The sound of my phone ringing was what woke me up the next morning. I tried to force out the sound of the phone that was blaring 'love not war' from my ears by covering it up with my pillow, but it looked like the phone had decided to punish me this morning. I ignored it a few more times, and it wasn't until I heard Chuwen voice before I grumpily picked up the phone, only to see that it was Ademide's mum.

I quickly checked the time to see that it was almost 11 am. I couldn't believe I had slept till this late.

I picked up the call and greeted her.

"Morning, Mary, I'm sorry to disturb you," I heard her say immediately. I could hear panic in her voice. What was wrong?

"It's fine, ma," I said even though it wasn't fine to my still sleepy self.

"The thing is, I need your help." She paused a bit as if she was hesitating and rethinking about telling me. "I and Femi are currently out for an important meeting now, and I just got a call from the hospital. Ademide collapsed and was rushed there."

"What?" I screamed, all the sleep clearing from my eyes as fear gripped me.

"Mary, you need to calm down, please."

I breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm myself. "What hospital?"

   "Total healthcare, it's at..."

  "I know the place," I hastened to say, glad that it was a place I knew. That was where I did my medicals in the first year. "I'll go ahead then."

  "Thank you, Mary, and calm down." I heard her say before she hung up.
  
  I stood up immediately and picked out a black jogger and grey top, unable to comprehend everything happening. Why would Ademide collapse? Was it because he got drunk last night? Why does this have to happen?

  If anything serious happens to him, I definitely wouldn't be able to forgive myself.

  "Mary, is everything okay?" Chuwen asked,  her voice sounding concerned.

   I picked up my black cross bag, then turned to Glory with misty eyes. "Ademide was rushed to the hospital."

  "Oh my God! What happened?" Chuwen asked, springing up on her bed.

  I shook my head. "I don't know, his mum called me now, she's not around herself."

  "Mary, just calm down. Do you want me to come with you?"

  I blinked back the tears and cleaned off the ones that had dropped. "No, I'll be fine. I'll call you and let you know how everything goes."

  With that said, I ran out of the room and out of the house, without stopping to even say hi to those that were greeting me. All I could think about was Ademide and this gnawing guilt I felt deep down within me.
 
   All through the journey to the hospital, all I could do was pray and hope that things aren't bad and it's something really minor.

  Damn, I should have followed him home last night, if only I had put a big stop to my stubbornness and actually realized the fact that Ademide would actually not do anything to hurt me intentionally.

"This relationship was doomed from the start. You've never for once given me the benefits of the doubts, not for once ever since we met."

  The truth of his words hit me now as I realized just how I have been towards him, but then what would I have believed? It's all unfolded itself and...

  I put a stop to my train of thoughts as the hospital came into view. I alighted from the bike, paid him, and ran in without even checking out where I was supposed to enter. After going the wrong way, I came right back to the entrance.

  "Good morning," I greeted the receptionist,  my voice still breathy. "A patient was brought here this morning..."

  "Miss Mary."

  I turned sharply when I heard an unfamiliar voice calling my name to see an elderly woman walking towards me from the waiting area. I tried to check if I would recognize her, but I didn't.

  "You're Miss Mary, right?" The lady asked again, looking me over as though trying to figure out if I was really me.

  "I'm really busy right now..." I tried to explain to her, not wanting to come out rude, but really help it.

  "Mr Adeshina is in one of the private wards," the lady said immediately, cutting me off and effectively getting my attention. "I'm Mr Adeshina's house cleaner, I come in to clean the house twice a week, I was the one who brought him in."

   Although she had explained who she was, I was still super confused at how she knew me. She must have noticed this because she cleared it up immediately.

"I've seen your pictures around the house a lot. This few weeks, I started working with him, and he's always talking about you."

  "Ohh," I managed to say, my throat clogged up. "Can you show me to his ward?"

  "Before that, the doctor would like to talk to a family, so we'd better go to the doctor's office first."

  I nodded in response, too shocked and scared to mutter any words. I let the lady lead me to the so-called doctor's office, while I tried my best not to think up several tragic disasters he might want to talk about.

  Once I had shown the doctor's office, I knocked and gently pulled open the door. When I heard that 'come in', I would have preferred to avoid it.

  The moment I stepped into the office alone, the lady seated at the door to wait for me, I felt a big cage closing in on me. My emotions went wild as several things swarmed across my mind, but the moment I saw the doctor's calm and relaxed face, I also calmed down a little. Definitely, there's nothing bad to announce to me.

  I took a seat across the elderly man, my hand immediately biting into my cross bag as I tried not to make my eyes wander around.

  "Good morning, Miss." The doctor smiled. "I'm guessing you're here for Mr Adeshina."

  "Yes, sir." I nodded. "Is everything okay with him?"

   The doctor's smile broadened. "It's nothing to worry about. It's just that he overexerted himself, which he wasn't supposed to do. He flaunted his doctor's orders."

  Everything the doctor was saying didn't make an iota of sense to me, I understand the part of him overexerting himself, but the doctor's orders part is where I got confused. I decided to ignore all that and focus on the good news that Ademide was okay.

  "So everything is fine with him? There's nothing to worry about?"

  "There's nothing," the doctor said, glancing down at a set of files before him. "But it is very essential he doesn't do anything too exhausting for today, and maybe tomorrow and he has to eat well. It looks like he hasn't been eating so well lately. You must know that he needs all the rest he can get. Seeing as he just came out of coma, and still convalescing, he is really overestimating himself."

