I Found Out My Boyfriend Was Cheating on a Lagos Bus

The conductor was hanging halfway out of the bus shouting Oshodi, Oshodi, Yaba straight when the woman beside me leaned over and whispered something that made my whole morning fall apart.

I was squeezed into the back row of a yellow danfo heading from Ketu to Yaba, my laptop bag on my knees, sweat already forming a small lake under my shirt because Lagos traffic does not care about your meetings.

The bus was one of those overfull ones where your elbow becomes your neighbour’s property. Beside me sat a woman I did not know, in a green ankara top, scrolling her phone like the rest of us pretending not to notice each other’s business.

Then she turned and said, very calmly, Please, is this your boyfriend?

She showed me her phone screen.

It was a picture of my boyfriend, Tobenna, standing outside a shawarma spot on Herbert Macaulay with his arm around a girl who was very much not me.

I looked at the phone. I looked at her. I looked at the phone again like it would change if I stared hard enough.

I follow him on Instagram, she said, like that explained anything. He liked one of my pictures last week and I was just checking his page out of curiosity. That is his story that just posted two minutes ago.

Two minutes ago. While I was standing at the bus stop at Ketu waiting for him to reply to my good morning text.

The bus jerked forward and everybody swayed like one body, and somewhere in front a man was arguing with the conductor about change, and a woman had a baby tied to her back who had started crying, and through all of that noise I sat there staring at a picture of Tobenna grinning like nothing was wrong in his world.

Ah ah, sorry o, the woman in ankara said, suddenly realizing what she had done. I didn’t know he was your person. I just wanted to ask because I thought maybe I was seeing another version of him online. Some of these men have two, three Instagram pages.

It’s fine, I said, though my voice came out somewhere between a whisper and a warning.

A man in front turned around. Lagos buses have no concept of privacy. Wetin happen? he asked, like he had paid for a front row seat.

Nothing, I said.

E no be nothing, the ankara woman said, already narrating the gist to the whole bus in that fast Lagos way where gossip becomes public property the second it touches air. Her boyfriend dey snap another girl for Herbert Macaulay.

By Anthony bus stop, three more passengers had joined the conversation. A man selling recharge cards from outside the window paused to listen. Someone at the back said no dulling him, meaning me, though I still had not decided what I was going to do.

You go confront am? a woman near the door asked, adjusting her headtie.

Abeg no dull am, the man from earlier said again, nodding seriously like he had personal stakes in my relationship.

I unlocked my own phone with shaking fingers and opened Tobenna’s chat. The last message from him, sent twenty minutes ago, said Good morning baby, off to a client meeting, will call you later.

Client meeting.

I typed, deleted, typed again. The bus was doing that thing where it stopped every two minutes to load more passengers even though there was clearly no more space, bodies pressing further into bodies, someone’s Ghana-must-go bag digging into my ankle.

Finally I just called him.

He picked up on the second ring, voice smooth as usual. Hey baby, I’m in a meeting, can I call you back?

Which meeting is happening outside a shawarma spot with your hand on another girl’s waist? I said, loud enough that half the bus went silent to listen properly, the other half started laughing quietly because Lagos people love free entertainment.

There was a pause on the line. A long one. The kind of pause that already tells you everything before the person even opens their mouth.

Baby, it’s not what you think, he started, and honestly, by the time a man says that sentence, you already know it is exactly what you think.

Bye, Tobenna, I said, and hung up, and the entire bus erupted like Nigeria had just scored a goal.

The conductor, who apparently had been listening from his position hanging out the door, shouted Yes! Leave that scale rat! which made no sense at all but everyone laughed anyway.

The ankara woman patted my hand. Sorry, my sister. But better you see am now than after wedding aso ebi don already sew.

A woman by the window added, This one is why I always tell my daughter, watch out for dating red flags before you even carry last last for that thing. If a man is always “in a meeting” for things wey no be meeting, run.

Someone else muttered something about how Instagram don destroy plenty relationship for this Lagos, and honestly, at that point, I could not even argue.

By the time we reached Yaba, three strangers had my number, one woman insisted on giving me half of her boiled groundnut because heartbreak dey make belle empty, and the man from earlier told me confidently that another better man dey road like he had already scouted one for me somewhere along Herbert Macaulay.

I stepped off the bus at Yaba, laptop bag heavier than it had been that morning somehow, sun already too hot for nine a.m., danfo horns screaming behind me like nothing had happened, like my whole relationship had not just ended in front of nineteen strangers and one conductor who called it a victory.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number, one of the women from the bus.

Sister, I hope say you dey fine. Just remember, no man worth your peace. Chin up.

I laughed out loud, alone on the road, people passing me without a second look because in Lagos, a woman laughing alone on the street is not even news.

I never saw the woman in the green ankara top again. I don’t know her name. I don’t know if she still follows Tobenna’s page, or if she watched his stories every day after that just to see what happened next.

Sometimes I wonder if she ever thinks about that Tuesday morning, the day she showed a stranger a screenshot and accidentally ended a two-year relationship on a rickety yellow bus somewhere between Ketu and Yaba, before either of us had even had breakfast.