Nobela ni Marian Ogbetere

The restaurant had gone quiet, that golden lull before the dinner prep started. The staff were gone for their break, and the hum of the fridge filled the silence in my office. I was closing out invoices, half-listening to Cherry recount some story about a client who canceled on her because of “energy incompatibility.” It made me laugh, the kind of laugh that released some of the tension sitting at the base of my neck.“You’ve got to stop meeting these crystal men.” I said, shaking my head.Cherry chuckled. “Oh, please. I should start invoicing them for wasting my time.” I smiled faintly, still focused on my screen. “You could make a business out of it.” She gave a low laugh, but it faded quickly. When I looked up, she was fidgeting with the straw in her cup. A sure sign something was on her mind.“What?” I asked.She hesitated. “I, uh… there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” The change in her tone pulled my attention. “Okay…” She sighed, setting the cup down. “You rememb

I’ve always believed in systems. In the quiet logic of things that didn’t betray you. Grids, measurements, sound structures. Numbers didn’t lie, steel didn’t change its mind, and walls never walked away. When my marriage ended, I built my survival around those truths. I dedicated myself to designing the perfect house for other people’s happiness while avoiding the mess of my own. I stopped looking at rooms as places to live and started seeing them as things to solve. But she, Sasha, the woman who cooked her thoughts into meals was unsolvable. She existed in gradients. Her laughter, her silences too full. She didn’t plan her feelings, she felt them and I found that both terrifying and magnetic. When my ex wife left, the divorce had been clean on paper but messy in spirit. I loved her with precision, but not the kind of love that burns or breaks rules. I had thought steadiness would be enough. It wasn’t.Work became the language I understood best. I ran my firm on discipline. Respect

Crest called just after seven, his voice low and familiar through the phone, in the way that always made my shoulders loosen a little. “Hey, I just got back in,” he said. “If you’re not buried in work, maybe come over, have dinner with me?”Dinner. The word alone felt like relief. The apartment around me was heavy with tension. The sharp echo of Monica’s music still vibrating through the walls, the smell of her perfume clinging to the air like entitlement.“Dinner sounds perfect,” I said quietly.By the time I got to Crest’s building, the city had begun to cool into evening, lights softening in the windows, the air tinged with that faint metallic scent Chicago gets when it’s about to rain but never quite does. He was already waiting at the door, barefoot, wearing a dark button-down with the sleeves rolled up. The faint smell of rosemary, garlic, and something buttery drifted through the air, wrapping the space in quiet warmth.His place looked the way he always did. Clean lines, calm

I heard her before I saw her. That sharp, singsong voice calling my name from the hallway.“Open up Sasha, it’s freezing out here!”I froze, hand still on the counter. I hadn’t heard her voice in almost a year, and hearing it again was like stepping into an old bruise. Familia, tender, not quite healed. When I opened the door, she was standing there, one hand gripping the strap of her bag, in an oversized hoodie, hair shiny and freshly trimmed, skin clear. The version of her that used to stumble through my door was gone. At least on the surface. She looked around with a casual, almost challenging air, as if she owned the space. Which, in a way, she did.“Hey,” she said, voice light, breezy. “I’m home.”“Monica.” I said softly.She grinned, eyes bright, and threw her arms around me before I could think. I hugged her back, awkward at first, then tighter, the memory of every sleepless night flashing behind my eyes. “You look good.” I managed.“I feel good,” she said, stepping back to

The first week felt like stepping onto a tightrope without a net. Every morning I woke before the city stirred, the apartment quiet except for the hum of the coffee maker and the faint smell of herbs from prep the night before. My body ached in new ways, my shoulders stiff from chopping, my feet sore from pacing the restaurant floor. The space had started to breathe under my hands. The ovens hissed, pans clattered, and the subtle scent of roasting vegetables mixed with freshly baked bread. Each day I tweaked a station, adjusted a table, or shifted a light, constantly imagining the flow of guests, servers, and food. I relied on the temporary staff more heavily for now. My two servers had learned the rhythm of the room. The quiet glance to indicate a finished plate, the practiced step to avoid collisions in narrow walkways. My sous-chef was indispensable, keeping the prep line moving even when I had to step away to handle an unexpected delivery. The dishwasher hummed like a metronome,

The idea had been sitting quietly in the back of my mind for months. “My own restaurant.” Nothing shiny or extravagant, just cozy, a place where the food offers comfort and warmth. My mornings became rituals of planning. I woke early, made coffee strong enough to hum in my veins, and filled pages of notebooks with my ideas. Menus, suppliers, rent estimates. I looked at spaces on my days off. Small storefronts in Logan Square, an old bakery in Bridgeport, even a narrow corner in Pilsen with a cracked tile floor and peeling paint. The real estate agent called it “character.” Crest had offered to pick me up from my client’s on one Thursday evening. A small family on the North Side. I slipped into the passenger’s seat smelling faintly of rosemary and smoke. Hair pinned up, sleeves rolled to my elbows. I was tired but not exhausted. He smiled and hugged me like he didn’t just see me the previous day. I laughed. "I missed you too.” We rode in silence for a while, the hum of the cit