Blue Twilight

After Richard Siken

You're sitting in a bus  beside a beautiful boy, and he's yet to tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. You know he does and it makes you feel like you've done something terrible, like pushed an old woman down the stairs, or dug a grave for your grandmother when she's still alive. You don't want to say it first, you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to shove the feelings down your throat, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you didn't know existed.

The bus jerks forward, then settles into its usual rhythm, metal rattling against metal, the conductor's voice calling out stops in a singsong cadence. The beautiful boy's hand rests on yours, warm and steady against the motion of the vehicle. His name is Essel. You've been holding your breath for so long, you don't dare exhale. When you do, it will feel like you're emptying yourself of everything you've been carrying on him and you don't  want that.

Outside the bus, Accra unfolds in the night like a secret being told in whispers. Streetlights cast pools of yellow that seem to float above the pavement. The air is thick with humidity that clings to your skin, mixing with the smell of kelewele wafting from small stalls. Market women pack up their wares, wrapping leftovers for tomorrow's sales, their laughter punctuating the evening like musical notes. Taxi drivers lean against their cars, their yellow lights forming a constellation across the city.

The streets are never truly empty. Young men in groups walk with easy confidence, their voices carrying through the night. Women hurry past, some, arms linked, sharing a joke that makes them throw their heads back in laughter. Night watchmen stand at their posts, some already nodding off, others alert and watchful. The occasional late-night drunkards stumble from their spot bars, singing softly to themselves.

Essel turns to you, and the city lights play across his face, highlighting the curve of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips. His dark skin seems to absorb the night and transform it into something warm, something that radiates outward. His short hair is neatly trimmed, the edges sharp and precise. He's tall enough that he has to slouch slightly in the bus  seat, his knees pressed against the row in front of you.

When he smiles, it starts in his eyes, a crinkle at the corners before it spreads to his mouth. It's the kind of smile that looks like it was made just for you, a private language between strangers who aren't strangers anymore. Without thinking, you smile back, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

"This better count as a date," he says, his voice low enough that only you can hear it over the rumble of the engine and the blaring horn of a passing car.

The bus turns onto a main road where billboards loom overhead, their lights turning the night into a patchwork of colors. A group of street children chase each other between parked cars, their laughter sharp and bright against the backdrop of the city's murmur.

"I keep hoping the day never ends," he continues. You smile again.

His hand squeezes yours gently, and you feel something unfurl in your chest, like a night-blooming flower opening to the stars.

You haven't felt this way in a long time. Not since Dylan.

Dylan, who towered at six feet, all lean muscle and quiet strength. You met him on that hike down the waterfall trail, the one that everyone said was too difficult for beginners. He came with someone else, another boy with a big afro and a laugh that carried across valleys. You watched him from behind as your hiking group made its way down the steep incline, the way he carefully stepped aside to let others pass, how he offered his help to  friends who looked tired.

He caught you looking once, and his shy smile made something inside you stumble. Throughout the day, your eyes found each other across the group, brief moments of connection that felt like tiny electric shocks. The way he cracked his knuckles when he was thinking. The quiet confidence in his movements that contrasted with his hesitant speech.

When you reached the waterfall, the group scattered. Some took photos, others sat on rocks eating packed lunches. Dylan waded into the pool beneath the falls, the water reaching his waist. You watched as his date wandered off with his friends, leaving him alone. The water was cold, you could tell from the way his shoulders tensed, his shivering and chattering teeth, how his arms wrapped around himself. He sat in the water, looking up at the cascading water, seemingly lost in thought, shivering slightly.

You wanted to wade in beside him. To share your warmth. To tell him that you'd noticed the gentleness in his hands, the kindness in his eyes, the way he listened when others spoke as if their words were precious things. But you stayed on the other side, creating ripples that never quite reached him.

Later, on the trek back down, you ended up walking beside him. It seemed like the rest of the group had disappeared, like the forest had contracted to contain just the two of you.

But you never told him. You never said the words that pressed against your teeth. When the hike ended and everyone exchanged social media handles, you held back. You watched him leave with his date, his tall frame receding in the distance, and you told yourself that some people are meant to be moments, not chapters.

The bus  makes another stop, and a few passengers disembark while others climb aboard. The night deepens around you as you continue your journey through the illuminated city, Essel's hand still warm in yours. At the next stop, a group of young men pile in, filling the back row with their laughter and energy. They're dressed for a night out, crisp shirts, well-polished shoes, the scent of cologne momentarily overpowering the bus 's usual blend of pungent aromas. One of them wears headphones but sings aloud to Black Sherif's newest hit, oblivious to the amused glances from other passengers.

