Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Weight of the Wheel

Second semester arrived without ceremony.

No excitement. No fresh start feeling. Just a continuation of pressure that refused to ease. The campus looked the same, but Kofi felt different—thinner, quieter, more tired. His clothes began to hang loose on his frame, his face sharper at the edges. Hunger had become something he managed rather than solved.

Balancing Anita, school, and work was like trying to keep three spinning wheels upright while running.

One slowed, another wobbled.

Sometimes all three.

His days followed a brutal rhythm.

Lectures in the morning—if he made it in time.
Work in the afternoon.
Studying at night—when his eyes stayed open long enough.

Anita tried to be patient, but patience also had a limit.

“You’re here, but you’re not here,” she told him one evening.

Kofi wanted to argue, but he didn’t have the energy.

“I’m trying to build something,” he said quietly. “Even if I don’t know what it looks like yet.”

The appeal of escape crept in slowly.

At work, some colleagues drank between shifts, laughing loudly, forgetting tomorrow existed. On campus, students passed joints like shared secrets. Pills promised focus. Alcohol promised sleep.

“Just once,” someone said. “You deserve it.”

Kofi held the bottle in his hand one night. Felt its weight.

Then he thought of home.

His little brother, Kojo, visited campus one weekend. Small for his age, eyes bright, watching everything Kofi did with admiration that felt heavier than any debt.

“You’re really in university,” Kojo said, awe in his voice. “Dad would be proud.”

The words landed like a punch.

That night, Kofi couldn’t sleep.

The memory came uninvited.

The N1 Motorway.

Kofi was barely five, sitting on his father’s lap, tiny hands wrapped around the steering wheel as the car surged forward. The city lights blurred into streaks. His father laughed—free, fearless.

“Feel that?” his dad had said. “That’s control. Speed means nothing without it.”

The memory shifted—his father guiding his hands, teaching him patience even at high velocity.

Then silence.

Then loss.

Kofi set the bottle down.

He couldn’t afford to disappear.

Not when someone was watching.

Not when a little boy believed in him the way Kofi once believed in his father.

Second semester wasn’t about winning anymore.

It was about surviving without losing himself.

And that, Kofi was learning, was the hardest race of all.