I clock in at 5:45 a.m. sharp, my apron tied with a half-hearted knot, my curls tucked under a faded Starbucks cap that’s seen better days. The air in the downtown Chicago store is still heavy with sleep and yesterday’s espresso—a familiar scent that once felt foreign but now clings to my clothes, my hair, my skin.

I move like muscle memory—steam wand, oat milk, rinse, repeat. My hands know the dance even when my mind is elsewhere.

It’s a morning like any other.

Except it isn’t.

Because somewhere between steaming milk and resetting the pastry case, I remember that today marks exactly one year since Okada Books shut down. One year since I lost 13,000 naira—money never remitted, sales never explained, emails never returned. One year since a piece of my homeland, my connection to Nigerian readers, was severed without warning.

A bitter taste creeps up my throat that no amount of free caramel drizzle can wash down. I swallow it like I’ve swallowed so much else—disappointment, homesickness, the gnawing fear that I’ve made a terrible mistake.

After the lunch rush, I take my usual corner by the fogged-up window, laptop open, word processor blinking with what feels like disdain. I’ve published three books already. One novella and two full-length novels. Amazon royalties trickle in like a leaky faucet—just enough to remind me that I’m a writer, not enough to let me be one full-time. Okada Books had felt different—local, accessible, made-for-Nigerians-by-Nigerians. Until it vanished.

Along with my dreams. And my money.

I sip my lukewarm nitro cold brew and stare at the blank page. The cursor pulses like a taunting heartbeat.

Windswept, Chapter 8
[INSERT SOMETHING BRILLIANT HERE]

I scoff. “Brilliant,” I mutter. “Sure.”

In the fantasy of my twenties, Chicago was supposed to be my city of rebirth. The place I’d finally become a “real” writer. After years of tutoring English in Lagos and ghostwriting for pastors and politicians—crafting their visions while suppressing my own—I’d landed a two-year work visa, told everyone I was going to “chase the American dream.”

Turns out the American dream has a green apron and a busted back from mopping floors at 10 p.m. It tastes like burnt coffee and smells like industrial cleaner. It’s a dream I can’t seem to wake from.

Marco peeks from behind the mobile order counter. “You writing something sexy over there, R?”

I give a tired smile. “If plot holes and despair turns you on, sure. Very sexy.”

He laughs, flicking a coffee stirrer at me. “Girl, you better write yourself a raise.”

If only.

My last royalty payout from Amazon had been $12.63. That doesn’t even cover one day’s bus pass. It doesn’t cover the cheapest bottle of wine to drown my sorrows, let alone the rent that eats two-thirds of my paycheck.

Later that night, back in my studio apartment above a noisy corner bodega in Bronzeville, I stare out at the icy Chicago skyline. It still takes my breath away. All that light, all that steel, all that promise. The city gleams like a mirage, beautiful and untouchable.

I want to be part of it. Not just in it. I want to see my books in the windows of indie bookstores. I want to do signings, see people post quotes from my stories on Instagram. I want my mother back in Lagos to proudly tell her church friends, “My daughter, the famous writer in America.” I want—God, I want more than this.

I curl up on the old futon I call both couch and bed, pull my laptop into my lap, and open my oldest manuscript—Still Water Drowns. A book I wrote while still living in Yaba, fueled by generator fumes and late-night pepper soup. The words take me back to humid nights, to the smell of rain on hot concrete, to the cacophony of Lagos that I sometimes miss so much it feels like physical pain.

It has soul. It has pain. It has truth.

And it hasn’t sold.

The cursor blinks again. Accusing. Daring. Asking what I’m still doing here, why I’m still trying, whether I’m fooling myself.

My phone buzzes with a voice note from Dehinde back in Lagos:

“You dey okay? I saw one writer on TikTok say she just got a six-figure deal from Wattpad. Ronks, maybe it’s time you try something different. I still believe in you, sha.”

I sigh, feeling the weight of her expectation, her unwavering faith. I wish I believed in myself half as much as Dehinde does. I wish I could tell her that I’m thriving, that Chicago has embraced me, that my words are finding their way into the world. Instead, I’m making lattes and crying in the bathroom on my ten-minute breaks.

Then I do something I haven’t done in weeks.

I open my notebook. The physical one—coffee-stained, pages folded like origami, filled with the handwriting that my father once said was too messy for a girl. I run my fingers over the paper, feeling the indentations of words past, the ghost of inspiration.

I write:

Maybe I'm not a phoenix. Maybe I'm just ash that hasn't figured out how to burn right yet.

It isn’t profound. It isn’t marketable.

But it’s honest.

I turn the page and write another line. And then another. Words flow like they used to, before rejections and disappointments and the crushing weight of making ends meet. I write about the woman who orders the same drink every day and never remembers my name. I write about the homeless man who recites Shakespeare outside the train station. I write about the ache of being between worlds—not quite Nigerian anymore, not quite American either.

I write until my hand cramps and my eyes burn and the bodega owner downstairs starts playing his morning radio too loud.

Blog Entry
Chicago is still cold. The tips were low today. Someone ordered a triple venti extra foam oat milk caramel macchiato and didn't say thank you. But I wrote something. It wasn't much. But it was mine. If you're reading this and you've lost money, time, or heart chasing a dream that feels like it's laughing at you—know that I'm still here. Working, writing, aching, hoping. Some stories brew slowly. And maybe that's okay.
—Ronke

The next morning, I wake to an email notification that pierces through my exhaustion. A small literary magazine—one I submitted to months ago and had nearly forgotten—wants to publish a short story I wrote about my grandmother’s cooking. They can’t pay much, just fifty dollars, but they love my voice, the way I blend Nigerian storytelling traditions with contemporary themes. “Your writing feels like coming home,” the editor writes, “even for those who’ve never been there.” I press my palm against my chest, feeling my heartbeat quicken beneath my fingers. Outside my window, the first rays of spring sunlight cut through Chicago’s perpetual grayness, casting gold across my cramped apartment. I think of my grandmother, of her hands shaping moin-moin, of her voice telling stories by lamplight. I think of all the words still inside me, waiting. For the first time in months, I feel the spark of something beyond survival—something like possibility. I make myself tea instead of coffee, sit cross-legged on my futon, and open my laptop. Today, the cursor doesn’t seem to mock me. Today, it waits, patient and full of promise, like a friend who’s never stopped believing I would return.

And I do.