The driver, a burly man with a face weathered by years on Accra's roads, catches your eye in the rearview mirror and shakes his head with good-natured tolerance. When the traffic light turns red, he drums his fingers against the steering wheel, joining in with the singing passenger's rhythm.

An older woman across from you clutches a basket of what looks like freshly baked bread, the warm scent making your stomach rumble. She notices Essel's hand on yours and gives you a look of disgust, the kind that suggests she is a religious fanatic. The one that will rather die than see two boys in love.

Love, the word floats through your mind, and you don't push it away this time.

You met Essel three months ago at the Pagya Literary Festival, a humid evening where makeshift tents protected books from the threat of rain. You were there to support a friend reading from her debut novel, but found yourself wandering between sessions, drawn to a small stage where a poetry slam was taking place.

When Essel took the stage, something about his presence made you pause. He stood tall, shoulders squared, but with a vulnerability in his eyes that contradicted his confident stance. His poem began softly, almost hesitantly, before building into a powerful meditation on loneliness, not the kind that comes from being physically alone, but the deeper isolation that can exist even in crowded rooms, in relationships, in families.

"I am a crowded room unto myself," he had said, "and still, I cannot find company."

You remember being stunned by the rawness of his words, by the way his voice carried pain that you recognized. It had never occurred to you that someone like him, someone who commanded attention simply by existing, whose smile probably lit up entire rooms, could feel the same hollowness that sometimes echoed within you.

After his reading, people gathered around him, offering praise and handshakes. You stood at the back, a worn copy of Ayi Kwei Armah clutched to your chest like armor. You wanted to tell him that his words had found a home in you, that you understood the language of loneliness he spoke, but courage failed you. Instead, you watched him shake hands and smile, and then slip away into the night.

A week later, scrolling through Tinder more out of boredom than hope, his face appeared on your screen. The same soulful eyes, the same gentle smile with just a hint of melancholy. Your heart raced as you read his profile, lover of words, dreamer of impossible things, searching for someone who understands the beauty of silence.

Your thumb hovered over the screen before finally swiping right.

"It's a Match!"

Your first messages were cautious, testing waters. You asked about his poetry, he asked about your favorite authors. Simple exchanges that gradually deepened into late-night conversations about childhood memories, secret fears, and dreams deferred. He told you about growing up in a house full of siblings but feeling unseen, about writing poems on his phone during his two minute break at his gym, about the gap between who he appeared to be and who he felt himself to be.

Now, in this bus  moving through the night-dressed streets of Accra, his hand in yours feels like an anchor. The singing passenger hits a particularly high note, causing several people to laugh. Essel turns to you, his smile illuminated briefly by passing streetlights, and in that moment, you feel something settle within you, the recognition, love sometimes begin not with a declaration, but with the quiet acknowledgment of shared loneliness.

The bus  takes another sharp turn, and Essel's arm brushes against yours, anchoring you to the present. But your mind drifts backward, through time and heartbreak, past Dylan's shy smile at the waterfall, to another shore, another boy, Daniel.

Before Essel, before Dylan, there was another boy, Daniel.

The mere thought of his name stirs something in you—not love anymore, but a dull ache, like pressing on an old bruise to see if it still hurts. It does, but differently now.

You met him during that rainy season when you'd returned home for the holidays. Boredom had led you to download Tinder again. His profile showed him swimming on a beach at sunset, arms spread wide as if embracing the horizon. His bio was simple: "The sea is my home. Come visit sometime."

When you matched, his first message was an invitation: "The waves are perfect tomorrow morning. Want to see?"

Your mother had warned you about meeting strangers, but something about his easy smile in those photos made caution feel unnecessary. You told yourself that meeting in daylight, in a public beach, was safe enough.

His house sat on stilts near the shoreline, a weathered structure with windows always open to the salt breeze. When you arrived, he was waiting by the gate, hair still damp from an early swim, a towel slung around his neck. He looked exactly like his photos, lean and browned, with eyes the same shifting color as his skin.

"You came," he said, sounding genuinely surprised and pleased in a way that made your heart flutter.

That first day was magic. He taught you how to float, his hands steady on your waist as he held onto you. You shared coconut water, laughing as it dribbled down your chin. He told you stories about growing up by the ocean, his pet fishes whom he still couldn't find names for.

Under the golden late afternoon sun, you sat side by side on the sand, shoulders touching, watching the horizon blur into evening. When he kissed you, he tasted of salt and possibility.

"Stay for dinner," he said. "I make a mean grilled tilapia."

You stayed for dinner. You stayed the night. You stayed, in different ways, for days after, even when you had to return to work.

It began with daily texts, voice notes exchanged like treasures. But slowly, imperceptibly at first, the pattern changed. Your heartfelt messages would sit unread for hours, then days. "Sorry, was out on the water," he'd eventually reply, or "Phone died, just saw this."

