The rooftop was silent after she asked.
"Will you come with me, if I go?"
Tunde looked at her—really looked. Not the public version. Not the legend. Just Amaka. Vulnerable, brilliant, afraid.
"I don't know if I can," he said honestly.
Her throat tightened. "Because of the program?"
"Because of everything."
They sat.
No touching. No performance.
Just truth, heavy between them.
"I built something here too," he said quietly. "It's not Paris. No stage lights. But it's mine. And it needs me.
"And I don't?"
"You do. But maybe not in the way you think."
She closed her eyes. "So this is it?"
"No," he said quickly. "This is the part where we stop pretending love is always simple. Or aligned."
He reached for her hand.
"I love you enough not to follow you blindly. I also love you enough to want you to go if that's where your next fire is."
She held back tears. "What happens to us?"
He smiled, soft and sad. "We find out."
The next day, Amaka went back to Studio Bold.
The team was buzzing. Unseen Lagos had gone viral overseas. Emails from São Paulo, Toronto, Nairobi.
Everyone asked the same thing: "Where next?"
But Amaka didn't answer.
She stared at the sketches. The building. The mural Tunde painted on the back wall: a woman holding a broken city, smiling anyway.
That night, she packed a small suitcase.
She didn't take the contract.
She took a blank journal. A pendant Tunde had made. One pair of walking shoes.
She sent him a voice note at 2 a.m.
"I'm going to Paris. But I'm not staying. I just need to see if I can carry myself—alone—without falling apart. Not to escape you. To return to you with more."
She added, "If we're still us when I come back, I'll build everything with you. If we're not… I'll still be grateful for the sky we shared."
Two weeks later, Tunde got a postcard.
No return address.
Just six words:
"Still learning how to fly steady."
He placed it beside the sketch of her he never finished.
And smiled.