Lagos was loud the night they met. Rain was drumming on the roof of a small book café in Yaba.  

Ada, 26, was a nurse at LUTH. She worked night shifts and wrote poetry on napkins when the ward was quiet.  
Chike, 29, was a photojournalist. He chased stories in the rain, in protests, in traffic. He said he was looking for “truth in people’s eyes.”

He saw it in hers.

For 2 years they were inseparable. Morning akara by the roadside. Night calls that lasted till sunrise. He photographed her in her scrubs. She kept his crumpled press pass in her Bible.  
They planned to marry in December.

But 3 months before the wedding, Chike started getting strange calls.  
“Stop digging,” a voice would say, then hang up.  
He had been investigating a story about missing medical supplies in 3 hospitals across Lagos. He told Ada it was “nothing serious.” She didn’t believe him.

The suspense began.  
One Friday, Chike didn’t come home. His phone rang but no answer. His editor said he left to “get one last photo.”  
Ada searched police stations, hospitals, newsrooms. Nothing.  
On Sunday, his camera was found on the Third Mainland Bridge. No Chike.

The city talked for a week. Then it moved on.

Ada stopped writing poetry. She went back to night shifts. In his old jacket, she found a folded paper she had never seen. It was dated the night he disappeared.

 “Ada,  
If you’re reading this, I couldn’t finish the story.  
They’re moving the drugs tonight through the hospital. 2am. Don’t come.  
 I love you. Marry someone who will make you laugh more than I did.  
Keep my camera. Tell the truth for me.  
- Chike”

She took it to the police. They opened a case. Two arrests were made. The hospital supplies were recovered.  
The news called it “a breakthrough.” No one mentioned Chike’s name on TV.

Ada never married.  
Every December 12th, the day they were supposed to wed, she leaves a single red rose and his last photo on the bridge.  
In the photo, he’s laughing. Behind him, Lagos is blurry with rain.

Last month, a young reporter asked her: “Do you regret loving him?”  
Ada smiled, the first real one in years.  
“No. I regret that the world wasn’t ready for men like him. And women like us who wait.”

She still works night shifts at LUTH.  
And in her locker, in a plastic bag, is the last letter. The ink is fading. But she knows it by heart.