Chapter Nine: Rain and Silence
London rain had a way of seeping into everything — the air, the streets, the mood. That afternoon, it came suddenly, drenching the city in a steady, melancholic downpour. Adrian stood beneath the tiny awning outside the community mental health center, watching as droplets bounced off the pavement like tiny dancers refusing to rest.
Maya emerged moments later, her scarf already damp and her curls collecting rain like petals. She stopped beside him, huddling under the shared shelter.
“Well,” she said with a shrug, “this is a vibe.”
Adrian chuckled under his breath.
“I booked a cab, but it’s stuck five blocks away. Something about road closures.”
She looked up at him, amused.
“So we’re stranded?”
He checked his phone.
“Seems like it.”
They stood in silence — the kind that wasn’t awkward, just filled with things unspoken. The sound of rain filled the space between them, steady and grounding.
“There’s a tea shop across the street,” Maya offered. “It’s tiny, but cozy. We could wait it out there.”
Adrian glanced at the storm, then back at her. For once, he didn’t calculate the efficiency of it. He just said,
“Lead the way.”
Inside, the shop was warm and dimly lit. The windows fogged over almost instantly as they settled by the corner table. Maya ordered chamomile. Adrian, reluctantly, chose mint. Neither spoke for the first few minutes.
It was Maya who broke the silence, her voice low.
“You don’t have to talk. But if you want to… I’m here.”
Adrian stared into his tea. The steam danced like a ghost between them.
“When I was ten,” he began, “my mother stopped speaking for a while. Not physically — just emotionally. She went quiet. I didn’t understand it then. I thought I’d done something wrong.”
Maya listened, hands cupped around her mug.
“Later, I found out it was depression,” he continued. “But in Nigeria, back then… people didn’t talk about things like that. Especially not mothers. She carried it like a secret she was ashamed of.”
Maya’s heart tightened.
“I tried to fix it,” he said. “Cleaned the house. Got top grades. Did everything perfectly. As if maybe — maybe — if I was flawless, she’d come back.”
He paused, swallowing hard.
“She did get better. Eventually. But something in me… shifted. I started believing emotions were liabilities. That loving too deeply made you vulnerable to drowning in someone else’s silence.”
Maya reached out slowly, resting her fingers lightly over his. He didn’t pull away.
“I don’t want to drown either, Adrian,” she said softly. “But I’m not asking you to sink. Just… to stop swimming alone.”
Outside, the rain softened. Inside, the silence between them deepened — but this time, it felt like a shared understanding, not a void.
When they finally stood to leave, Adrian looked at her. Not as a therapist. Not even as a challenge. But as something else — someone who had seen past his structure and hadn’t flinched.
“Thank you,” he said.
Maya smiled, quiet and sure.
“You’re welcome.”
They stepped back into the damp London evening — no umbrellas, no rush — just two souls, walking through the rain, no longer quite strangers.
