I jerked out of bed at dawn when I thought I heard a voice from the outside. I swiped the curtains off my view to see who was outside only to see an empty space that travelled until it hit the darkness yonder.

I called his number for two days but it didn’t go through. “Something came up,” I said to myself. “He lied to me, that was what came up this time.”

I was angry with myself. “Why did I believe a guy who came out of nowhere to call me beautiful?” I felt played. I felt lied to. “Or he came and saw me at the station and decided I wasn’t worth it so he went back home?” My thoughts were all over the place. I needed to close the chapter. I needed to move on and not go back to being treated like the hand of a pendulum; left today, right the next second. I settled on what made sense to me, that he came, saw me at the station and thought I wasn’t as beautiful as he saw me so he left.

Out of anger, I deleted all the messages, deleted his number and blocked him. I went to Facebook, I blocked him there too. I folded myself in bed and cried a little. I don’t know if crying for over an hour qualifies to be little but that was how long I cried for. I had blocked him but I hoped he would contact me somehow, “If I’m wrong and he wants me that much, he would reach out to me on someone’s phone,” I thought.

A day passed. Another came to wobble by slowly. A week came. A month smiled at me, he never called. Slowly my broken heart healed. I moved on without remembering the times he called me beautiful or the time he sent me a video singing a happy birthday song to me with his horrible voice. I forgot everything about him, fell in love, failed, fell in love again and failed. I was so so cheap I gave myself to whoever came along. Maybe I was lying to myself. I was doing all that just to quickly bury the memory of that boy.

Did it work? I don’t know but months ago he came to mind. That’s how it is. The people who made an impression on us are never forgotten. You may discard them in the bin and forget their existence but one day, they’ll pop up somewhere at the back of your mind where you buried them. So, you rush back to the bin, pick them up just to see how they are doing. They may appear nasty and soiled but they are yours anyway.

I went back to the bin. I used a different account to check his Facebook wall. His photo was still there. He hadn’t changed it. I went to his timeline and the first message I met was his picture and a caption that read, “I can’t believe you’re gone. Rest in peace.”

The moment froze. I think it’s my life that froze. “Huh? What is he talking about? What happened?” I quickly scrolled until my thumbs got tired and I could see no more posts about his death. All the messages were talking about his death. Going through the comments, people asked what killed him but nobody answered. I checked the date the first RIP message was posted and it was two days after he disappointed me. Two days after the day he didn’t come. I quickly sent a message to the guy who posted the RIP message on his wall asking what happened and he said, “He had an accident and died days later. He was visiting a friend.”

I collapsed on my bed and wailed for the rest of the day. I felt guilty. I killed the singing bird, the only guy who called me beautiful, yet had the audacity to blame him for not coming. I cried and mentioned his name and asked for forgiveness. “I didn’t know the whole story dear. When you didn’t come I thought it was one of those things you did to me. Forgive me. I should have been by your graveside to mourn you, to give you flowers. Please forgive me.”

He Called Me On The Phone So I Could Hear The Other Woman’s Voice

Mine is a tragic love story that will never leave my mind. On my birthdays, I remember the video he sent to me. I remember his abokyi voice, the seriousness on his face while he sang off-key. That video, though deleted, has become a signpost I follow to his memory every day. Unsurprisingly, no one has ever called me beautiful since he had been gone, not even the men I dated after him.

—Sophie

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