When Palms Cross Paths

By Rose Chukwudi 

The first time Amaka met Kelechi, she was marching angrily out of the State House of Assembly, clutching a sheaf of papers like they were weapons. It was the middle of rainy season, and the clouds over Enugu glowered like angry in-laws.

“Madam! Easy na, before you twist your ankle,” a voice called out as she teetered on her high heels. She stopped and turned. He was leaning against the white Toyota Hilux parked by the gate, wearing a powder-blue senator and a mischievous grin. Rain dripped off the bougainvillea above him, but he didn’t flinch.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Me? I’m just a humble political adviser. Kelechi Okafor. And you… look like you’re about to set the building on fire.”

“I should!” she snapped. “They killed the Youth Employment Bill in that chamber today. For the third time.”

“Ah. Bills die small deaths every day in there.” He paused, cocking his head. “But sometimes… they can resurrect. With the right connections.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “And you’re the messiah?”

He laughed. “No. But I know where to find one.”

She wanted to hate him. Everything about him screamed politician—smooth words, easy laugh, eyes always calculating. But something in his voice… a certain earnestness, like a priest under the cassock. Before she could reply, thunder cracked above. Rain poured down in sudden sheets. Kelechi grabbed her arm.

“Come inside the car before you drown your activism,” he said, pulling her towards the Hilux.

Inside, she smelled leather, rainwater, and the faint musk of his cologne. He handed her a packet of tissues.

“Are you always this dramatic?” he asked.

“Are you always this smug?”

“Ah. So I’m smug and a messiah. Nice to meet you again.”

She glared at him, wiping raindrops off her arms. “Don’t try to charm me. I’ve seen politicians like you. Smiling in front, stealing behind.”

Kelechi went quiet. “My father used to say there are only two kinds of people in politics: those trying to eat and those trying to stop others from starving.”

“And you?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I’m… somewhere in the middle.”

Lightning flashed outside, throwing his face into sharp relief. For the first time, Amaka noticed the fine scar near his temple, almost hidden in his hairline. She tried not to care. She tried not to notice how his voice softened when he spoke of his father. But fate, she thought, has a wicked sense of humour. 

Two weeks later, she found herself summoned to the Governor’s office.

“Amaka!” Governor Omeh boomed, rising from behind his enormous desk. “My new special assistant on Youth Affairs.”

She froze. “Your Excellency, I...”

“I’ve read your proposals. Brilliant ideas. But you need help navigating this… swamp.” He gestured at the walls, as though corruption itself was hiding in the wood paneling. “Luckily, I’ve assigned someone to work with you.”

Kelechi stepped out from the side door, smiling like the devil who’d just found his favourite sinner.

“Good morning, madam messiah,” he said. Amaka wanted the ground to swallow her.

The next month became a blur of meetings, negotiations, and late-night drafting sessions. Kelechi was infuriating. He’d argue over commas in speeches, question every line in her budgets, and call her madam radical in front of everyone. Yet somehow, he also got her bill back on the Assembly floor.

“It’ll pass this time,” he told her one night as they walked out of the Governor’s residence at 10 p.m. The compound was quiet except for the hum of generators.

“You sound so sure,” she said.

“Because I threatened half the House with their own dirty secrets,” he said lightly.

She blinked. “You’re joking.”

He shot her a look. “I wish I was.”

She stopped walking. “So that’s how you play the game? Blackmail?”

“It’s politics, Amaka.”

“No. It’s madness.”

Kelechi sighed. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Neither is politics.”

They stared at each other. The breeze rustled the mango trees. Somewhere distant, a night guard whistled. Kelechi’s eyes were dark and tired.

“Sometimes,” he said softly, “the only way to do good is to swim in dirt.”

She opened her mouth to reply but he reached up and brushed a stray eyelash off her cheek. His fingers lingered half a second longer than they should have.

“Goodnight, madam radical," he eventually saìd.

On the day of the Assembly vote, Amaka felt like her chest might explode. Governor Omeh gripped her hand. “Relax. If it fails, we’ll try again.” She tried to smile. Kelechi sat two rows behind, watching her. When the Speaker finally yelled, "The ayes have it", Amaka felt tears spring to her eyes.