You'd plan visits back to the coast, and he'd seem excited—until the day before, when something would suddenly come up. When you did manage to see him, those first hours were always perfect, as if no time had passed. But by the next morning, you'd feel him pulling away, checking his phone, making vague plans with "some friends" who needed his help with something.

The realization came slowly, washing over you like a gradual tide rather than a crashing wave: he wanted you only when it was convenient, when the loneliness of his beautiful seaside life became too much, or when physical desire overcame his need for distance.

"I think I'm falling in love with you," you told him once, the words spilling out against your better judgment as you lay tangled in his sheets, the sound of waves drifting through open windows.

His body tensed beside you. "Don't," he said, not unkindly but firmly. "That's not what this is."

"What is it then?" you asked, your voice smaller than you wanted it to be.

He traced patterns on your bare shoulder, not meeting your eyes. "This is good as it is. Why complicate it?"

You learned from Daniel to hold your feelings like secrets, to treat your heart as something that needed protection. You learned to measure your worth by response times and read depths of meaning into simple texts like "you up?" sent at midnight. You learned that "I miss you" could be a hook, baited and cast, rather than a truth freely offered.

The last time you saw him was another holiday, another impulsive visit to the coast. He seemed genuinely happy to see you, spinning you around on the beach before leading you back to his house. For a moment, you let yourself believe that things had changed, that he had missed you in the same consuming way you had missed him.

But in the morning, you woke to find him already dressed, keys in hand.

"I need to help a friend move some furniture," he said, not quite meeting your eyes. "You can stay as long as you want. Just pull the door closed when you leave."

You sat on his rumpled bed after he left, looking out at the sea that he loved more than he could ever love you, and something inside you finally broke free. You left. no note sent, no text afterward. You simply walked away, letting the tide wash away your footprints on the shore.

Now, years later, sitting beside Essel in this crowded bus , feeling the steady warmth of his hand in yours, you wonder if your silence with Daniel was the first step toward this moment, learning to protect yourself, yes, but also learning to recognize when someone is truly seeing you.

The bus  stops again, and more passengers shuffle in. A woman with a sleeping child takes the seat across from you, adjusting her baby with practiced ease. Essel leans closer, his breath warm against your ear. "Almost there," he whispers.

The bus  moves on through the Accra night, carrying you forward till you hear

"Bus stop!" From the mate, and the bus  slows to a stop. Essel stands first, leading you through the narrow aisle and down the steps onto the street.

The night air carries a surprising chill, unusual for Accra. You involuntarily shiver, and Essel notices, moving closer so that his arm brushes against yours as you walk. The streets here are quieter than the main roads, lined with modest homes and occasional shops with their metal shutters pulled down for the night. A stray dog trots past, giving you both a cursory glance before continuing on its nocturnal rounds.

"It's not far now," Essel says, pointing to a side street. "Just down there."

You walk in comfortable silence, stealing glances at each other when you think the other isn't looking, only to catch each other's eyes and smile. There's something adolescent about it, this shy dance of gazes, but it feels pure somehow, unencumbered.

But the cold air slips beneath your skin, carrying memories with it. Suddenly you're thinking of Kwame.

Kwame with his earnest eyes and carefully chosen words. Kwame who sent you good morning texts every day for months before you actually met in person. Kwame who called just to hear your voice, who remembered every detail you ever shared about yourself, who quoted your own words back to you to show he was listening.

You met him finally at a book launch in East Legon. You'd been texting for so long that seeing him in person felt surreal, like a character from a book suddenly stepping off the page. He was taller than you expected, his voice deeper, his smile quicker. He stayed by your side the entire evening, bringing you drinks, introducing you to people he knew,

"I can't believe you're actually real," he'd whispered as you stood in a corner, away from the crowd. "I was starting to think I'd imagined you."

The weeks that followed were a whirlwind. He took you to gallery exhibitions allover accra, sent you songs that reminded him of you. He called you "my person" when introducing you to friends.

"You're like a puppy," you teased him once, and he'd laughed, not offended.

"I just know what I want," he replied. "And it's you."

Then came that evening at the rooftop bar in Osu, with the city lights spread before you like fallen stars. The live band played highlife classics, and the air smelled of jollof rice and grilled fish. You'd had just enough wine to lower your guards, to feel the words you'd been holding back rise to the surface.

"I really like you," you told him, reaching for his hand across the table.

You expected him to smile, to squeeze your hand, to reciprocate. Instead, his face froze, eyes widening slightly, a deer caught in headlights. He withdrew his hand slowly, reaching for his drink instead.

