The rain came without warning, just like yesterday.

It soaked the market in minutes—drumming on rooftops, rushing through gutters, turning dust into red-brown sludge. Efe stood under a sagging canvas, arms wrapped tight around her knees, watching the world blur.

She had no umbrella. No bag. No home to return to.

Three weeks since Mama's funeral. Twelve days since her uncle kicked her out. “We are not your parents,” he’d said.

“Go and find your own way.”

So she wandered.

First to the church, then to a cousin’s. The door never opened. She had learned to count food in bites, to sleep with one eye open, to fold sorrow into silence.

Still, she had her notebook. Water-stained, torn at the edges, but filled with poems. Her words were the only thing that hadn't left.

A woman approached—tall, in a green wrapper, with kind eyes.

“You’ve been here since morning,” she said. “Where’s your mother?”

Efe said nothing.

The woman crouched, brushing the girl’s wet cheek. “You don’t have to speak. I just wanted you to know… someone sees you.”

Efe blinked hard.

The woman rose, slipped a wrapped loaf of bread into her hand, and left without asking for gratitude or explanation.

Efe stared at the bread.

She hadn’t eaten in two days.

And somehow, that kindness—so soft, so sudden—broke something loose in her. Tears spilled fast and silent, each drop hot against the rain’s chill. She didn't even try to stop them.

Later that night, she found shelter under a kiosk and lit a candle stub.

She opened her notebook and wrote:

“Some of us were not born to be found.

We are the ones who find others—

In rain, in silence, in broken places.

We wander, but we carry light.”

The next day, she would return to the market. She’d help the woman carry goods, sweep stalls, run errands. Maybe they’d never speak of yesterday. Maybe they’d never need to.

But for now, Efe curled around her words, her bread, her tiny flame of hope.

Not all who wander are lost.