Now, though, she felt parts of herself growing back, unfurling in the back of the taxi, her body hot, her heart pounding.
‘So, what are you doing – I don’t mean – there’s nothing wrong but . . .’ She was tripping over her words, her tongue clumsy, as she tried to reacclimatise to being around Adric.
‘I know there’s nothing wrong with me driving a taxi, Yaa.’ His voice was hard, and pushed at Yaa’s heart till it fell into her stomach.
‘Yes. Of course.’
There was a pause as Adric moved off from the traffic light. He sighed and rubbed his forehead.
‘I teach politics at the City Polytechnic. Mama got sick a few months back. She’s fine, don’t worry, but I do this after work sometimes to help pay some of the bills.’
Yaa had been lobbying for a bill for months that would support the elderly if they became sick and had to stop working and had been encouraging Kofi to include it in his campaign. He’d said, as he did about most of her suggestions, ‘Everything in due time, Yaa.’
Yaa cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry about Auntie. I’m glad she’s fine. I miss her.’
She saw Adric nod. ‘She misses you too. Mentions you all the time. She likes seeing you on the news, talking about things that matter. Doesn’t like seeing you on the news next to Kofi, though. She said she doesn’t trust him. His ears are too small.’
Yaa smiled. Trust Adric to infuse some semblance of normality into the awkwardness, to calm her nerves. ‘Hmm. They are kind of tiny, aren’t they? Must be why he struggles to hear anything besides his own voice.’
Within the silence that fell, a rapper on the radio rhymed ‘waist’ with ‘rotate’ and offered to ‘pound it till you’re soft like fufu’。 After a few moments, Yaa and Adric both laughed, hard, cathartically, at the absurdity, at the inappropriateness, and at the tragedy of it all. They stopped at another traffic light.
‘Can you unlock the car please?’ Yaa asked.
Adric turned around, eyes aghast. ‘You serious? Yaa . . . at least let me drop you somewhere safe!’
‘Unlock the car. Please. I’m uncomfortable.’
Adric blinked, startled, before he nodded and turned around. The doors clicked. Wordlessly, Yaa slipped out of the backseat of the car, and slammed the door behind her. She walked around to the front and slid into the front passenger seat next to Adric.
She exhaled deeply. ‘Better.’
Adric shook his head at her, a smile spreading across his handsome face, so bright it was like her own personal dawn.
He laughed. ‘You had me there.’
Yaa giggled, a sound she hadn’t made in years. ‘I couldn’t help it. Sorry,’ she paused as her smile faded, ‘I am so sorry.’
The traffic light switched to green and Adric nodded as he looked out into the road, his jaw tightening again. ‘It was a lifetime ago, Yaayaa. We were children.’
Yaa’s throat tightened and she looked down. ‘What we had wasn’t childish.’
Adric released a long breath. ‘No. It wasn’t.’
Yaa lifted up her head and swallowed. ‘What I did was selfish. I know. I just . . . for the first time I could live my life without all those expectations. For the first time someone was seeing me. I wanted to hold on to that for as long as I could. Hold on to you. I think I was scared of letting go of Kofi because I was scared of what I would be with my future unwritten. Once you have freedom, if you fuck up, that’s on you, you know?’
Adric glanced at her, and as quick as it was, Yaa saw something warm and tender that balmed the long-cracked parts of her heart before he spoke. ‘That’s the beauty of it, though. The power is with you. And the power has always been with you, Yaa. I’ve always seen it in you. I saw it when we first met at that rally, and I see it in you with everything you do today, fighting for progress and trying to use your status for good. I think you underestimate yourself. I understand why. You were brought up to think you needed them. I didn’t understand that then, but I understand now. They made you feel like you weren’t enough on your own and that’s hard to shake. I’m sorry for how hard I was on you. I’m sorry for the last thing I said to you. I know who you were with me was real.’
Yaa stared at Adric’s profile, the slope of his nose, the fullness of his lips, and realised that she recognised his face as home. He still somehow was able to see her in the midst of his own hurt. Unthinkingly, she slid her hand over his on the gearstick and squeezed. Heat immediately rushed through her and made her belly swoop low. She removed her hand in a panic, mortified by her boundary crossing. She’d broken his heart and now she thought she could just hit on him while he was working, like some kind of pervert? Yaa was contemplating hurling herself out of the moving car when she felt his knuckles graze her cheek gently, sweetly. His eyes were still on the road. She turned his hand over in hers and pressed her lips into his palm.