by Abioye Damilare
He didn’t like hospitals. Not because of the antiseptic smell, or the metal beds, or the way nurses walked like ghosts on night shifts, but because hospitals made people confront things they weren’t ready to say out loud. Grief. Regret. Guilt. The things that make you pace around a waiting room like a man auditioning for loss.
Chuka hadn’t cried yet.
It had been three hours since the call. A nurse had found his number saved as “Chuka HB ❤️” and dialed. She said Folake was in surgery, then hung up. He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t pack a bag. He took an Uber straight to the hospital. No toothbrush, no jacket, just his phone and the ache that had started to spread across his chest like a slow wound. Now, he sat beside her parents. Her father looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Or maybe he just wanted to punch something. Her mother’s eyes stayed closed, lips moving slowly, repeating a prayer in a language Chuka couldn’t place.
“Olúwa, ẹ jọ̀ọ́ dá ọmọ mi, Fọlákẹ́, sí. Ẹ jọ̀ọ́, má jẹ́ kí Fọlákẹ́ kú. Ẹ jọ̀ọ́, ẹ jẹ́ kí ó ji. Ẹ jẹ́ kí ó padà wá sí ilé Olúwa.”
They didn’t ask him who he was. He didn’t offer it either. What was he supposed to say? I’m the boyfriend. The one she said “I love you” to four nights ago. The one she told she was in OAU preparing for her project defence. The one who didn’t know she was in Lagos at all.
He tried to remember if they had argued recently. They hadn’t. Not really. She’d said she was tired of school. Tired of Lagos. Tired of everything. He’d told her to hang in there, that things would ease up soon. He meant it.
He didn’t know what she meant.
The emergency team found her half-conscious inside a crushed Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, the kind with matte black paint and red brake calipers—the type you only see in Banana Island or in front of Quilox on a Friday night. The driver’s side had taken the worst of the impact. He was already dead before they got there. She had fractures. Her jaw was broken. Her thighs too. One arm looked like it would never function again.
“She’s lucky to be alive,” the nurse had said.
Chuka nodded but didn’t respond. Lucky. That was one way to see it. He stood and walked to the end of the hallway, stared out the window into the parking lot. Somewhere in this city, people were dancing in clubs. Laughing in bars. Sharing suya under dim lights. Life was happening. Just not here.
Back in the waiting area, her mother was now crying softly. Her father had lit a stick of Benson & Hedges outside, despite the No Smoking sign. Chuka sat down again. He still hadn’t cried.
What hurt wasn’t that she was in an accident.
What hurt was that he hadn’t been the one beside her.
That someone else had been there—in that moment, in that seat, in that part of her life he didn’t know existed.
And now that someone was dead.
He didn’t even know the man’s name.
And he would probably never ask
And now that someone was dead.
When the doctor came out, he said the surgery was successful. “She’s unconscious, but stable. We’ll keep watching her.”
They all nodded. No one spoke.
Chuka didn’t ask to see her. He didn’t think he could. Not yet.
She would wake up. Maybe. Hopefully. And then what? Would she remember him? Would she pretend? Would she cry and say she didn’t know how to tell him?
He didn’t know.
He just knew that there was a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon. A city she wasn’t supposed to be in. A man who shouldn’t have been driving her. And a story that would never quite sound right no matter who told it.
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