Chapter Fifty-Nine

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Song: Anybody — Burnaboy (Note, even though there's a time skip, coronavirus never happened in this fictional world)

*Unedited* (No, stop praying that Kofi did some zombie revival and he's coming back. Kofi DID NOT SURVIVE)

Kofi survived. It wasn't easy, it'd been a long recovery time and he had to be put in a medically induced coma, but he survived.

Have you ever felt like you're carrying the whole world on your shoulders, then someone suddenly comes and lifts it off your shoulders? That's how I felt. There were so many worse things going on in the world, but the only thing I could think about was him.

At first, I thought it was just the guilt of causing someone's death, but as time progressed, I realised that it wasn't. Thinking about Kofi never waking up from that medically induced coma had me unable to breath. The thought sent current racing through my body, shocking me at every nerve it hit.

When I saw on the news that it was safe for him to be removed from the coma, I breathed deeply for the first time in eight months. My heart suddenly began beating like it normally should. It felt like my blood could finally flow through my veins.

Those eight months had been hell, but it was finally over. His recovery though took a much longer time. It took five years before he was fine again. How fine though, it wasn't exactly clear.

Kofi's mental health and his body — due to the accident — had suffered extensive damage. He had been in a wheelchair ever since he'd been released from the hospital. According to my regular calls to Nathan and what I'd been seeing on the news, his mind had finally found a way to cope. Through dissociative amnesia.

Which meant that he wouldn't remember some of his most painful memories. Which probably means that he wouldn't remember what I did to him, or he wouldn't even remember me at all. Which is why I made the decision that after five years and eight months, I would finally go and see him.

It was a huge risk and even Nathan had warned me against it, but I couldn't continue living like nothing had happened. Especially, not when the whole world was against me.

It was very confusing and harsh, but beneficial — how things went down. Sitting in the middle of my self—owned penthouse flat in Osu, my mind went back to the past few years and how everything had eventually happened for my good.

The night I found out what happened to Kofi was one of the worst nights of my life. That feeling, thinking you're the cause of someone taking their own life, it's the worst feeling in the world. I don't wish for anyone to ever commit suicide, but blaming yourself for someone's suicide is something that happens to living people who can actually feel. The guilt almost drove me mad.

The hate from social media didn't help either. Every day, I felt like I was spiralling deeper and deeper into an endless black hole of grief and guilt. I was practically in shambles. A dead woman walking. Life didn't even feel worth living anymore. The thoughts that used to run through my mind were vicious.

"If I'd driven someone to taking their own life, then I didn't deserve to have a life either."

"Are you chickening out again?" Edinam asked, coming to sit beside me. She was still wearing her lab coat and she was holding a cluster of folders, glancing through them absentmindedly while biting into an apple.

"I'm still going to see him. I'm going tomorrow and I'm just trying to build some confidence," I said. My eyes wandered to the ceiling, where the neon lights above were casting a medley of beautiful colours on us. "Where are the boys?"

"They, like every normal human being at this time, are asleep. Elikem woke up to steal ice cream from the fridge though. I gave him a good spanking and sent him off to bed," she laughed.

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