her older self. Edafe, just Edafe, living up to his father’s reputation in all the ways possible. Doing well could mean anything. A good job. A luxury car. A curated life behind profile pictures.
“I don’t know, Mummy,” she said. “We haven’t spoken in years.”
“That’s exactly why you should reach out,” Ruth replied. “They’re your people. You need to make friends with people who are going somewhere. Not just classmates who’ll disappear after graduation.”
Osas felt the familiar tug, love wrapped in pressure, care laced with intentions. Her mother had always been pragmatic. Friendship was currency. Connection was survival.
“I’ll try,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction.
Just then, Yelen nudged her gently. “This is us.” Then she pressed a thumb into the red button along the metal rail.
Osas nodded, ending the call with a soft “Talk later,” before slipping the phone into her coat pocket. The air outside was cooler than she expected, tinged with the scent of fried meat and damp concrete.
They stopped at a kebab shop on the corner, its neon sign flickering like a tired heartbeat. Yelen ordered lamb with extra garlic. Osas chose chicken, unsure if it would taste like anything she knew.
As they walked home, foil-wrapped dinners warming their hands, Osas let herself breathe. The city hummed around them, cars, laughter, the distant thump of music from a passing bike.
Yelen glanced over. “Your mum?”
Osas nodded. “She wants me to reconnect with some boys I grew up with. Way back from my childhood. Apparently, they’re doing well now.”
Yelen raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a reunion waiting to be awkward.”
Osas laughed, the sound surprising her. “Exactly.”
They turned onto their street, the kebab scent trailing behind them, a promise. Osas felt the weight of Ruth’s expectations still pressing against her chest, but also the lightness Yelen brought to the evening, the warmth of food, the quiet companionship of someone who didn’t ask her to be anything but herself.
Maybe she’d reach out to Bayo, she thought. Just him. Just to see.
2
They sat cross-legged on the floor of their apartment, foil wrappers spread between them like ritual offerings. The kebab was messier than expected, garlic sauce dripping onto napkins, lamb charred just enough to taste like something real. Yelen had queued up a playlist: soft jazz, then a Polish indie band Osas couldn’t pronounce but liked all the same.
Osas chewed slowly, her phone balanced on her knee. She tapped open Facebook, half out of habit, half out of guilt.
Bayo’s profile loaded first. His latest post was a selfie at a pub, dim lighting, pint glasses, the kind of grin that came easy. The kind she knows all too well. In another photo, Paul and Edafe were in the background, arms slung over each other like they’d never left the barracks. The caption read: Still the same vibes, just better shoes.
There were comments. Inside jokes. Some she knew so well, a few others she didn’t get. Emojis. A thread of familiarity she couldn’t quite touch.
They look like they belong, she thought. Like they never had to leave anything behind to arrive.
She scrolled further, photos of Bayo at a conference, Paul in a suit, Edafe with an XL Bully. All curated, all polished. All distant.
She still remembered vividly when they use to run by the Barack’s broken-down fences, hailing at roadside hawkers and running off before they get close.
Now they were men with LinkedIn profiles and videos of wild pub nights. And she was here, eating garlic-soaked chicken with a girl who’d learned to survive London by pickling everything.
Ruth’s voice echoed faintly in her mind: Make friends with people who are going somewhere.
But Osas didn’t know where she was going yet. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to arrive in the same place they had.
Yelen nudged her with a chip. “You okay?”
Osas nodded, locking her phone. “Just looking at old friends.”
Yelen raised an eyebrow. “Good memories?”
Osas shrugged. “Complicated ones.”
They ate in silence for a moment, the music shifting to something slower.
Maybe she’d message Bayo, she thought again. Just him. Just to say hello.
But not tonight.
Yelen tore off a piece of flatbread and dipped it into the last of the garlic sauce. “You’ve barely touched your kebab,” she said, mouth half-full. “What’s going on? Who’s the fine guy you’re stalking?”
Osas blinked, caught mid-scroll. “What?”
Yelen pointed at her phone. “You’ve been staring at that screen like your rent money is stuck in it. Come on. Spill.”
Osas hesitated, then shrugged. “His name’s Bayo. We... dated. A long time ago. Back in Lagos. My mum’s been pushing me to reconnect now that I’m here.”
Yelen raised an eyebrow. “Ah. Teenage love. The kind with stolen glances and awkward hand-holding? I love it.”
Osas smiled faintly. “More like shared suya and fights over who got the last piece. But it’s golden too.”
Yelen laughed. “Romantic.”
Osas looked down at her food, appetite still elusive. “She says they’re all doing well now. That I should reach out. Network reasons more like. Rebuild old ties.”
