"Paper Crane," A Short Story by Ameh Gloria

"Paper Crane," A Short Story by Gloria Ameh. Ameh Gloria is a writer and poet from Benue State, Nigeria. She writes to make sense of the unspoken.

PAPER CRANE

I saw him again tonight.

The streets were damp from yesterday’s rain, breathing out that soft, earthy scent you only get when water kisses dry ground. Streetlights flickered like they were deciding whether or not to keep living and water pooled in potholes, turning the road into a patchwork of broken images of the night staring back at me. I was walking home with my earphones in, pretending I had somewhere important to be, when I spotted him leaning against the newspaper stand like it was built just for him, talking to the vendor like they’d been friends forever.

That’s his thing, acting like the world is his living room, like every stranger is just a guest he hasn’t sized up yet.

His hair is cropped neat, edges clean like the barber took his time. His jaw carries that faint shadow of stubble, not the kind you grow out of laziness, but the kind that makes you look like you belong in every photograph ever taken. His skin catches the light in that deep bronze way that makes you think of market honey. His mouth tilts easy, like he knows he’ll find a reason to smile before the night is done.

He folds a scrap of newspaper into something small. When he notices me, he doesn’t wave. He just lifts the folded shape, a paper crane, between two fingers, and that smile deepens, slow and deliberate, like we’ve been in the middle of a conversation for years.

“You still disappear like you’re allergic to people,” he says.

“And you still appear like you own them,” I shoot back.

He laughs, warm, low, the kind that feels like it’s reaching for you even if he’s standing still.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he called out.

I pulled one earphone out. “Or maybe I’ve just been busy.”

“Busy doing what?"

I rolled my eyes, but I was already walking toward him. That’s how it is with him. No matter how much space I try to put between us, he pulls it closed with nothing more than a line and a grin.

The first time I met him was three years ago, a month after he moved to our street. He stopped me outside an old kiosk, handed me a crumpled ₦500 note, and asked me to buy him a bottle of Coke.

When I came back, I handed him the drink and the change.

“Keep it,” he said.

I shook my head. “It’s your money.”

That was it, no big story, no dramatic spark. Later, he told me that was when he decided he liked me — the stubborn schoolgirl who wouldn’t take his change.

"You didn’t smile too much,” he once said. “And you weren’t trying to impress me.”

I was fifteen then, still in plaits, pinafores and curfew. He was at least five years older, and somehow, over the next three years, we found ourselves orbiting each other, the friendship stuck and the conversations kept going.

At first, it was about small things, my school, future plans, NEPA bills nobody understood, my interest in writing and how I planned to finish my debut book by the end of that year.

Over time, he told me everything. About the girls he dated, the ones he stopped dating, the ones whose names he barely remembered. He told those stories the way some people tell jokes, and I learned quickly where my place was: not one of them.

Now I’m eighteen, and the air between us feels different. Not because he’s changed but because my hormones have decided to betray me. I notice the way his shirt clings when he laughs too hard. The way my eyes keep finding the shape of him in a crowd. Because my hands… my hands have started wanting to know how he feels. The way his eyes linger just a fraction longer than they used to.

We used to spend Sundays tangled in nothing — the kind of nothing that belongs to no one but you. Guitars out of tune. Half‑finished stories about girls whose names he’d already forgotten. Him telling me, in all seriousness, how to avoid “boy trouble,” as if he wasn’t trouble personified.

I knew his type. Still do. The kind of man who breaks things just to see what they look like on the inside. Hearts, rules, himself. Especially himself.

I’d seen him to be charming in the way storms are - dangerous, magnetic, impossible to ignore until you’re drenched and cursing the sky. That’s why I could never choose him. And I never have.

But he remembers things. The way he says my name like it’s a coin he keeps in his pocket, worn smooth but never spent. He remembers the time I swore I’d never eat roadside suya again, and still, he teased me into buying it once. He remembers the song I couldn’t finish on the guitar and hums it whenever we’re together.

Then he glanced down at my wrist.

“You still wearing that thing?”

I looked at it, the old frayed wristband he gave me at some street fair a year ago. I’d forgotten it was there.

“It’s comfortable,” I said.

He tilted his head. “Or maybe you just like remembering me.”

I laughed under my breath. “You wish.”