  "What? Coma?" I yelled. "He just came out of coma?"

  The doctor looked at me like I lost my senses on the way here, then he pointed to the file on the table. "The past medical reports his mother sent to my mail this morning shows that he has been in a coma for some time now and only just woke up."

  I slumped back into the chair as fear gripped my heart.

  Ademide was in a coma!

  Ademide was in a coma!

  That was all I could chant in my head as reality started to dawn on me. Was that where he had been all this while?

  So while I was here, being mad and angry, he was...

  No! No! It can't be! The doctor was definitely mistaken.

   "I can go see him now, right?" I asked, already halfway out of my seat.

  "Yeah, yeah, you can."

  I hurried out of his office and followed warily behind the lady, my mind running wild with every possibility of what happened?

  "Things came up, things I had no control over."

  I shook my head, trying to clear his voice from my head, and shove what I knew as the truth away. No!

Things did come up, yeah, I knew that because I knew Ademide wouldn't intentionally hurt me, not if he had control over it. Although I realized too late just how much he loved me and how much I've disregarded his love, at least I know now. But that doesn't mean that the things he had no control over were coma. No, absolutely not, someone would have told me, right?

  I deluded myself with all these as I made my way to the ward. The lady once again showed me the door and told me to go in, saying we might need privacy. I thanked her and slowly opened the door, careful enough not to make any sound in the case he was sleeping.

  But when I got in, he wasn't sleeping. No, he wasn't. Ademide was very much awake, dressed in the same pants he had worn yesterday, but shirtless, with his back against me, his shirt in his hand.

  I stood shocked at the door as I took in his body, this time around, the shock wasn't from how sexy or hot his body was, it was from the huge, dark scar that ran from his right shoulder, over his back, and towards the left side of his chest.

  And that wasn't all. There were more scars scattered all over his back, although not as brutal as the one I had first taken notice of.

  This wasn't on Ademide's body before, and I haven't seen him shirtless since he came back, which was weird because Ademide would take any chance to show off his body to me, I knew that first hand. So this was the reason.

  Was the doctor right then?

  What really happened to Ademide?

"You're not even going to listen to what I have to say. You're not going to ask me why I needed a nurse. You're just going to assume things and make up your own conclusion."

  I stumbled over, my back hitting the door as tears clouded my vision. What have I done? What have I done to him?

  Ademide turned towards the door instantly, hurriedly putting his shirt on, but not before I had a good glimpse of the scars on his chest and abs. A look of surprise settled on his face when he noticed I was the one. "Mary, what are you doing here?"

   I quickly cleaned off the tears in my eyes and studied his face, trying to figure out if there was any sign of hatred or disgust there as I recalled what he had told me last night.

  "You claim to love me, yet you don't trust me a single bit. If that's the kind of love you have for me, then I'm afraid I don't want it."

  He already said he didn't want my love. Who could blame him? I would hate me too if I were him. I never for once gave him the benefit of the doubts, always misunderstanding him. I knew I had done just that once again, no matter how much I wanted to believe that it wasn't what I was thinking and that the doctor was mistaken.

  "Your mum called me," I answered, realizing I needed to give him an answer instead of standing and watching him.

  An apologetic look filled up his face. "I'm sorry she disturbed you."

  The fact that he was apologizing to me over this made me detest myself even more than I already did.

  I took slow steps towards him and reached for his shirt, unbuttoning it. I ran my hand over the scars, feeling the new addition of roughness on his body. "How did you get these scars?"

  "Is it ugly?" He asked in a quite unsure voice. Surprisingly, he didn't sound angry, but he pushed my hands away and quickly buttoned up his shirt.

  I stared up at his face, wondering to myself if I was worthy enough to do so, because I didn't feel worthy of him right now. I felt disgusted at myself. "How did you get it?"

  Ademide smiled nervously. "It doesn't matter."

  I couldn't blame him for not wanting to tell me, I had made it seem like it didn't matter all this while, always prioritizing my own pain, ignoring him and his plea for a chance to explain things.

  "Please, tell me, Ademide, how did you get the scars? Tell me, please." I pleaded, my voice coming out in a whisper.

  He studied my face for a long time, he looked like he wasn't going to say anything at first, then he said, "I was in an accident."

  I closed my eyes in pain once he said the one thing I had feared was the truth. Finding out it was the truth was the most brutal punishment I've ever had to face. I pushed back every tears that threatened to spill, and I couldn't continue being pathetic.

  "When was it? When was the accident?" Although I could already guess the answer, I asked all the same. I stared at him expectantly, wanting the answer from him.

    He looked very skeptical as he answered me. "About five months ago."

  My hands went over to my mouth to stifle a sob as I slumped over the bed, everything hitting me all at once.

"If you had given me a silly excuse like your house caught fire, or you were in an accident, or probably died and just came back to life, it would be better than all this. But you won't do any of that because it's against your principle to lie, and you and I both know none of those things happened. That only leaves us to one explanation."

   The pain I felt and the disgust I felt towards myself went deeper as my very own words played around my head once again.

  Ademide wouldn't really ignore me intentionally without having a good reason for it.

  He did have an accident!

  And he did die and came back to life!

We finally know what Ademide has been doing all this while.

How do you all feel about this revelation?

  Are you guys dealing with it a lot better than Mary?

Let's take care, until next time.

MARY ADEN.