Nairobi’s skyline glittered like a crown of broken promises the night James gambled what was left of his heart.
Thunder prowled over Eastlands as matatus screeched through puddles, and in a cramped Kirinyaga Road bedsitter, James knelt before Faith with a trembling hand.
The silver ring between his fingers looked pitiful against the calloused hands of a man who had known hunger too well.
“Faith,” he whispered, voice splintering, “this is all I have, but it’s yours. Will you marry me?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. Her silence was a storm. Finally, her words fell like stones.
“James, you’re kind… but you’re broke. Caleb can give me a future you can’t.”
The name was an explosion in his chest. Caleb, his closest friend.
Later, under jaundiced streetlights, James watched Caleb’s arm drape over Faith’s shoulder. Weeks later, whispers confirmed: Faith was pregnant. Caleb’s child.
One humid Saturday outside Caleb’s Pangani flat, anger detonated.
“You betrayed me, Caleb. My best friend.”
“She chose me,” Caleb sneered, though guilt flickered. “You can’t even feed yourself, how could you feed a family?”
James lunged. Caleb countered. Fists flew, raw and desperate. A window shattered. Neighbours screamed: “Break them apart before someone dies!”
Four men dragged them apart, but not before blood mingled with rainwater on the pavement. Sirens wailed, and soon they were shoved into a police Land Cruiser.
At Pangani police station, under flickering fluorescent lights, they sat bruised and seething. Hours later, Uncle Jerry strode in, tall and furious.
“These two caused a commotion,” an officer grumbled. “We could charge them.”
“They are family,” Jerry said evenly. “Boys who lost their way tonight. I’ll pay the damages.”
Outside, Jerry hissed, “Two grown men, acting like thugs. You shame your bloodline.” Neither spoke on the drive home.
Months later came Phoebe, soft-spoken, warm, a balm for James’s wounds. But one afternoon, intending to surprise Raphael, James drove to his brother’s house. The front door was ajar. Inside, laughter — hers.
He stepped in and froze. Phoebe’s scarf lay on the couch. Raphael’s shirt was half-buttoned. Their faces blanched.
“James…” Raphael stammered.
“Don’t,” James’s voice was a blade. “Not you. Not my blood.”
Phoebe reached for him. “It — it wasn’t meant to happen this way.”
James backed toward the door, shaking. “The two people I trusted most… And you thought I wouldn’t find out?”
Raphael stepped forward. “I — I didn’t plan—”
James roared, “From this day, you are no brother of mine. I don’t want to see you again. Ever.”
The door slammed. Raphael stood frozen in the echo of his brother’s disowning, the fracture between them yawning like a canyon.
Then came Loice, beautiful, magnetic, a balm against loneliness. She seemed perfect until whispers reached him: her nights in Nairobi’s CBD, the shadows she entertained.
When fever and pain dragged him to a hospital, tests confirmed an STD. Rage and disbelief warred in his chest.
He confronted her outside a dimly lit café on Moi Avenue.
“Loice,” he said, voice tight, “the doctor’s tests… You infected me.”
Her painted lips trembled. “James, I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“You played me,” he spat. “Who are you, really?”
She looked away. “I’m… I’m a commercial… worker. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I needed the money. Nairobi isn’t kind to broke men or broke women.”
James’s fists clenched at his sides. “All this time, I thought I’d found someone honest. Was I just another client?”
Her voice cracked. “No. You were different. But I couldn’t stop.”
His words came low, final. “Then this ends here. Whatever we had, it’s dead.”
Loice’s tears glistened under the streetlight as he walked away, the city’s roar swallowing her apologies.
Hospital corridors and antibiotics became James’ world. Depression pressed down like Nairobi’s heavy sky. For months, he shut himself away, the walls of his room closing in like a coffin.
The Nairobi night had teeth, sharp, cold and merciless. Under a flickering streetlight, James staggered, reeking of cheap liquor, his once-careful steps now sloppy arcs across Kenyatta Avenue.
The man who once whispered promises of forever was now a ghost shuffling through terraces, curling beneath staircases like a wounded animal.
His cheeks were hollow, his spirit thinner still. The city’s heartbeat throbbed around him, but James’ world was a grave silence broken only by drunken murmurs.
Martin, his steadfast friend, refused to let him drown. “Come to the gym with me,” he said.
“I’m broken,” James whispered.
“Steel is forged in fire,” Martin replied.
The gym smelled of iron and hope. At first, every push-up was agony.
But weeks turned to months, and the mirror revealed a new man: broad shoulders, carved arms, a spirit honed by betrayal.
One sunlit afternoon outside Westgate Mall, fate ambushed him. Faith’s gasp cut through traffic.
“James?” she breathed. “You… you’re incredible. I was foolish. Please, let’s start again.”
His voice was calm, cold steel under velvet. “No, Faith. That chapter burned to ashes. You made your choice.”
He walked away, her regrets swallowed by the city’s roar.
At a Karen charity gala, laughter from the past brushed his ears. He turned and saw Dorothy, his childhood sweetheart.
“James?” Her eyes widened.
“It’s been forever,” he said, wonder softening his hardened edges.
Their conversations stretched into dawns. Dorothy wasn’t dazzled by muscles or money; she saw the boy who once shared roasted maize beneath jacaranda blossoms. For the first time in years, James believed love could be kind.
Their wedding became Nairobi’s whispered legend: ivory silk flowing beneath cathedral arches, violins weeping as Dorothy glided down the aisle.
Murmurs flickered among the guests: Wasn’t that the thin man Caleb betrayed? The brother Raphael humiliated?
James’s vows silenced them.
“I was the man they said wasn’t enough,” he said, voice steady and luminous. “But storms shape mountains. Dorothy, you are my dawn after the longest night.”
As he kissed her, the restless city seemed to pause. Matatus, street vendors, neon lights — all holding their breath for the thin man who rose from the ashes.
