Source of my smile

there was one thing in the world I could set my clock by, it was Maryam complaining before breakfast.

Some people woke up with gratitude. Some woke up with energy. Maryam woke up with a fresh grievance every single morning, and somehow, every grievance was more dramatic than the one before.

"I'm serious, Amira," she declared, pushing my door open with her elbow because her hands were occupied by three notebooks and a half-empty bottle of water. "If that woman circles one more paragraph in red ink, I'm changing departments."

I didn't lift my head immediately. My attention was still trapped inside the article I'd been reading for almost thirty minutes, my pen tapping absent-mindedly against the margin where I'd scribbled expand this argument. Final year had taught me that every answer only gave birth to three more questions.

"What department?" I asked, smiling despite myself.

"I don't know."

"You've thought this through."

"I have."

"So?"

She sighed dramatically, dropping her books onto the rug before collapsing beside them.

"I'll become a History student."

"You've never liked History."

"I'll learn."

"You'll fail."

"I'll fail peacefully."

That earned her the laugh she'd been fishing for.

Morning sunlight filtered through the cream curtains, stretching lazily across my room and warming the tiled floor beneath our feet. My room no longer looked like the room of someone who simply attended university. It looked like the room of someone trying desperately to leave it. Books were stacked on every available surface. Printed journal articles covered my reading table. Highlighters lay scattered beside handwritten notes, and my laptop remained open to a document I'd promised myself I'd finish three nights ago.

Four hundred level wasn't difficult because the work was impossible.

It was difficult because the work never seemed to end.

Maryam picked up one of the printed articles beside me and frowned.

"You actually read all this?"

"I have to."

"I would've cried after page two."

"You cried after your supervisor greeted you yesterday."

"He greeted me with criticism."

"He said your work had potential."

"He said, 'You can do better.'"

"Which means your work has potential."

"It means he enjoys watching me suffer."

I laughed again, closing my notebook before my sides began to ache.

"You know," she continued, "I've been thinking."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is."

She pointed at me accusingly.

"You've changed."

"I've done no such thing."

"You smile more."

"I've always smiled."

"Mhm."

"I have." She narrowed her eyes.

"You smile at your phone."

Before I could answer, a familiar voice drifted upstairs.

"Maryam!" A second later-

"Amira! Breakfast!"

Maryam shot to her feet so quickly that I wondered whether she'd ever truly been tired.

"I knew it," she whispered dramatically. "I smelled eggs."

I laughed as I slipped my phone into my handbag and stood.

"You can't possibly smell eggs from upstairs."

"I have gifts."

"You have greed."

"I have excellent survival instincts."

"I'll tell Nafisa you only visit because she feeds you."

"You say that like it's a secret."

The old staircase creaked beneath our footsteps as we made our way downstairs, our laughter arriving before we did.

Nafisa's apartment door was already open.

It usually was.

There was something about her room that reminded me of those houses where nobody ever knocked. Someone was always walking in, someone was always leaving, and there was always enough tea for one more person.

The smell of fried eggs, toasted bread and cardamom tea wrapped around us before we even crossed the doorway.

Maryam closed her eyes dramatically."If peace had a smell..."

"It would smell like breakfast?" Nafisa interrupted."It would smell exactly like this."

Nafisa rolled her eyes affectionately.

"I should start charging you."

"You can't charge family."

"We're suddenly family?"

"We've always been family."

Asma'u looked up from her plate, chewing slowly. "Convenient."

"It is." She gestured towards the empty plates.

"Sit before Maryam starts eating from ours."

"I'm offended."

"You should be." Within minutes, the room was filled with the comforting chaos that had quietly become part of my life in Kano.

Maryam argued over who deserved the last slice of bread. Nafisa insisted everyone take more tea.

Asma'u complained that graduation felt close enough to taste but too far to reach.

I listened more than I spoke, watching them with quiet amusement. When my mother first suggested I attend university in Kano instead of remaining in Lagos, I'd protested for weeks.

"You'll understand when you get there," she'd said.

She wanted me surrounded by people who shared the culture she'd grown up with. She wanted me to understand the rhythm of northern life, the modesty she admired, the sense of community she'd always spoken about with such affection.

At seventeen, I thought she was taking me away from everything familiar.

At twenty-one, sitting around a breakfast table filled with laughter that echoed through the apartment, I realized she hadn't taken anything away from me.

She'd given me another home. "So..." Maryam's voice pulled me back.

So we gisted through breakfast ......

I was back to my room before later that day to sleep. We spend the entire day gisting.

Before I knew it, it was morning again. Ahhh

Someone swept the courtyard with long, rhythmic strokes. A woman selling vegetables called out softly as she passed the gate.

