The hall had gone dead silent.
Chairs scraped, someone gasped, and even the DJ froze mid-track. Emeka was still kneeling, ring in hand, but my eyes were glued to the man at the back.
He wasn't moving. Neither was I.
I blinked. My head told me I was seeing things, but my heart… my heart screamed one name.
"Tochi?"
The man's gaze didn't shift. He just stood there, half in shadow, like a ghost that had wandered into the wrong event. His face wasn't exactly the same ..fuller beard, a small scar under his jaw .. but those eyes. God. Those eyes.
I knew those eyes better than I knew my own reflection.
Emeka called my name, low and confused. "Amaka?"
My chest rose and fell fast. I looked down at Emeka, then back at the stranger. But he was gone. Just like that. One blink, and he had vanished through the side door.
I dropped the bouquet.
"Maka!" my best friend Ada shouted, running towards me. "What is it? You look like you've seen…."
I pushed past her and ran.
He couldn't be real. My husband died three years ago. We buried him. I saw the coffin lowered. I touched his cold fingers in the morgue.
I ran out of the hall, heels clicking on the tiles, heart threatening to leap out of my chest.
The corridor was empty. I turned right. Nothing. Left. Still nothing.
No sign of him.
Just silence.
I braced my hand against the wall, fighting to breathe. My vision blurred. For a second, I almost thought I had imagined it.
Almost.
Because on the floor, near the door he walked through, I saw it.
A black cufflink.
It had the initials "TO" engraved on it.
I gave him that cufflink on his last birthday.
Back in the hall, people were murmuring. I could hear Emeka's mother complaining loudly, calling me "unstable." I could hear the guests whispering, phones buzzing as someone definitely started recording.
But I didn't care.
I clutched the cufflink like a madwoman. My world had just been turned upside down, and nothing …not even the perfect wedding …could distract me from the cold truth:
Either someone was playing a wicked game…
Or Tochi was alive.
Ada found me in the corridor, crouched against the wall, still clutching the cufflink like it held answers. My hands were shaking. My makeup was already halfway ruined, and the white of my gown suddenly felt like a lie.
"What's going on?" she asked, kneeling beside me. "Talk to me."
I held up the cufflink.
She stared at it like it was a normal piece of metal. But I saw the shift in her eyes the moment she noticed the initials.
"T… O," she read slowly. "As in… Tochi?"
I nodded. "I saw him."
She blinked. "Saw who?"
"I saw Tochi, Ada. He was here. Standing in the hall like a ghost. Staring right at me."
She grabbed my hands. "Amaka, listen to me. You're under pressure. You've been stressed for days. You're not sleeping well. This wedding…."
"I'm not mad!" I snapped, louder than I meant to. "I know what I saw. He was right there. Looking at me. I'd know those eyes anywhere."
She looked torn between comforting me and shaking me back to reality.
"But we buried him, Maka."
"I know," I whispered. "That's why I feel like I'm going crazy."
She stared at me. "Are you sure it wasn't someone that just looked like him?"
"No. It was him. I know it was."
We sat there in silence for a few seconds.
Then she stood up and dusted her hands. "Okay. Then we find out what's going on. But first, we go back inside and fix the mess you just caused before someone starts livestreaming your breakdown."
I laughed weakly, half from nerves, half because she wasn't wrong.
Back in the hall, the tension had shifted. People were whispering. My mother looked like she wanted the ground to open and swallow her. Emeka was standing by the altar, confused and embarrassed.
I walked up to him slowly.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I… thought I saw someone. I panicked."
He forced a smile, but it didn't touch his eyes. "Someone like your dead husband?"
My chest tightened.
Before I could reply, his mother stepped forward, dragging me aside.
"Let me ask you a question, Amaka," she said, her voice cold. "Are you still in love with your late husband?"
I stared at her.
Wrong question. Wrong moment.
But instead of answering, I looked around the crowd. My heart was no longer here. It had left with that man. With the face I thought I would never see again.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I stared at the cufflink for hours.
I went through old photos. Watched his videos again. Listened to his voice notes like I hadn't deleted them a hundred times.
And then, just past 2am, I got a message.
No number. No name. Just one line.
"You weren't supposed to see me.
I stared at the message for minutes, hoping it would disappear.
It didn't.
No name. No profile picture. Just a plain text that said, You weren't supposed to see me.
I read it again and again until the words started dancing.
Then another message came in.
Delete this. And tell no one.
I didn't reply. I couldn't. My fingers felt frozen, like my body knew something I hadn't caught up with yet. I dropped the phone on the bed like it had burned me and backed away from it.
Was it him?
Was it Tochi?
If it was, then what did it mean? That he had faked his death? That he had been alive this whole time, hiding, watching?
Or worse… that someone else was pretending to be him.
I paced the room like a trapped animal, heart pounding in my throat. My wedding dress was still crumpled on the floor where I'd thrown it earlier, and the cufflink was on the table, watching me like it had a story to tell.
I picked up my phone again and typed back one shaky word.
Why?
The message didn't deliver.
Whoever it was had already blocked me.
I didn't sleep that night. I sat on the floor in my wrapper, knees pulled to my chest, listening to every sound like someone might break in.
In the morning, I went straight to my father's house.
He was in the garden, sipping papaya juice and reading the newspaper like the world hadn't just turned upside down.
"Daddy," I said, voice barely steady. "Can we talk?"
He glanced up, raised one brow. "Is it about the wedding?"
I nodded. Then shook my head. Then nodded again.
"I think… I saw Tochi."
He paused. His grip on the cup tightened just a little, then loosened. "You're under stress, Amaka."
"No," I said quickly. "I mean I saw him. He was at the wedding. And then I got a message last night."
He looked at me quietly, then folded the paper. "What kind of message?"
I showed him.
He didn't say anything for a long time. Just kept staring at the screen like he recognized something.
Then he got up and walked into the house.
"Daddy?" I called, following him. "You're scaring me. Say something."
He stopped in front of his study door, opened it slowly, then turned to face me.
"Let sleeping dogs lie, Amaka. If you love your peace, forget what you saw."
I blinked. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying some people are dead for a reason. If Tochi is back… then this is not about love anymore. It's about survival.