Notes

It was a tradition to always go on long rides whenever one of us was feeling down. It was mostly me anyways. I was always a mess. Always sad about something but he kept me by his side. It was the best thing I could have ever gotten. I would worry all day but thinking about seeing him when I get home, our sad long songs playing in the car as we drive around the city at nights like this was always something to look forward to and It helped me manage myself. I was literally going to be lost if I didn’t have him. He was simply my rock. I tried my very best to be what he was to me but I just couldn’t reach it. He was a father, mother, brother, sister and best of all mine. My lover. Until this day.


Según had been a little ill for the last six months. We thought it was a normal fever that would pass after some pills and a lot of rest. We got the regular fever drugs and just hoped that it would pass. After a few days and a lot of rest and care, he got a little better and decided that he had had enough of being in the house alone without me in it. After a lot of convincing, I let him get back to his work. I wish I hadn’t but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Five days after he resumed at work, I got back to my desk to see a missed call from an unknown number and as is the right thing to do, I called back.

“Hey. Who’s this?”, I started after the call was picked.

“Hi. This is Martins from Posses and Poise. Am I unto a Joe?”, he answered back.

“Yes you are. This is he. How may I help you?”, I asked.

“Uhm, I’m going to need you to calm down. Segun was out on break with his colleagues when he started bleeding from his nose. We thought he maybe chocked or something but as we were trying to sort him out, he collapsed.”

I didn’t know what happened to me at that time or what was going on, I just suddenly felt like someone had taken all the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe and I started sweating in the cold room of my office.

“Hello, hello are you there??”, Martins called out from his end.

I managed with a ‘Yes’.

Chest tightened, I asked, ‘What hospital is he in?’ And as soon as I got a response, I dashed out of my office. Forgetting everything. I had gotten to my car when I remembered that I didn’t take my keys from my desk. I dashed in and dashed out and drove out of the park. It was hell. Those 20 minutes seem to have been the longest of my life.


I got to the hospital and I found the room where they had put him. I could do nothing but just break down in tears. He was lying there unconscious, tubes passed in and out of his nose and there it came upon me again, I couldn’t breathe. I had lost air. My legs felt weak and just as I was about to collapse, the nurses held me and guided me to a chair. I was blank. I was gone. I didn’t know what to do. Who to beg. Who to talk to. There he was, not moving, looking as beautiful as ever but not opening his eyes to see me or smile at me. There he was, my life.

After about 30 minutes of holding his hands , the doctor came in and I greeted her. She was a pale lady and she looked smart and this story is not about her so we’re moving on. She asked if I was a family member and I answered, “More or less. We live together. We’ve been roommates for about 7 years so yeah, we’re practically family’.

“Oh. Well, I’m going to have to speak with someone who is actually related to him by blood’, she said so insensitively.

Oh really?????

“Okay listen here lady. This is my best friend in the world. We went through a lot together and he’s here going through God knows what and you want to wait for an immediate family to come around so that you can talk to them about how he’s doing? How about I light your white coat on fire so that we can see how fast you’d get to telling me what the hell is wrong with my friend”.

“Alright alright. Take a deep breathe and relax. I would tell you. You might want to have your seat for this”

I took a seat away from Segun and she goes on to tell me about how he has cancer of the lungs and how he really does not have much time left. About 3 months or less she said. Everything else she said really didn’t get to me anymore. They simply bounced off my ears. He was going to leave me in three months or less. He was going to leave me in three months or less.



After a few hours of crying, he finally woke up.I had slept off crying by his side and he tapped me awake. It was 11pm and the hospital was nearly empty.

“Hey”, he said weakly.

“Hey babe, how do you feel?”

“Faint. What happened?”

“You collapsed at work honey. Your colleagues rushed you here and I came running when I got a call”. I broke down crying again and he had the guts to say a silent ‘shhhhhh’ to me, telling everything would be alright. Oh God, I was going to go crazy. I cried some more and he didn’t even shed a single tear. I told him about what the doctor said and he still said, ‘we’d be alright. Nothing bad is going to happen to me’. He comforted me all through the night till I fell asleep again.

I woke up to someone sobbing really lightly. And it broke my heart, I just couldn’t bear it anymore. It was so painful. It was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. No one deserved to go through this. It was WICKED. I went to his bed side and asked if he wanted to go on a ride, he chuckled and agreed.


We got into the car and we put on the song WishBone by Freya Ridings and started driving in the silence. After almost an hour of driving and holding hands and crying to the song on repeat, he lifted my hand and kissed it and said I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU and that was the last thing he said to me before he left me. He was gone. He was dead. The man I had fought for, waited for, cried for, had literally the best time of my life with was simply gone. I can’t.