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JOSHUA WAS TIRED OF NOT BEING ABLE to sleep.
He had tried countless remedies for lack of sleep: alcohol, sleeping pills, tea but nothing had worked.
He stared at the ceiling fan above him, trying to will himself back to sleep.
But it was to no avail.
Joshua took a deep breath and threw the covers off of him before standing to his feet and padding out of his bedroom.
The moonlight exposed the scratch marks on the floor from where Ayoluwa's piano had once resided.
He opened his fridge, stared for a minute at the six pack of beer in contemplation then closed the fridge.
Joshua didn't wanna go down that road tonight.
With a sigh, Joshua resided over to the couch and turned on his tv.
He scrolled through channel after channel, trying to find something to watch but due to the time of night that it was, was unsuccessful.
He went to the YouTube app on the smart tv and the first thing that popped up in his suggestions was Ayoluwa's performance on Jimmy Fallon from a couple weeks back.
Joshua bit down on his bottom lip, then clicked on the video.
It held a couple million views already and Ayoluwa was dressed in a white bodysuit with multicolored graphic words printed all over with a band behind her.
The band began to play the instrumental to her song, Not Another Love Song.
Joshua had to bite back a smirk, choosing to lull his head back on the cushion instead.
Most of the love songs, if not all, were about Joshua and he had been in the room when they were being written, supplying her with cups of hot tea for her throat and trying his best to help her rhyme.
Ayoluwa was singing the chorus as she dropped down slowly into a seductive squat like position, "I love the way you do it, don't stop, don't wanna lose it, I love the way you do it to me."
The camera panned in a little as she sang, only stopping when it came close to her face.
Joshua was a little entranced, blinking rapidly a couple times as the video ended and an old music video of hers, her first one, in fact came up next in the suggested.
Before Joshua knew it, he was watching music video after music video, recorded performance after recorded performance and interview after interview.
During one of her old interviews with MTV was when Joshua finally began to feel his eyelids grow heavy, his mind finally rested enough for him to sleep.
Joshua fell asleep to the sound of her voice and when he woke up the next morning, the YouTube had landed on the 'Moon River' video.
That video, that era of life seemed to be a million miles away from them both.
Joshua sat up and watched the familiar grainy video.
"Moon river, wider than a mile. I'm crossing you in style," Joshua watched Ayoluwa sing and play on his grandfather's old piano, the same one now in her new house all the way in Brooklyn, "Dream maker, you heart breaker. Wherever you're going, I'm going that way."
He had gifted some of the instruments in the lake house to her for their one year, figuring out correctly that she would appreciate them way more than he did.
"Two drifters off to see the world, there's such a lot of world to see," Joshua tilted his head a little as he watched himself come closer to where she was sitting in the video.
It was amazing how much her voice had grown in three years since this video was taken.
While Ayoluwa had always been an amazing singer, her voice now was of another world now, ethereal, high but soulful simultaneously somehow.
"Life's just around the bend, my friend, moon river and-." Ayoluwa looked up in the video and smiled a bit before opening her mouth to speak.
But the video had cut out since Joshua had never given the full video to anyone.
Joshua lifted the remote in the air to his smart tv and clicked the power button multiple times until the tv had shut off.
Joshua pushed himself up from the couch to stride over back to the fridge, opening it and quickly pulling a bottled water and then closing the fridge once more.
Once he had gone back to his bedroom, he saw that his phone was low on battery and a couple of missed texts and one missed call all from Letitia.
I'll just call her back later.
Joshua laid on his side of the bed and pulled the covers over his body, still unwilling to claim all of the bed while awake, plugged his phone in and began to scroll through his instagram notifications.
Someone had created and tagged Joshua in an edit of him and Ayoluwa.
The edit featured pictures and videos of the couple from years past to Aaliyah's One In A Million: them dancing at Imani's wedding, Ayoluwa with her arms around his neck in an embrace after he had gotten drafted and a couple of videos Joshua clearly singing along to her songs when he had been able to go to her performances.
Joshua pursed his lips a little, wondering the implications of him liking the edit.
"Fuck it." He mumbled before double tapping the screen.
Another call from Letitia and Joshua let his thumb hover above the green button for a half second before letting his skin make contact with the glass, sending the call to voicemail.
He turned his head to stare down the spot that used to be hers before turning back to his cell phone.
The phone rang with another call and this time, Joshua didn't hesitate in pressing the red button to deny it.
He went back to the previous edit, feeling his heart ache more and more each time that it replayed.
He wanted her back.
Joshua wanted Ayoluwa back more than anything and it was time to prove it.