After the session, Kelechi found her in the corridor, grinning.

“I told you,” he said.

“You blackmailed them.”

“Details.”

She punched his arm. “I hate that I owe you.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll pay me back.”

“How?”

“Dinner.”

She scoffed. “As what? A bribe?”

“As a celebration. Or” his voice dropped, “as a first date.”

She stared at him, speechless.

Dinner turned into more dinners. Meetings turned into whispered conversations about everything from village jollof to childhood heartbreaks. Politics still surrounded them like barbed wire, but inside those moments, there was something soft and delicate blooming. One night, they sat in Kelechi’s car outside Amaka’s apartment.

“I never thought I’d fall for someone like you,” Amaka admitted.

“Someone like me how?”

“A political manipulator.”

He chuckled. “You think you’re so pure?”

“I am!” she insisted.

“You threatened that budget committee with a press conference, remember?”

She scowled. “That was… different.”

“It was the same thing.”

He leaned closer. “Amaka, you’re already in this life. You just wear finer clothes.”

She sighed. “And now I’m… in this with you.”

He took her hand. “Do you regret it?”

She stared at his fingers curled around hers. The same hands that wrote policy memos and twisted arms in smoky backrooms. She thought of how he made her bill pass. How he made her laugh. How he made her believe.

“No,” she said. “I don’t.”

A few months later, Governor Omeh called them both in.

“There’s a rumor,” he said gravely. “An impeachment move against me.”

Kelechi tensed. “From who?”

“Half my cabinet. The Speaker’s in on it. They want me out before the primaries.”

Amaka gasped. “That’s madness!”

The Governor slammed a fist on his desk. “I need dirt. Evidence. Anything to shut this down.”

Kelechi’s eyes went hard. “Leave it to me.”

That night, Amaka and Kelechi argued for hours in his flat.

“I’m not helping you dig up scandals!” she shouted. “I didn’t sign up to ruin lives.”

“If we don’t, Omeh goes down and the next guy won’t give two kobo for youth programmes. Or for you.”

She folded her arms. “Then let him fall. I’m tired of this dirty game.”

“So you’d sacrifice everything we’ve built? The youth centers, the job programs..."

“This isn’t love, Kelechi. This is manipulation.”

He flinched like she’d slapped him.

“I thought you understood,” he said quietly. “That sometimes, fate drags you into battles you never wanted.”

“Well, I’m tired of fighting!”

He was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. “So… is this where we end?”

Her heart twisted. She looked at the framed photo of them on his table laughing, sunlit, with papers scattered around them like confetti.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

            

                                     *****

The next morning, she woke to news alerts buzzing on her phone: BREAKING: ENUGU SPEAKER UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR MASSIVE FRAUD. The impeachment move collapsed. The Governor stayed. And Kelechi resigned from his post that same afternoon. A week later, Amaka found him on the balcony of a bar overlooking the city. He was sipping palm wine, watching clouds drift over the hills.

“You’re leaving,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ve done enough damage.”

“You saved the Governor.”

“And I lost you.”

She sat beside him. “Maybe… maybe we both lost. Or maybe we’re still learning how to win.”

Kelechi smiled sadly. “You’ll be an amazing leader, Amaka. Just… don’t lose yourself.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I’ll find another swamp,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll just go back to building furniture. Honest work.”

A breeze lifted her hair. She reached for his hand. “I don’t want to lose you.”

He looked at her for a long time. Then he squeezed her fingers gently.

“Then come find me,” he said. “When you’re ready.”

                                    *******

Two years later, Amaka stood on the Assembly floor, her voice ringing strong as she presented a new bill. Kelechi wasn’t in the gallery, but she could almost feel him there, grinning that annoying grin. That night, as cameras flashed and aides buzzed around her, she slipped away, dialed a familiar number, and whispered into the phone:

“Hey. How do you feel about a woman in politics… and dinner?”

And far away, Kelechi laughed, warm and low.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Fate, after all, always finds a way.