CHAPTER EIGHTEEN “CONVINCED”

© Opeyemi Akintunde

Inspired by the LIVING GOD

Imade’s POV

The city smelled like movement.

Coffee. Asphalt. Morning breeze. People walking like they had places to be and reasons to be there. Daniel walked beside me, hands in his pockets, unhurried, like someone who wasn’t chasing time or running from it either.

“So…” he said after a while, glancing sideways at me,
“Do you always make big decisions quietly?”

I smiled faintly.

“I don’t announce my struggles. I just live inside them.”

He nodded.

“That sounds familiar.”
We crossed the street and slowed our pace, letting a group of tourists rush past us.

“You know,” he continued, “people like to say life happens to them. But I don’t believe that. Life is a choice. Even when it doesn’t look like it.”

I looked at him.

“You sound very sure.” I replied

“I am,” he replied simply. “Not because I’ve figured everything out, but because I stopped pretending I didn’t have a say.”

I sighed, because I couldn’t relate.

“In my world, choice is a luxury word.”

“How so?”

“I was raised to believe obedience comes before happiness. That if you just do what’s expected, peace will eventually show up as a reward.”

“And did it?” he asked, not mocking… just curious.

I hesitated.

“It showed up for everyone else.”

He stopped walking for a second and turned fully to me.

“That’s the scam,” he said quietly. “They package obedience as virtue, but forget to tell you who gets to enjoy the results.”

I laughed softly.

“That’s a dangerous thing to say where I come from.” I said

“I know,” he said. “I grew up hearing the opposite of what I believe now.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t strike me as someone who grew up reckless.”

“I wasn’t,” he replied.

“I was the good boy. The rule follower. The one who didn’t ask too many questions.” he said

“What changed?”

“I got tired of explaining my unhappiness using other people’s language.”

That landed.

We walked again.
“So,” I asked slowly, “what do you believe in now?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

“I believe in honesty,” he said eventually. “With yourself first. Everything else is secondary.”

“No God?” I asked gently.

He smiled.

“I don’t believe in a supreme being the way people describe Him. I don’t believe someone is sitting somewhere monitoring my choices and scoring them.”

I waited.

“But,” he added, “I believe there are consequences. I believe lies catch up. I believe pretending eventually costs you more than truth ever will.”

I nodded slowly.

“That’s… surprisingly moral for an unbeliever,” I said, half-joking.

He chuckled.

“People confuse faith with goodness. They’re not the same thing.”

We stopped at a small café. He gestured toward it.

“Coffee?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

As we sat outside, he looked at me again.

“You know what your name means, right?” he said

I smiled.

“Imade. Edo name. My mum’s mother was Edo. It means I did not fall.”

He leaned back slightly.
“That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone assumes falling is failure,” he said. “But sometimes… falling is just choosing something different from what was arranged.”

I didn’t respond immediately.

He wasn’t flirting.

He wasn’t pushing.

He was thinking out loud.

“And sometimes,” he added, almost as an afterthought,
“not falling becomes its own kind of prison.”

That one hit harder than I expected.

I stirred my coffee slowly.
“Daniel,” I said carefully,

“Do you ever regret choosing yourself?”

He shook his head.
“No. But I regret the years I spent asking permission to live.”

We sat in silence again.

Not heavy.

Not awkward.

Just real.

And somewhere between coffee and conversation, I realised something quietly unsettling.

This wasn’t temptation screaming.

This was understanding whispering.

And whispers…can be far more dangerous.
To be continued…

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