We, no, I fell in love with you somewhere between Onitsha Head Bridge and the busy bus stop in Ore. Or… if I’m concerned about being accurate, a few hours before then. Probably when passengers were boarding the fourteen-seater bus and I stood behind the little crowd to size everybody up. I sat beside a woman and her cranky baby on my last journey. Never happening again.

I clutched my number thirteen ticket and watched the man with the biggest Bible I’ve ever seen climb in. He was passenger number eleven.

I have nothing against the Bible, but not him, Lord.

Then went in passenger number twelve, a woman clutching a hand luggage that smelled suspiciously of stockfish. Or maybe crayfish.

I don’t want to know what that bag contains.  

And then I looked around and saw that you and I were the only ones left standing outside the bus with the hawkers standing about and advertising in addition to snacks and bread, essential items a traveller might have forgotten to pack – toothbrushes, shaving sticks, chargers, and other phone accessories, handkerchiefs and socks and even pairs of boxers. 

He has to be number fourteen. Please, let it be him.

And even though I hoped and prayed it was you, you looked too good to be traveling long distances on a commercial bus even if it was one of the comfortable ones that had ACs, charging ports, and a TV. For one, you were wearing a custom-made ankara short and shirt set and quality, leather sandals. Plus your beard and hair looked high maintenance and you had the latest iPhone. So I climbed in and crossed my fingers.

But my mother’s prayer had worked. She never left any small detail out when I was traveling, from the wheels on the bus to peaceful passengers and seatmates (especially after I had told her my ordeal with the baby that wouldn’t stop crying). Thanks to her, I was going to sit beside a well-dressed man who smelled of Smart Collection perfume for the 10 hours it took to get to Lagos from Aba by road. That was a consoling thought and enough reason to forget the pain I felt at the ticket counter when I dipped my hand into my handbag and couldn’t find my earpiece. Amara, my younger sister had taken it like she took my follow come charger when I visited last Christmas. I knew I had other earpieces strewn across my room in Lagos so I ignored the persistent hawker plastered to the bus window and waving packs of earpieces. I was going to survive this journey with a fine man and Candy Crush by my side.

“Seems like I’m sitting beside you”, you said in Igbo as you took your seat. I shrugged in an I-don’t-care kind of way. I didn’t want you to think that I was too excited to sit beside you. 

Maybe that was why you didn’t speak to me again until we were at the Anambra – Delta water boundary but you made a couple of calls, one to a friend in Mauritius, and even joined a forty-five-minute-long Zoom meeting. Meanwhile, I had already named our babies by the time the bus had turned into the first highway.

“Imagine we had to cross with a canoe.”

This was you when the bus climbed onto the bridge. I had already consigned myself to watching the river and counting the number of billboards and posters advertising a popular green bottled, indigenous beer brand.

It was good to hear your voice again but you took me by surprise and I didn’t know what to say so I just smiled and then realized that I hadn’t said a word to you either. I had to prove to you that I wasn’t an airhead or an unpleasant person.

“If the only option was to cross with a canoe, we would have still done it. Maybe complained a little, but we would have been used to the fact that that is the only available option. I’m sure people travelled before this bridge was built.” 

“That’s true”, you nodded and some passengers began to tell stories of how their parents or uncles or aunts used to ferry across the River Niger before the bridge was built. A guy sitting in one of the front seats even claimed he crossed the Niger with a canoe when he was a boy, even though he looked like he was in his early twenties.

Ice successfully broken, we both took a backseat as the conversation in the bus veered to politics and the nation’s economy. Then you offered me one of your AirPods, the left one.

“I don’t know if we have the same taste in music, but you looked bored.”

“I am. Thank you.”

Ruger’s “Dior” was playing and we both nodded in comfortable silence. Ababa Nna came on next and I looked at you in surprise. 

“What? My love for music cuts across many genres and time frames.”

Then you laughed. Your laugh enhanced the rich timbre of your voice. Deep and low, but not exactly a bass. Bass is what I think of when I hear my pimple-faced, teenage brother Uche and all his friends talk.

Before the bus stopped in Ore, we had shared Gala and plantain chips, listened to Adele and Onyeka Onwenu, Imagine Dragons and P-Square, Eminem, and The Cavemen. I already knew where you lived on the Island and you knew I lived in Gbagada and worked with a bank in Ilupeju. You knew fun facts about my siblings and of course, I told you that Amara took my earpiece. You also knew that I came back to Aba for my bestie’s wedding where I was the chief bridesmaid. Your family lived in Aba, a trekkable distance from where my family lived. You were a tech bro, a freelancer, and you talked a little about coding, AI, UI/UX, and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t understand. You came back for your father’s burial and after spending a lot, didn’t have much to spare for a flight.

“But I’m happy I took the bus. How could I have met you if I hadn’t?” And I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt. 

You were Iheanyi. I am Iheoma. From the same state and both from the Ngwa tribe. Perfect match. Our wedding hashtag was going to be #IheSquared. In one of the eateries in Ore, over steaming plates of jollof rice, yours with fried fish (you avoided red meat as often as you could and didn’t feel like eating chicken) and mine with beef, we laughed and shared stories of our experiences in Lagos. I was convinced you were not one of the crazy men in Lagos Damilare Kuku wrote about. This one is onye obe ka anyi, someone from my place.You were nwa afo, through and through and you felt strongly about family (and relationships I guessed) the way I did.

You paid for our food and waited while I peed before we walked back to the bus hand in hand with newspaper-wrapped parcels of oil-drenched suya and plastic bottles of soft drinks I insisted on buying. We read hilarious Twitter threads and laughed at funny skits on Instagram. Passenger Number Eleven hummed a religious tune, gave us evil looks, and flipped his Bible noisily for emphasis but we didn’t care. We giggled at his antics and the mediocrity of the movie playing on the small television. I slept off on your shoulder to Enya’s voice and before I drifted off, I thought that we were just like the couples in the K-dramas and telenovelas that I stay up most nights watching. I made a mental note to download the latest episodes of the two I was currently seeing. I woke up when Passenger Number Twelve alighted at Redemption Camp with her luggage which you and I confirmed to be crayfish.

A few minutes before stopping at Anthony Bus stop where I come off, you asked for my number and flashed me. I looked at the eleven digits highlighted in red on my contacts and promised to save it. You had already told me that you were getting to the terminal in Jibowu and you waved as the bus drove off. I saved your number first in my Uber with “Iheanyi Travel” and then just “Iheanyi” when I got home. 

Our romantic journey was the first gist I gave my work bestie, Seun when I stepped into the office the next morning.

“I did not find a man at the wedding but I met one technically, on my way home from the wedding”

“Has he called?”

“Not yet. He probably slept off after the journey.”

“Ok o. If he sha calls today, signal me and make sure you put it on loudspeaker. I want to hear his voice.”

You didn’t call, so I changed your contact name to “Guy I Met on the Bus” during my lunch break, then to “Number Fourteen” (which I quickly erased because it implied something else), and finally to “Aba to Lagos.”

Favour Ezienyi Ahuchaogu is an avid reader. When you do not find her with her nose in a book, you will find her either sleeping and dreaming of places she has visited in her imagination, or spinning tales of her own. She is a graduate of English and Literary Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She currently works as a Sales and Marketing Executive with a Pharma-FMCG company (go figure!) but has never stopped doing the things she loves most. So she doubles as a freelance writer and editor in her spare time.