After weeks of being haunted by the shadowy myth of Nola, Thocco and I dragged ourselves back to campus as the semester hurtled toward its brutal end. Assignments stacked like thunderheads, exams stalked one after another, and the pressure crushed down without mercy.
But no matter how many hours I chained myself to textbooks in the library, my mind kept betraying me, sliding back to those fevered nights, the sweat-soaked sheets, the reckless, addictive pleasure. I'd hated how much I loved it, even while Tadala and Thocco tore my life into bleeding pieces.
I swore I was finished. No more messages, no more skin, no more anything. I told myself that a thousand times. Yet I still watched them from the edges of my vision. Tadala drifted through the days with this quiet, wounded resilience, like she was carrying every shard of what we'd broken.
Thocco? She burned bright and careless, laughing loud in the corridors as if nothing had ever burned down.
I avoided her like a plague, especially since we shared three classes. I'd slide into lecture halls twenty minutes early, hoodie pulled low, claim the back-row corner with my back to the wall, and disappear.
But the day you dread always arrives.
I rounded the corner in the old administration corridor, the exact spot where she'd crossed every line month ago and there she was, leaning against the wall like she'd been waiting. My stomach plunged. The air turned thick, electric with old hunger and fresh rage.
"Hey," she said, voice soft, that slow smile spreading as her eyes dragged over me, deliberate and unashamed.
"Hey," I managed, my chest locking tight.
"You've been ghosting me hard since everything blew up. No late-night texts, no nothing. You still hate me?" The gentleness in her tone felt like a trap.
"I still don't understand what the hell you were trying to prove that day," I said, sharper than I meant. "And I'm done giving you pieces of me."
I stepped to go around her. She moved faster, planting herself in my path. Those dark eyes locked onto mine—magnetic, dangerous—and my knees almost folded. The pull hit like a drug straight to the vein.
"Meet me at the basketball court tonight?" she murmured. "Please."
Every alarm in my head screamed no. My mouth nodded yes anyway.
She walked off, hips swaying just enough to brand the image behind my eyes. I went straight to the university bar instead, needing something to drown the fire. Ordered a cold Kuche Kuche—ice on the bottle, golden promise inside. That beer had never betrayed me once. Big respect to Malawi Breweries; it had pulled me out of worse holes than this. Three bottles in, the edges finally blurred, and Thocco's face stopped clawing at my skull.
Then my phone buzzed. Unknown number.
"Come to Mwaiwathu Hospital now. Tadala collapsed."
The drive there felt endless, every red light a punishment. I parked crooked and ran inside. The receptionist looked up—young, beautiful, her smile soft enough to cut through the panic for half a second.
She pointed me to the ward. I pushed the door open and stopped breathing.
Tadala lay small and pale under white sheets, oxygen mask fogging with every weak rise of her chest. Tubes snaked into her arms. She looked breakable in a way that punched the air out of me. Tears burned before I could blink them back.
"What happened?" I asked the nurse adjusting the drip.
"She texted me last night saying she felt off dizzy, short of breath. This morning her roommate found her on the floor. Doctors think severe anemia, maybe complications from stress… but she's stable now. She'll pull through." The nurse's voice was kind, but the word stress landed like a blade in my ribs.
"You know her?" I asked, throat raw.
"She's been my friend ever since I started here," the nurse said quietly.
The doctors came in, shooed me out. I wandered back to the reception desk like a ghost, needing an anchor.
"Hey," I said to the receptionist, voice lower than I meant.
"Hey," she answered, grin playful, eyes bright. "How's your wife doing?"
I blinked, caught off guard by the tease. "Getting better… wait, she's not my wife. Just… someone important." I leaned on the counter. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Doreen," she said, tilting her head so a loose strand of hair brushed her cheek.
"And you?" she asked.
I smiled despite everything. "Let's say I'm mysterious for now." Then, the beer courage still humming, "Any chance a kind stranger like you would give me her number? You've been the only good thing about tonight."
She folded her arms, eyebrows raised. "I don't hand my digits to mysterious men who show up looking like the world ended." Firm, but her smile curved slow and teasing, the kind that says no while leaving the door wide open.
I exhaled a laugh I didn't know I still had in me. "Fair enough."
I left the hospital with Tadala's shallow breathing echoing in my head, guilt twisting like a knife. By the time I got home, showered, and pulled on a fresh shirt for the court, Thocco texted:
Can't make it tonight. Rain check?
I stared at the screen longer than I should have.
Relief flooded in first; sharp, surprising. Then something colder followed: a hollow anger at how easily she cancelled, like I was still just a toy on her shelf. Tadala and Thocco suddenly felt distant, almost unreal beautiful disasters I'd survived. Their chaos had nearly cost me everything, maybe even cost Tadala her health.
But Doreen, her warm smile in that sterile place, the gentle tease in her voice, the way she'd looked at me like I was still worth joking with that felt human. Real. Like sunlight breaking through weeks of smoke.
For the first time in months, something fragile and warm stirred in my chest. Not fixed. Not healed. Just… possible.
I set the phone down, cracked open one last Kuchekuche, and let myself hope, just a little.