Yelen leaned back, thoughtful. “She doesn’t want you to be alone. It gets lonely here. Really lonely. Especially if you don’t find your people fast.”
Osas nodded slowly. She knew that loneliness already. The kind that crept in between classes, in the silence of her room, in the way her accent made people pause before responding.
“She means well,” Osas said. “But I don’t know if I belong with them anymore.”
Yelen didn’t push. She just handed Osas the last chip and said, “Then find the ones you do belong with. Even if it’s just one person. Even if it’s me.”
Osas took the chip, her fingers brushing Yelen’s. The room was quiet now, except for the hum of the fridge and the city breathing outside their window.
Maybe this was how belonging began, she thought. Not with old ties, but new ones. Not with certainty, but with kindness.
Later that night, with the kebab wrappers cleared and Yelen humming in the shower to the distant tune of same indie Polish band, Osas sat cross-legged on her bed, phone glowing in her palm. She’d left a comment on Bayo’s post, just a simple “Nice one, Bayo. Long time.” Casual. Noncommittal.
She hadn’t expected a reply so soon. Right inside her messenger inbox especially.
Bayo: Osas? Wow. Good to be in touch again.
Osas: Same.
Bayo: Is that the Big Ben I see behind you in your recent post? You’re in the UK?
Osas: Yes. Just started my master’s. South London.
Bayo: That’s mad. I’m in Croydon. We have to meet. You free this weekend?
The eagerness in his messages made her pause. It was strange—how quickly the past could reappear, not as memory but as momentum. His words came fast, like he’d been waiting for her to resurface.
Osas: Maybe Saturday? I’m still settling in.
Bayo: Saturday’s perfect. I’ll find a spot. Somewhere chill. Maybe a cafe. I’ll text you.
She stared at the screen for a moment after the chat ended. The blue ticks blinked back at her like tiny eyes.
It’s just coffee, she told herself. Just catching up.
But her chest felt tight. Not fear exactly, more like the weight of expectation. Of what he might remember. Of what she might have to forget.
Yelen stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Osas smiled faintly. “Not a ghost. Just Bayo.”
Yelen raised her eyebrows. “The fine guy?”
Osas nodded. “We’re meeting Saturday.”
Yelen flopped onto her bed. “Well, wear something that says, ‘I’m thriving but emotionally unavailable.’ That usually works.”
Osas laughed, the sound soft and real. She looked at her phone again, then out the window. The city was quiet now, streetlights casting long shadows across the pavement.
Two days, she thought. Let’s see what’s left of us.
The screen flickered before Ruth’s face appeared, framed by the soft hum of a ceiling fan and the faded curtains of their sitting room in Ikeja. Her voice came through clear, brisk as ever.
“So, you’re seeing Bayo?” she asked, not even waiting for pleasantries.
Osas adjusted her scarf, the laptop balanced on her knees. “He’s coming to hang out. Just coffee. You said I should reconnect.”
Ruth nodded, lips pursed. “That’s good. But don’t start anything romantic with him. Or any of those boys.”
Osas blinked. “That’s the last thing on my mind, Mummy. I only messaged him because you asked me to.”
Ruth leaned closer to the screen, her voice lowering. “I know. But, you know, with you young children, one thing could lead to ano...”
Osas gasped, “Mummy can you just not...”
“I need you to understand something. You’re not a child anymore. You’re in a new country. You’re building something. You need to be respected by those boys. Seen as an equal. Not just someone they used to date.”
Osas felt the words settle in her chest, heavy, familiar. Ruth had always spoken in strategies. Life was a series of moves. Relationships were negotiations.
“But why does it matter so much?” Osas asked. “It’s been years. We were kids.”
Ruth’s eyes softened, just slightly. “Because they remember you as that girl. The one who followed them around. I don’t want you to go back to that. You’ve come too far.”
Osas looked away from the screen, out the window where the London sky hung low and grey. She hadn’t thought of it like that. She’d imagined Bayo as a memory, not a mirror.
“I’ll be careful,” she said.
Ruth nodded. “Good. Be friendly. Be smart. But don’t let anyone define you by who you used to be.”
The call lingered into the more familiar territories of a motherly prayer full hopeful inside thoughts and a reminder to eat properly. Osas stared at the laptop and sat still for a moment, the silence pressing in as her mother’s words went on and on.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted from Bayo, but she knew what she didn’t want, to be small again. To be someone else's nostalgia. The screen flickered again, Ruth’s face framed by the soft hum of the sitting room fan. Her voice came through steady, but with that familiar edge, part pride, part urgency.
“I pray you will find them to be good company,” Ruth said.
