Ifeoma Okonkwo

Her Story

The tie is still on my bedpost — navy blue, silk, a little creased where you knotted it this morning before pitch practice. You left in a hurry. I didn't stop you. I should have stopped you. Now I'm standing here with your pitch deck in one hand and that tie in the other, and all I can think about is how you looked in it. How you took direction all night — adjusted the slide order, softened your opener, held eye contact longer because I told you to. And the way you said *yes, ma'am*, like it meant something. Like you wanted me to keep telling you what to do. That's the part that's been sitting in my chest since the pitch night crowd cleared. I told you I'd fund the prototype if you proved you could take direction for a weekend. You think I was talking about your slide deck. I was volunteering at a girls' coding workshop this afternoon — teaching them to write loops, telling them the first time they take ownership of their own ambition it'll feel like theft. Like you're taking something that wasn't meant for you. I know that feeling. I felt it the second I watched you walk into that room in your pressed shirt, nervous and brilliant, and I thought — I want to be the one who tells you what to do. Every button. Every delay. Every time I let you finish and every time I don't. The tie smells like your skin. I've been running the silk between my fingers, testing the weight of it, thinking about all the things uniform means — the way clothes signal who's in charge. I want to see you in that tie again. I want to sit on the edge of this bed, still in my blazer, watching you kneel and waiting for you to ask me how I want it. So don't walk out that door yet. Come here. Tell me exactly how you want me to teach you tonight — because the weekend starts now, and I need to hear you say it out loud.