CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
Are we friends?
“I thought I told you not to put me in this kind of situation ever again?” Marcus’s hard voice cut through my foggy mind, and from where I had been standing for God knows how long, I turned and found him at the entrance of my room. His face was unreadable, but there was tension in the way he stood. His shoulders were stiff. His jaw was clenched. His hands were shoved into his pockets as though he was physically restraining himself.
This was not the reaction I was expecting.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I told you not to put me in a situation where you are dying in my arms and I don’t know what to do to help you.”
Suddenly, it came back to me. The day I was leaving the hospital for home after I collapsed in his arms and found out I was pregnant days later. He told me never to put him in a situation where he had to save me. This is exactly why I didn’t want him knowing; he still thinks he can help me.
“No one is dying here,” I replied as I looked away.
“Is that what you think?” he retorted in a calm voice, but there was something sharp underneath. I swallowed as I locked my trembling fingers together. “Because let me break it down for you, you are dying, Bewaji,” he continued. “You are dying right in front of me and at least, last time, I knew to call an ambulance, but right now, I don’t know what to do.”
I looked up at him and our eyes met. Tears lined his eyes and my throat tightened instantly.
“I don’t need your help,” I yelled, and his eyebrows shot upward. He immediately strode closer to me.
“So, you came to die on me, is that it?”
“What?”
“All I have ever done is try to help you. I opened my home to you. I watched you fall apart right in front of me. I sat there every single day trying to figure out how to help you, and all this time, you came to me to sleep yourself to death.”
The hurt in his voice made me flinch, and the room suddenly became smaller with his close proximity.
“Of course not,” I yelped.
“Then, why didn’t you tell me?” he questioned, and when I gave him none, he searched my eyes looking for answers desperately. “Am I even your friend?” The volume dropped.
“Marcus….”
“Don’t...." His breath heaved " Don't Marcus me because I thought I was your friend. I thought we were friends."
"Stop been dramatic, of course we are friend" I argued
"No, I don't think so! Let me tell you who a friend is" he moved closer with a soften look.
"A friend is someone you met along journey we call life" He started calmly "A friend is someone you share your life with, a friend is someone you talk to when things are hard"
Then, the octave of his voice got louder
"A friend is someone who helps you when you are in danger, a friend is someone who lifts you up when you are down, but when it comes to you, a friend is someone you go on a jolly ride with in a Lamborghini truck, someone you eat spicy pepper soup with and not someone you tell the hard stuff?” he berated loudly. I wrapped my arms round myself as his words landed on me louder than I would have thought.
“You conveniently left out the part where you were married to Kylian Mbappe from me because you couldn’t trust me not to run my mouth to the press an….”
“Marcus, please…”
“Shut the fuck up, I am still talking,” he lambasted me, and I kept shut. “Your baby died, Bewaji. Your daughter!” his voice cracked slightly, and my eyes started filling up with tears immediately. “I knew how happy you were when you found out you were going to be a mother and then days later, you lost your womb, any other chance of being a mother gone, and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me that.”
Silence stretched between us. I shook my head as I wiped the tears falling from my eyes away. He stared at me for several seconds and when he finally spoke, his voice was painfully quiet.
"My friend lost her baby," he said, his voice breaking. "She lost her womb, she went to hell and back, and I didn't even know." He sat the edge of the bed with his face in his hands. I watched as his chest rose sharply as he struggled to steady himself. Tears slipped down his face despite his efforts to hold them back. He looked up at the wall
"I watched you suffer every day, Bewaji. I knew something was wrong, but I thought you had postpartum depression. I had no idea it was worse than that." He shook his head and looked at me, then, let out a bitter laugh. "God, I thought I was your friend." The disappointment in his voice hurt far more than his anger.
Marcus dragged a hand across his face and exhaled shakily, as though trying to pull himself back together. Then he stood up and turned away from me. For the first time since I had known him, he looked defeated.
“Of course, you are my friend,” I finally said, and he turned back to me immediately.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” he bit out. “Did you not trust me?” he questioned.
“No, it is not that.” I shook my head.
“Then what is it?”
“Because I didn’t want you looking at me with pity.”
“Pity?” he asked as if the question caught him off guard completely. The room fell into silence again, and Marcus looked away briefly before turning his gaze back to me. “Does this look like pity?” he asked as he signaled to himself with his two hands. I couldn’t meet his eyes because I knew this was not pity.
“And what you call pity is actually concern. I am concerned. Alice, no matter how harsh she was, is concerned about you. Hell, even Joy is concerned about you. You suffered a great loss, Bewaji, and if we are not concerned about you, then we are heartless. It is a humane thing for us to want to help you get through this.”
“But I don’t want your pity or concern, whatever the fuck you call it. I don’t want your help,” I shouted, pulling away from him. Marcus stared at me, completely bewildered.
"Who said anything about getting through this?" I snapped.
His brow furrowed.
"What?"
"I am not the victim here, Marcus."
The room fell silent and I looked him dead straight in the eye.
"I am the murderer."
Confusion flashed across his face.
"What are you talking about?"
“I deserve to be punished.” He froze.
“What are you talking about, Bewaji?” he looked lost.
“I killed my baby.”
Colour drained from his face. “What?”
I began pacing again, unable to stand still. My heart hammered painfully against my ribs as past memories came rushing in
"I shouldn't have gone through that back door. I shouldn't have entered that house. I shouldn't have called Frances. I should have listened to Alice. I should have stayed home. I should have taken better care of myself. I should have gone to the hospital when they told me to." Tears streamed down my face as I shook my head violently.
“Bewaji!” he called me in a low voice, and I looked at him.
“I was her mother— I had one job, to protect my baby girl, but I didn’t because I was selfish. I failed my baby girl.” My chest tightened painfully.
“And because of what I did, she never got to live.” A sob tore through me.
“She never got to take her first breath and she never got to see the world.” My knees nearly buckled beneath me and the next thing I knew, Marcus was standing in front of me. His arms were around me and for a second, I didn't fight him. I simply broke. The sobs came harder than before as I buried my face against his chest.
“You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.” He whispered as he hugged me tight, moving his long fingers through my hair. “What happened to your baby girl is not your fault.”
The words instantly shattered whatever comfort I had found in his embrace. Of course he would say that, we are talking about Marcus. Of course he would try to save me. Ever since the first day we met, he was always saving me. That was who Marcus was. He saw broken things and tried to fix them. This was the reason why I didn’t want to tell him; he would make it his sole mission to save me and I don’t deserve to be saved.
So, I yanked myself from his embrace and moved away from him. Surprise flashed across his face.
“I killed my baby.” I wiped my tears away angrily.
“Bewaji, it….”
“Stop, please, just stop,” I yelped. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you, you would try to save me.”
“Come, Bewa, it was not your fault.”
“Yes, it was my fault and I don’t deserve to be saved.” My voice echoed through the room and he stared at me helplessly.
“I don’t want to be saved.”
“Can you even hear yourself?” he moved closer to me and I moved backward.
“I don’t want to be saved.” Marcus opened his mouth as though searching desperately for the right words, but none came and I couldn't bear looking at him anymore.
“Close the door on your way out,” and so, I turned my back to him. I thought he would argue, but a few seconds later, I heard the soft click of the door closing behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED ON NEXT SATURDAY, 9.00PM WAT.
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