“Still not writing?” he asked tonight.

"No."

I’ve been waiting for inspiration, but it’s clearly taking the scenic route. And the last thing I wrote is still buried under my old books, looking like something I scribbled when I was ten.

He raised an eyebrow. ”You’ve got that look though.”

“What look?”

“The one where you’re holding back the sentence that could ruin you.”

I laughed softly, “Why do you care?”

He shrugged. “Because one day, when you’re famous, I want to say I knew you before your words made you impossible to reach.”

We talked until the sun finally drowns beyond the horizon and the air grew colder. It was nothing important — the usual banter, insults wrapped in affection but there was a hum beneath it, something that made my pulse keep time.

Then he does it, he tucks the paper crane into my coat pocket.

“For later,” he says with a wink, and I know it’s more than just a paper crane. It’s a gesture, an invitation, something he’s leaving behind that’s meant to linger longer than the night itself.

We stand there, the street around us fading into a soft blur of lights and movement. For a moment, I feel like we’re the only two people left in the world. Then, he speaks again, his voice low and unexpected.

“Do you ever wonder?”

I look at him, trying to keep my thoughts from betraying me. "About what?"

“About us.”

My breath caught.

He was smiling, but not like before. This was smaller, sharper, the kind of smile that lets you know he’s half‑serious.

The word hangs in the air like a question no one’s asked but everyone knows is there. It’s not heavy, but it is undeniable. His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching, and suddenly I can’t breathe. Not because it’s too much, but because it feels like he’s asking for something more than just an answer.

I swallow, struggling to push the lump in my throat down. “We’ve been over this,” I say, trying to sound indifferent, trying to hold onto the distance between us.

But his eyes stay locked on mine, and the smile he gives me is softer now, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Maybe you think you’ve been over it. But you keep coming back to the same place.”

The streetlights flicker again, casting long, stretching shadows over us. I feel the pull of the night, the weight of everything unsaid. I want to turn away, to keep walking like I always do, but I don’t. Instead, I stay. I let the moment sit in the space between us, heavy and palpable, like a thread we’re both too afraid to pull on.

“I’m not like you, I feel things too much.” I whisper, almost to myself.

His gaze softens, and he steps closer, so close I can feel the warmth of his presence against my skin.

“Then why hide from it?. Let me feel it with you.”

I want to answer. I want to tell him the truth, but my tongue is tied. Instead, I nod towards the sky which was getting dark by the minute, hoping for an escape. “It's getting late,” I say, my voice tight.

He doesn’t move. He stands there, watching me, the corners of his mouth twitching up into that smile that makes everything feel too easy.

“You always leave before it gets good,” he says quietly.

The words settle in me like a weight, a promise that I know he’ll never make again.

And then, the peak, he reached for my wrist. His thumb grazed the frayed edge of the band, slow, like he was memorising it. His voice dropped.

“You’ll lose it one day,” his voice low enough that it feels like a secret.

I realised then how young I still was, younger than I wanted to admit. My hands were still learning how to hold things without breaking them. My heart was still learning how to stay whole.

As I walked away, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s not done with me yet.

And as I walked home, my hands buried in my pockets, and my music echoing from my earphone, I told myself for the thousandth time:

I’m not in love with him.

I never was.

I never will be.

I tried to convince myself.

But his laugh followed me home like a song I didn’t want to forget.

At home, I found myself tracing the frayed thread around my wrist. And his laugh...his laugh followed me like a song I didn’t ask for but couldn’t stop humming. I find myself thinking of that paper crane in my pocket, the way it felt pressed against my ribs, warm and solid. I pull it out once I get to my room, unfolding it carefully. Inside, in his unmistakable scrawl, it reads:

Stop running.

I close my eyes for a moment, the words burning in my chest. And I know. I know I’ll see him again. And next time, it won’t be so easy to walk away.

Writer

Ameh Gloria is a writer and poet from Benue State, Nigeria. She writes to make sense of the unspoken, to hold on to fleeting moments, and to search for beauty in both the fragile and the ordinary. When she is not writing, she is reading, listening, or simply watching the world with quiet curiosity. Her work has appeared in Brittle Paper, Synchronized Chaos, and other magazines. She is also a proud member of the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation.