6 December 2023🥀

01:55

I'm stuck in a crowd of cars. The suffocating, car blaring traffic stops  me from getting to the hospital in time. Every car, truck and  passenger is in my way. I take more stops than I've ever taken since I've started driving.

Restrained amongst a crowd of cars and trucks that beep and hoot at the cars and even passengers ahead, I catch sight of the illuminating light in the sky.

A white airplane flies across the night sky with ease, and freedom, with space to breathe and spread out. Suddenly the car feels suffocating. The air is tight.

The traffic is louder, tortuous. The airplane flies out my line of vision. I wish that there was a way to fly to Mkhulu, to get to him with the same ease and freedom that only an airplane can bring.

The blinding lights from other cars illuminate certain parts of the road and sometimes even certain drivers in the cars. They all look obnoxiously happy. I hear laughter pouring out from the car beside me. Then there's loud  music breaking out from the car in front of me.

The  midnight air is alive with joy. The joy of the night but it's not the same for me.

I wonder what in the world everyone is  doing awake at  this  time. Frustration pours out of me, the silence of my car contrasting with the laughter and music from the other cars. Contrasting with the filled passenger and backseats from the other cars while mine remains empty.

I'm not crying, I don't think I can. My thoughts overlap each other.My nerves build upon themselves and sitting still, waiting in this traffic becomes a struggle.

Besides that, there's this tight pain in my chest, it's something I can handle, something that sets me apart from the joyous people awake in the night.

The watch on my wrist strikes two. Or is it morning?

My phone rings, for a moment I think it's Alex. My throat closes up, assuming he's about to tell me  worse news.

Olivia.

For a moment, I simply stare, her name lighting up on my phone sends this frustrating resistance within me. I feel myself crumbling, melting and  crushing under the weight of it all.

I can't talk to her, not right now.

Answering the phone would mean telling her what happened, it would mean recounting the whole thing. Answering the phone would mean opening up myself up to comfort when I can't even accept that I'm in pain.

I let the phone ring, my throat closing up even more. The  pain in my chest only gets sharper. I can't talk to her right now. I can't talk to anyone.

I can't —

Breathe.  The air that escapes me is needed. I cough, trying to catch it,  but it escapes me again. The  pain in my chest just gets sharper. Punishing. I slam my fist on the steering wheel, frustrated.

My phone falls face first, on the car but what stops my breathing is the sound of her voice, on speaker — “Hello?”

Tears well up in my eyes, the laughter from the car beside me is louder, the music from the other car is suffocating, taunting. The beat clash with the turmoil going through my head in the ugliest of ways.

I decide to ignore it. To ignore that my phone answered itself, to ignore Olivia.

What is she doing awake at this time?

“Hello? Leonardo, are you there?” Olivia's soft voice breaks through the thick misery of the car, softening the tightening pain but  simultaneously pouring out my restrained feelings.

“Please be there Leo.”

Please, drop the phone Olivia. I can't talk, not now.

“You're probably sleeping… I know it's silly calling you at this hour of the night–morning, whatever  but I just want, no I need to tell you this…” her sighs pours out, intimate, close. Almost like she's here, right here with me.

“It's dumb, you're asleep and I'm about to confess that umm I umm, you see…uggh…words are not on my side right now. I don't think they've ever been…I've been thinking alot. So much I could barely sleep…”

It's only now that I feel my chest has opened up, it's easier to breathe. The pain hasn't vanished but it  isn't sharp. It's dull. Aching but tolerable. She's soothed the pain she doesn't know I'm in, like salve to my soul Olivia's voice calms it all.

I feel like picking up the phone, telling her I'm here and I'm listening. I pick my phone up from where it fell and I'm about to speak but something stops me, my voice comes out in a  faded whisper.

I give up, deciding to simply hear her out. Even if she were to fall into a whole rant about carrot cake, or the book she was reading or why boys need to do better in this life. It doesn't matter because she's managed to do something I didn't know was possible.

She has  pulled me up from the water I was drowning in; sinking headfirst into oblivion. Now, I can breathe again, now I can see, past the blur of watery pain in my eyes.

I'm not fully out of the water, I'm still, drenched, freezing -Mkhulu’s in the hospital and I don't know what to expect when I see him.

I sit there, in the midst of midnight traffic listening to the sound of her voice, shy, uncertain, sweet yet somehow giving me strength, hope and peace.

“I've been thinking about highschool. How it's actually over. It's so surreal to me. I've been thinking about next year, January which is just weeks away and how we'll be getting our reports. I've been thinking about…the culinary school I applied to. About the future. About Timmy and the look in his mother's eyes. I've been thinking about you —” an exhale, her voice turns even softer, the melody of it smooth.

“I've been thinking about you, Leonardo. And I know that you're asleep and you probably pillow dialed or in this case answered me–"she’s cut off by the sound of her laughter, intimate, short.

“— but I guess I'll just use this as practice for when I do it in real life,  when you're wide awake staring at me.”

“...”

“Leo, life is short. That's the main thought I keep circulating back to. Singing on stage that day—it really made me happy but when a dream you've been holding back for so long comes to pass…it makes you realize how much time you've wasted. I've wasted so much time…and I know that they say we're young but no one is promised forever. We're all promised the end.”

I taste the salt on my lips, before I realize I'm crying. The tears free fall, on my cheeks, poured out from my heart. I sniffle, trying my best to remain silent.

“Leo, you've made my life beautiful. You've made my laughs fuller, you've made my heart breathe through the anxieties of this life. You've made me see myself different, see the world different. I don't feel  like the same girl I was before I met you. I lied to you…”

I hold my breath, wiping the stray tears, waiting.

“ I don't like you, Leonardo. I think I've always known, even from the first time I said it.”

“...”

“Leo, I -I”—a soft cry tears out of her. It's warm and it's vulnerable but it's also mixed with the sound of her sweet laughter.

  I imagine the tears flowing down her cheeks, her eyes glimmering like they're the stars themselves. I imagine a smile adorning her face as the laughter continues, a softer ending in a breath.

“I've never felt this way, about anyone in my entire life. I've never known anyone like I feel like I know you. You're one of the best things that's ever happened to me, right after pie—” a laugh escapes her, “joking.”

“ I told you how I was suicidal before. When I trying to come out of that, while God was saving me from myself....I always wondered if it was worth it to stay, if this life has any more to give to me other than pain.”

More sniffles are heard from the phone.I imagine her wiping tears while I wipe the stray tears in my eyes.

“Leo, you're one of the reasons why I'm glad I stayed. Leo, I'm in love with you.”

My heart comes to a standstill. A soul filling pause. Then, it all ensues with a sudden embrace from words I've long  awaited for.

A choked sob that's mixed with laughter of disbelief escapes me. I hold my fist to my mouth, biting down, staying silent.

“I'm  in love with you, Leo.” She says  again, softer, bolder.

“I never thought I could feel this way about someone —about a boy. You make me happy and you make me want to make you happy. And you make me smile and you make me want to make you smile. I love you, Leo.”

Another cry escapes her, this one more relieved, more free. The laughter mixed with it, a lot louder, fuller.

“Wow!” She shrieks, her excitement alive, filling the car. A flush of embarrassment, tainting her words.

“I can't believe I just said that—this is so surreal. Ughh! I'm an idiot. Now I just need to tell you all this again, when you're actually awake and listening to me but it's a start. God help me.  Leo, I think your eyes are too much for me, you look at me and my brain goes mush—so technically it's your fault I haven't told you I love you.”

A quiet laughter escapes me, making the pain in my chest ache, telling it to leave and never return.

“I always want to be with you.” Olivia confesses, softer. “ I know I said we aren't promised forever but since the end is promised I guess…what I'm trying to say is that I want to be with you till the end, till my end or your end, whoever God decides to take first.”

The line goes quiet, my heart hammers against my chest, alive, breathing and longing. Her words echo through every thread of my soul. They replay over my mind, my favourite lines are kept, embraced.

I love her and she loves me too, that's all that goes through my mind like a warm and hazy dream that's broken through a nightmare.

I love her and she loves me too. I wonder if she's dropped the phone but something tells me, a gut feeling,that she's still on the line, listening, breathing, falling slowly into a sweet slumber.

I love her and she loves me too. I want to tell her about Mkhulu, that I'm on my way to see him but I'm stuck in traffic. I want to tell her he was hit by a car, that he's in a coma and I'm scared to see him hurt, to see him vulnerable. I want to tell her that I'm struggling to pray, that my words are jumbled, stuttered and broken off with cries.

I love her and she loves me too. Her voice breaks through the warm, peaceful atmosphere that she's created with her words alone. It's softer, like a sleepy mumble but there's heart to it. Honesty. A promise.

“I'm in love with you, Leonardo July and I promise to tell you this in real life…oneday. Goodnight.”

And then the cars all around me start moving, going ahead, making way. The traffic alleviates like the Lord is saying it's safe to cross over, that he's gone before me.

“I'm coming Mkhulu, hang on.”

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

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