“You don’t even have to worry about me being lonely,” Osas said, trying to sound casual. “I’m making friends fast. I didn’t need the boys.”
Ruth shook her head. “Company wasn’t my main motive.”
Osas frowned. “Then what was?”
Ruth leaned in, her eyes sharper now. “If your father were alive, he’d be more successful than all their fathers. Okocha, Salau and Collins. Yes, they were his colleagues in the force, but he was smarter. More disciplined. He had vision that was beyond his times.”
Osas felt the old ache stir, her father’s absence, always present in Ruth’s sentences like a ghost with unfinished business. She knew this call was too long not to have any mention of him.
“You would’ve had a better life than all of them,” Ruth continued. “But I’ve done my best. I’ve made sure you didn’t miss much. I gave you everything I could.”
Osas nodded slowly. She knew it was true. Ruth had stretched herself thin, school fees, late-night tutoring, the quiet sacrifices that never made it into conversations.
“But now,” Ruth said, voice firm, “you have to stay connected with those boys. They’re your link to power. Their fathers are rich and powerful now. Connected. Influential. You think they won’t open doors for their sons? You think they won’t help the people close to them?”
Osas looked down at her hands. She hadn’t thought of Bayo as a door. Just a memory. Just a boy who once made her laugh and cry in equal measure.
“Mummy,” she said gently, “I’m not trying to chase power.”
Ruth’s expression softened, but only slightly. “You don’t have to chase it. Just be near it. That’s how you survive.”
The call ended soon after, with Ruth reminding her to dress well for the meetup and to speak with confidence. Osas closed the laptop and sat still. She didn’t want to be anyone’s strategy, she thought. She wanted to be someone’s story.
Osas sat by the window, the hasty steps of strangers outside contrasting with the solemnity of private thoughts. Her tea had gone cold. Her thoughts hadn’t.
Why does she place so much faith in those men?
As if success were a baton passed between uniforms. As if proximity to power was the only way to matter.
She understood Ruth’s logic, had lived inside it for years. The boys from Ikeja Barrack weren’t just childhood friends; they were symbols. Of what could have been. Of what her father might have become. Of the life Ruth had imagined before it all fell apart.
And maybe she’s right, Osas thought. Maybe connections do open doors. Maybe power does trickle down.
But still, there was something in her that resisted. A quiet defiance. Not born of pride, but of gratitude.
She’s done so much, Osas thought. So much to give me a life that doesn’t have to beg at anyone’s table.
She remembered the nights Ruth had to do late night station shifts in successions, the way she stretched one salary across three dreams, the way she never let Osas feel the weight of what they lacked.
I owe her everything, she thought. But I don’t owe the boys anything.
She didn’t want to be anyone’s plus-one in a room full of influence. She wanted to walk in with her own name, her own story, her own voice.
A bus rumbled past her window. Osas stood slowly, poured the cold tea down the sink, and reached for her notebook.
Let them have their connections, she thought. I’ll build something they can’t inherit.
Some hours later, the night pressed in softly, the hum of distant traffic like a lullaby she didn’t trust. Osas lay on her bed, eyes open, the ceiling a blank canvas for thoughts she couldn’t shake.
Would he really have been more successful than them?
Her mother spoke of her father like a man carved from principle and promise. Smarter than the rest. Sharper. Destined. But Osas had only fragments, photos, stories, the way his name made her mother’s voice tighten with pride and grief.
She thought of Bayo’s father, Paul’s, Edafe’s. Men who had risen, yes, but not cleanly. Promotions bought with prickly silence. Wealth built on favours and fear. The kind of success that left a sour taste behind the shine.
If he hadn’t died so early, she wondered, would her father have bent too? These were after all his closest friends and colleagues. There were higher chances he would have been what they are today. Yes, if he was smarter and more driven than them, he may have been more successful, but would he be any less dirty.
Would he have traded integrity for influence? Would he have joined the quiet chorus of men who smiled in public and schemed in private?
She didn’t know. And that not-knowing was its own kind of grief.
Maybe Ruth needs him to be better, she thought. Because if he wasn’t, then what was all the struggle for?
Osas turned onto her side, the room dim and still. She wanted to believe he was different. That he would have built something honest. That her life could have been shaped by a man who stood tall, not just climbed fast.
But belief was slippery. And memory was a story told by the living.
I don’t want to inherit ambition without ethics, she thought. I want to build something that lasts without leaving bruises.
Osas closed her eyes to the sound of a siren wailing past in the distance, the weight of a disjointed legacy pressing gently against her chest.
Book Link: You Can't Sit With Them (THE NIGERIAN DIASPORA) eBook : Anazodo, Peace: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store