Somewhere nearby, a radio played Qur'an recitation before slowly giving way to the morning news. Life moved gently here.

Never hurried. Never loud enough to drown itself out. 

I found myself appreciating that more with each passing month.

My friends and i, we left for campus together, our bags slung over our shoulders, joining the familiar stream of students making their way towards lectures.

The road outside the university had already begun its daily performance.

Commercial tricycles zigzagged through traffic with astonishing confidence.

Motorcycles squeezed through spaces that didn't seem to exist. Vendors balanced trays of snacks with effortless grace while calling out to passing students.

Everything moved.

Everything breathed.

Everything belonged.

And somehow...

So did I.

The familiar walk from the compound to campus had become one of my favourite parts of the day. It was one of the few moments when none of us was buried beneath lecture notes or worrying about deadlines. The road was always alive-students in neatly pressed clothes hurrying toward morning lectures, keke riders calling out destinations before passengers had even reached them, women arranging baskets of fruit beneath faded umbrellas, and the irresistible smell of masa drifting from a roadside stall.

Maryam inhaled deeply.

"I don't care what anybody says," she announced, slowing her pace. "That woman makes the best masa in Kano."

"You say that every morning," Asma'u replied.

"Because every morning I'm right."

"You've never actually tried anyone else's."

"I don't need to."

Nafisa laughed. "Your loyalty is admirable."

"My stomach is loyal."

We crossed the road together just as a group of first-year students rushed past us, their conversations loud enough to turn a few heads.

"They still have hope," Maryam observed with mock sympathy.

I smiled. "They're excited."

"They haven't met reality."

"You mean they haven't met your supervisor."

"Exactly." The Faculty of Arts came into view, its cream-coloured buildings already crowded with students lingering beneath the trees. Some revised notes one last time before class, others argued over assignments they had clearly left until the night before, while a few simply stood in clusters, talking as though they had nowhere else to be.

I had always loved watching people.

Not in a strange way. Just... quietly.

Every face seemed to be carrying its own story.

Someone was laughing so hard they had to hold onto their friend's shoulder. Another looked as though they hadn't slept in days. Two girls walked hand in hand, sharing earphones while singing softly under their breath.

Life never stopped unfolding around us.

"Amira."I turned.

My supervisor walked past, acknowledging me with a polite nod.

"Good morning, sir."

"Morning. I'll be in my office in the afternoon if you want to discuss your proposal."

Relief washed through me so suddenly that I almost smiled too widely.

"Thank you, sir."He continued on his way.

Maryam stared after him.

"How?"

"What?""He smiled at you."I blinked."So?"

"My supervisor looks at me as if I personally offended him."I laughed.

"Maybe stop offending him."

"I've done nothing."

"You submitted your draft in Comic Sans."

"It was one time."

"It was your proposal."

She covered her face dramatically."We don't talk about that."Our laughter followed us into the corridor, echoing softly against the walls lined with faded departmental notice boards. Students drifted in and out of classrooms, greeting lecturers, exchanging notes, borrowing pens they would almost certainly forget to return.

My phone vibrated gently inside my handbag.

Once.

Then again. Without thinking, I reached for it.

Ahmad.

-Good morning.

There was something strangely comforting about seeing his name.Not exciting.

Not overwhelming. Comforting. As though somewhere beyond the noise of assignments and lectures, someone had remembered I existed. I smiled before replying.

-Good morning.

His response came almost immediately, asking if I was already on campus. I told him, unfortunately, I was. He teased me, wondering if four hundred level was really that bad, and I replied that final year didn't seem to believe in happiness.

A few seconds passed before another message appeared. He said he refused to believe anyone who started a sentence with "unfortunately" before ten in the morning had eaten breakfast.

A quiet laugh escaped me.

Maryam glanced sideways. "What?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't a nothing laugh."

"It was."

She folded her arms dramatically. "I'm watching you."

"You watch too much."

"I observe."

"Now you're stealing my lines."

She smiled with obvious satisfaction. "I learn from the best."

Before she could continue interrogating me, I slipped my phone back into my bag. It wasn't that I was hiding anything. There simply wasn't anything to hide.

Ahmad and I talked. That was all. A month ago, he had been a stranger whose friend request sat unanswered for three days. Now, somehow, exchanging messages with him had become part of the rhythm of my day.

It happened naturally. Without announcement.

Without expectation. Like greeting the neighbours every morning. Like hearing the call to prayer drift across the city.

Like Maryam complaining before breakfast.

Some habits arrived so quietly that you only noticed them after they had already become part of your life.

And perhaps that was the most dangerous kind.