Ijaiye was still asleep when Tara Adediran stood in front of the cracked mirror on her wardrobe, nervously repeating herself like a student actor before a big audition.
"My name is Tara Adediran. I'm a 400 level medical student from Obafemi Awolowo University. I'm here on a six-month clinical rotation—"
She paused. Her reflection looked stiff, her shoulders tense.
"Ugh, too formal," she muttered.
She tried again, this time softer.
"Hi, I'm Tara... Tara Adediran. Medical student... from OAU. Here for rotation at LASUTH..."
She sighed and ran her fingers through her afro puff. Her stomach fluttered with anxiety. Tomorrow was her first day at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). She couldn't afford to mess this up. Not after everything her parents had done to get her here. Not after growing up in a one-room apartment where dreams stretched further than dinner money.
Her eyes darted to the clock. 1:47 a.m.
"Omo, sleep is not coming o," she whispered to herself. But minutes later, her tired body betrayed her. She crawled into her mattress and dozed off with one last whisper: "God, please don’t let me embarrass myself tomorrow."
---
The alarm rang at 5:00 a.m.
She didn’t hear it.
Instead, her arm lazily swatted at the phone on the floor, found the button, and silence returned. She turned to the wall and slept deeper.
By 7:30, the voice of her mother crashed through the morning.
"Tara! Tara! Won't you wake up? It’s 7:30!"
Tara sat up so fast she knocked her phone to the ground.
"God! Seven thirty? Mummy! Why didn’t you wake me?!"
Her mother was already pulling her curtains aside. "When you were sleeping like a bag of garri? Even your alarm rang tire, you didn’t answer."
Tara scrambled off the bed, heart racing. "You knew how important today is, and you just let me sleep?! If I miss this thing, it’ll be your fault o!"
Her mother turned sharply. "That your mouth will not put you in trouble one day."
Tara bit her lip but said nothing more. She rushed into the bathroom, took a quick bucket bath, and jumped into the black trousers and white shirt her father had ironed for her the night before. Her father—Baba Tara, as everyone called him—was a gardener, quiet but warm, and her biggest supporter. He had left home by 5 a.m. to get to work on the Island.
She stuffed two slices of dry bread in her mouth, gulped some lukewarm milk, and snatched her worn-out handbag.
"Tell Daddy I said thank you for ironing my shirt!" she called out.
"Tell him yourself when he gets back! And don’t let LASUTH people send you back today o!" her mum called after her.
Tara rolled her eyes and muttered, "Omo, this woman and her wahala."
---
The road outside was chaos.
The previous night’s rain had turned Ijaiye’s dusty roads into puddles of red mud. Children leapt over gutters on their way to school, traders were already shouting over prices, and traffic had begun building.
She flagged down an okada just outside her compound. "Oga, bus stop—fast!"
"Hold well, aunty," the rider warned, zooming through the muddied street.
At the Ijaiye bus stop, Tara jumped off, adjusted her trousers, and scanned the line of rickety yellow commercial buses.
"Ikeja! Ikeja straight! One more for front seat!" a conductor shouted.
She rushed toward it and claimed the front seat. She plugged in her earpiece and pressed play on a calm ASA track, letting the music steady her nerves as the bus weaved through the dense morning traffic.
---
Meanwhile, at the far side of the LASUTH compound, Dr. Omotayo Adekunle stepped out of his black Mercedes. The rain had left the pavement damp, but he welcomed the fresh Lagos morning breeze.
He waved off his driver. "Park inside. I’ll walk to the office."
He needed a few moments alone before the high-level surgical briefing. A foreign cardiac team was flying in next week to perform a Bentall Procedure—a rare and complex open-heart surgery for a patient with aortic root aneurysm. He’d be co-leading the operation. It would be in the news.
Tayo’s strides were calm and confident. He was used to being admired—handsome, brilliant, and commanding respect as LASUTH’s youngest surgical team lead at 26. Yet, nothing in his perfect rhythm prepared him for what happened next.
Tara, having just arrived and slightly disoriented, was rushing toward the main hospital entrance when she bumped—hard—into someone's back.
"Ah!" she groaned as her earpiece fell to the ground. "Can’t you just move like a normal person?"
Tayo turned slowly, eyebrows raised. "Excuse me? You ran into me."
"Well, you shouldn’t be standing like a statue in the middle of a walkway," she shot back, picking up her earpiece.
He blinked, surprised at her tone. "Wow. Okay."
Tara didn’t wait. She adjusted her bag and strode away.
He stared after her. "Who on earth... doesn’t know me?" he mumbled.
Two nurses walking past gave him nervous nods. They knew who he was.
"Who was that?" he asked no one in particular.
---
Tara burst into the locker room, panting.
"Ahhh! I made it!"
"You look like someone ran through Oshodi," Simi laughed.
"You don’t even want to know," Tara muttered, pulling out her scrubs.
Benita grinned. "First impressions don scatter be that."
They all laughed.
As she pulled on her navy-blue scrubs, the LASUTH crest stitched proudly on the left pocket, Tara inhaled deeply. Her heart was finally beginning to slow down.
Outside, the new rotation students were gathering in a neat line. Nurses whispered, patients shifted on benches, and the intercom crackled announcements.
In the surgical wing, Tayo flipped through a file on the Bentall case. There was a knock.
Dr. Williams, the calm and gentle Chief Resident, stepped in.
"Tayo, sorry to bother you. The new student group is outside. Could you give them the opening briefing before we assign them to teams?"
Tayo closed the file, adjusted his coat, and walked outside.
---
Tara stood in the second line, still catching her breath. Her head was bowed.
Then she heard it.
"Good morning, everyone. I’m Dr. Omotayo Adekunle, head of the surgical team here at LASUTH. I’ll be overseeing a few of you during your rotation."
Her head snapped up.
Their eyes met.
He blinked.
She froze.
It was the same man she bumped into.
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes... they narrowed slightly, amused.
Tara’s mouth went dry.
Then, as if on cue, her mother’s voice echoed in her head: "That your mouth will not put you in trouble one day."
She groaned inwardly.
Mummy, did you have to curse me today of all days?
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