Before the Light Leaves

₊˚⊹♡ Book Description ₊˚⊹♡

Chimamanda Adam has spent a long time drawing the things she cannot say.
Her sketchbooks are filled with lonely places, unfinished thoughts, and a world that has slowly begun to lose its color. She has stopped believing that beautiful things are meant to stay. Love, especially, is something she would rather keep at a distance.

Then she meets Malachi Afolabi.

Malachi sees the world through a camera lens.
He photographs everything: strangers laughing on trains, sunsets disappearing behind buildings, half-finished meals, movie tickets, rainy windows, and the little moments most people forget five minutes after they happen. He keeps them because memories are easier to hold when they have somewhere to live.

There is something different about Malachi.
He is gentle when Chimamanda expects cruelty. Patient when she expects people to leave. He notices the things she tries desperately to hide, and somehow, without asking her to become someone else, he makes the world feel a little less heavy.

Soon, Chimamanda begins drawing him.
Not the sadness she is used to putting on paper, but his smile. His hands. The way he looks at her when he thinks she isn't paying attention. The ridiculous little things he does that make her laugh. Slowly, her pages begin filling with color again.

And Malachi, who had once stopped asking life for anything more, begins wanting tomorrow.
He wants movie nights and train rides with music playing through their headphones. Picnic dates that last until sunset. Stolen photographs. Inside jokes. Ordinary Tuesdays. Every tiny, forgettable moment that suddenly feels worth remembering because she is in it.

He wants a future.

There is only one problem.

Chimamanda doesn't know Malachi doesn't have much of one.

When she finally discovers the truth, the love they have built becomes something neither of them knows how to hold. Because Malachi has spent so long preparing to leave the world behind, while Chimamanda is only just beginning to see reasons to stay in it.

With time slipping through their fingers, they make a promise to each other:

To love without counting the days.
To remember every beautiful thing.
And to make whatever time they have feel like a lifetime.

Some people enter your life to teach you how to live.
Some arrive just when you have forgotten how.
And sometimes, the person who is running out of time is the one who gives you the courage to believe in forever.

P.S.

This book is for the people who have spent too much time wondering what it feels like to be truly loved. For the ones who have given so much of themselves and wondered if anyone would ever choose them back. For the ones who have felt lonely in rooms full of people. For the ones who still believe in love, even when life has given them every reason not to.

And, honestly, this book is for me, too.
Maybe that's why I wrote it the way I did. I wanted to create a little world where love is gentle. Where people are seen. Where someone notices the smallest things about you and stays long enough to learn all the pieces you thought were too difficult to love.

I hope these pages can be that place for you.

I love you guys more than I could ever properly put into words. And I hope, with all my heart, that somewhere along the way, we each find the love we deserve.

The kind of love that doesn't make you beg to be chosen.
The kind that stays.
The kind that would move mountains just to make sure you never have to wonder if you matter.

Until you find it, I hope this story reminds you that you are worthy of it.

Please take your time with these pages.

And most importantly, happy reading. ♡