“So do you,” she replied without thinking.
He smiled—brief, but it reached his eyes.
At the Badu house, Tenna’s patience thinned. Sirwa began finding reasons to accuse her late at night of misplacing things that later reappeared. Madame Badu’s voice grew colder. Wages stayed delayed.
One afternoon, Tenna heard Sirwa laughing with friends.
“These girls think they deserve everything,” Sirwa said. “As if we owe them a future.”
Tenna kept her eyes on the glass until the words blurred.
That evening, she walked past the church without stopping. Fear pressed harder than guilt.
But Kofi’s voice found her anyway, soft from the shadows.
“You didn’t come in.”
“I can’t stay long,” Tenna said. “I just wanted to say—be careful. People don’t like what they don’t understand.”
Kofi studied her face. “Neither do they like mirrors.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” he said gently. “Thank you, Tenna.”
As she turned, he added, “Not everyone who sleeps outside is lost.”
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