TAKEN

Being taken is not one moment.

It’s many small moments stitched together by confusion.

First, there was movement—the kind that doesn’t ask permission. I was guided, then pushed, then held still again. The street blurred past me, familiar corners suddenly unfamiliar because he wasn’t beside me to name them. Noise pressed in from all directions, but none of it made sense anymore.

I kept turning my head, expecting—hoping—to see him running after me. Expecting his presence the way you expect your own shadow. But the space beside me stayed empty.

That was the worst part.

Not the hands. Not the pulling. The absence.

We stopped somewhere quieter. Not silent—Accra is never silent—but different. The sounds were closer, tighter. Walls instead of open road. The air smelled older. I was tied in place, left standing with nothing to do but feel time pass.

I waited.

At first, I waited confidently. Surely this was a mistake. Surely he would find me. He always did. He was better at navigating the street than I was. Smarter. Louder. Braver.

Minutes passed. Or hours. Time stopped behaving normally.

People came and went. Some looked at me with mild interest. Some ignored me completely. One child stared for a long time before being pulled away by the arm. I searched every face for something familiar.

Nothing.

As the sun dipped lower, fear began to settle in my bones—not sharp, not sudden, but heavy. The kind that sinks in slowly, like the evening heat that refuses to leave even after the sun is gone.

I tried to rest, but every sound jolted me awake. Every laugh felt wrong. Every passing footstep felt like it might be his.

It never was.

Night arrived without ceremony. The city shifted gears. Music drifted from somewhere nearby. Someone was cooking—oil popping, spices blooming in the air. My stomach twisted, not with hunger, but with a strange understanding I didn’t yet have words for.

This place was not temporary.

That realization landed quietly, and then refused to move.

I thought of the wall we used to lean against. The mango tree. The rusted kiosk. I wondered if he was back there now, pacing, searching, calling out into the noise of the city the way he always did when he lost sight of me—even for a second.

I hoped he wouldn’t wait too long.

Because waiting had never been our way.

As the night deepened, I finally did something I hadn’t done in a very long time.

I cried out.

Not loudly. Not desperately. Just once. A sound meant for one person and one person only.

But the street did not answer.

And for the first time since I could remember, I was alone.