"I think... that's something we should table for now," he said carefully, not meeting your eyes. "I'm still figuring things out. We don't need to rush, do we?"

The band played on, but the music suddenly seemed too loud, discordant. You nodded, forcing a smile, pretending his words hadn't sliced through you. The rest of the evening passed in a blur, you laughed at his jokes, you danced when he asked, but something had shifted, a door closed that you hadn't known was open.

Later, you read about attachment styles, how some people pursue connection fiercely until it's reciprocated, then panic and retreat. You learned the term "avoidant attachment" and recognized Kwame in every description. It was a cold comfort, putting a clinical name to the whiplash of his affection and distance.

He still called, still texted, but less frequently. When you stopped initiating contact, weeks passed in silence. Then, out of nowhere, he'd resurface with an invitation or a memory, pulling you back into orbit around him. Each time, you promised yourself you wouldn't respond, and each time, you broke that promise. Until the day you didn't. Until the day you let his message sit unanswered, feeling not vindicated but simply tired. Tired of the dance, tired of hoping, tired of the way your heart leapt at his name on your screen despite everything your mind knew. Now, walking beside Essel through the quiet Accra night, you wonder if you're any wiser, or just more scarred. If your hesitation to speak the words forming in your heart comes from wisdom or fear.

Essel stops in front of a modest apartment building, three stories of painted concrete with small balconies adorned with potted plants. "This is me," he says, gesturing upward. "Third floor."

He seems suddenly nervous, as if seeing his home through your eyes for the first time. As you climb the stairs together, your shoulders occasionally brushing in the narrow stairwell, you think about all the men who have taught you how to protect your heart. Each lesson learned at the cost of a piece of yourself.

But maybe they've also taught you how to recognize something real when you see it. How to value steady warmth over fiery passion that burns out too quickly. How to trust actions over words.

Essel unlocks his door and steps aside to let you enter first. His apartment is modest but thoughtfully arranged, bookshelves lining one wall, a small couch facing large windows that look out over the city, plants thriving on every available surface. On a small desk in the corner, papers are scattered around a laptop, drafts of poems, perhaps, or the novel he mentioned he's been working on.

"It's not much," he says, watching your face for your reaction.

"It's yours, not many people can afford their own home"

He smiles, relieved, and moves to the kitchen area. "Water? Or I have some wine someone brought back from Cape Coast."

"Wine would be nice."

As he busies himself with glasses and the bottle, you wander to his bookshelves, running your fingers along the spines. Wole Soyinka next to Chimamanda Adichie next to James Baldwin next to Ama Diaka next to local poets you've never heard of. Books with cracked spines and dog-eared pages, books that have been read and loved.

Essel returns with two glasses of wine, handing one to you. Your fingers brush, and the simple contact sends a current through you that has nothing to do with the men who came before and everything to do with the man standing before you now. The city lights filter through the thin curtains, painting patterns across the tiled floor. In the soft glow, his face looks both familiar and new, as if you're seeing him for the first time.

You take a sip of wine to steady yourself, feeling words building in your chest. The confession you've been holding back all evening, maybe longer. The acknowledgment of what's been growing between you since that literary festival, since those first tentative messages.

You open your mouth to speak, to finally let the words escape, but he speaks first.

"I'm yours," he says simply, eyes holding yours with an intensity that makes it impossible to look away. "If you'll let me."

The words hang in the air between you, an offering without expectation. And there it is, the difference between him and all who came before. No games, no withholding, just honest want and the courage to voice it.

You smile, setting your glass down on the small table beside the sofa. In this room, away from the world and its judgments, away from past ghosts and future fears, there is only this moment. Only him.

Your hand finds his cheek, thumb tracing the line of his jaw. When you lean forward to kiss him, it feels like answering a question that's been asked across lifetimes. His lips are soft against yours, hands gentle as they frame your face.

A part of you, the part shaped by past connections want to run. Wants to protect itself from the inevitable fall that follows flight. But another part, recognizes something in Essel's touch, in the way he kisses you like he's been waiting his whole life to do so.

So you stay. You stay as evening deepens into night, as conversation flows between kisses, as laughter gives way to comfortable silence. You stay as the light shifts in his room, as the sun sets and paints the walls in amber and gold before fading to blue twilight.

Benjamin Cyril Arthur is currently at the University of East Anglia studying creative writing, MA. He won the emerging voices scholarship for the Geneva writers group conference 2025 and was the winner of the 2020 Samira Bawumia literary prize award in Ghana. He was a participant of the canex creative writing workshop 2024. His short stories have appeared in lolwe, Brittle paper, flametree press, Tampered press, Lunaris review, lounloun, Ama Atta Aidoo centre for creative writing, and many others.