“You’re not staying with Aunty Kavita?” Somto asked.

I shook my head. “I told my mother I’d come back tonight.”

“You should stay,” Olunne said. “It’s not safe to travel all the way to Owerri this late.”

“It’s fine. I’ve done it before.”

Juju stood up. “I’ll walk you out,” she offered. I said good-bye and watched Elizabeth watch her as we left the table. We walked through the front building and the lobby, stopping just outside the gate.

“Are you sure you have to go?” Juju asked.

She was standing close to me but I didn’t want to step back. “I’m sure Elizabeth will be happy I’m leaving,” I said.

“Don’t mind her. She just had a hard time when she found out, you know?”

I didn’t really know what to say about that—her girlfriend finding out about my relationship with my cousin—so we just stood in the pool of the security light for a few minutes.

“If you don’t want to stay with your aunty and uncle, I understand,” Juju said. “I wouldn’t want to sleep there without Vivek, either. You know you can always come and stay at my house for the night.”

I laughed. “Imagine what your father would say to that.”

“He’s traveling for work. Actually for work this time. And Mumsy knows you, and you’ve stayed before. It’s not a problem.”

“Thank you, but I’m okay. I should start going.”

Juju hugged me and I hugged her back, tightly. Again, the thought came: Vivek would want me to take care of her. But I wasn’t him, and I couldn’t replace who he’d been to her. I didn’t fit into this particular jigsaw. She waved to me after I let her go, and I waved back as I walked to the main road. I knew she was still standing there, alone under the light, watching me leave her behind.

At the bus stop, I bought a sachet of pure water and drank it slowly. It was stupid to worry about her, I told myself. She’d been coping just fine before I showed up, just like all of us. As if Vivek’s parents’ lives hadn’t stopped, at least in every way that was important, even as they had to wake up in the morning and watch the sun move across the sky. Maybe we were all pretending to be fine because the world gave us no other option.

Suddenly I felt exhausted, completely sapped. I sat on a bench and stared out at the busyness around me. My bus came and went and I sat there, the conductor’s calls of Owere! Owere! ringing in my skull. After its lights disappeared into the night, I reconciled myself to the fact that I’d made a decision, and I took an okada to Aunty Maja’s house. It dropped me off outside the floral fence and I used the section near the gate that didn’t have things growing all over it to jump the fence. I texted Juju from the back door: I’m downstairs. It took only a few minutes before the padlock clicked as she unlocked the iron protector and opened the door for me.

“Take off your shoes,” she whispered, as she locked up again. Holding them, I tiptoed after her and we climbed the stairs, barely breathing until we were safe in her room and she’d locked the door behind us. “I’m glad you came back,” she said.

I didn’t reply. I was looking around the room, wondering why on earth I’d thought that Uncle Chika’s house would be too painful a reminder of Vivek when the other memories were here in this house. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” I said.

“Well, it’s too late.” She climbed into the bed, wearing a cotton nightgown that ended above her knees. “You might as well get some sleep while you’re here.”

I hesitated. “What about the guest room?”

Juju sat against the pillows and wiped her face with her hand. “Osita. Please. I can’t—” She opened her palms and collapsed them onto the bedspread. “I just can’t.”

Her eyes filled and I stepped out of my trousers, unbuttoned my shirt, and climbed into the bed in my singlet and boxers. Take care of her. She looks so lonely. “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling her against my chest. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m sorry.”

She broke into sobs, muffling them against me so they wouldn’t slip under the door and crawl into her parents’ room. I didn’t say anything. I just held her as she shook with grief, and I cried, too, but quietly, my tears wetting her hair. It was impossible not to miss him when I was with her; it was as if someone had driven a shovel into my chest, then levered it out again, taking up all it could hold, leaving a screaming mess behind. The pain thickened until I was sobbing as well, trying to shove it in the space between her neck and shoulder, my arms wrapped around her as if to save myself, not just her. I lost time inside it, plagued by the memories of the three of us there, when he was alive and happy; even of Olunne and Somto and Elizabeth there with us, when we’d all played Monopoly and Vivek cheated; when he taught us how to play solitaire with real cards; when he danced and the girls danced with him and I thought, God forgive me, I really love him, I really do; when he was bright and brilliant and alive, my cousin, my brother, the love of my sinful life.

* * *

—

It was deep into the night when I came out of it with a hiccup. We must have cried ourselves to sleep, or into some sort of stupor. Juju sniffed and sat up, her face streaked and her eyes red.

“You look terrible,” I said, sitting up next to her.

“Your father,” she shot back, wiping at her face.

I smiled and smoothed back some of her hair. “Are you okay?”

She leaned her head against my shoulder. “I’m fine. I haven’t cried like that for him in a long time. Since I first heard.”

“I hadn’t cried like that for him at all.”

She looked up at me. “Really?”

I nodded. There wasn’t much else to say. Juju put her arm across my chest and squeezed a little, like she understood.

“What are we going to tell your mother in the morning when she sees me?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, she leaves around eight. She won’t disturb us.” She slid off the bed and went over to her CD player.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re putting on music? At this time?”

Juju laughed. “Mumsy is used to it. I like to fall asleep listening to something.” She slid in a Mariah Carey album, Daydream, skipped a song, then pressed play.

I tensed as the music started with a tinkle of chimes. “Not that one,” I said. It was Juju’s favorite—she used to play it all the time when Vivek was alive. It hurt to hear Mariah’s voice singing over a slow piano and soft percussion, but Juju didn’t turn it off. Instead, she danced slowly over, a relaxed two-step, the nightgown swirling gently around her. Her hair was down and swaying at her shoulders. “I said, not that one.”

Juju climbed on the bed and straddled me. The pain in my chest was near overwhelming, but she took my face in her hands and her eyes fed on the hurt seeping out of my skin. “It’s okay,” she whispered. I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to cry again. “It’s okay.” I felt her kiss me and she tasted like she was already crying. I slid my hands to her back and dug my fingers into her spine, kissing her back. I could almost feel the brush of his hair dragging over my shoulders, his strong palm on the back of my neck. Before I knew it, my tears were pooling at the corners of my mouth, she was eating them along with hers, we were filling our mouths with salt and tongues and wet grief. I pulled off my singlet and Juju raised herself enough for me to take the boxers off as well, then raised her arms to let me pull off her nightgown.

Mariah’s voice was wrapping high notes around us and it felt like heartbreak washing in a thousand pinpricks over our skin. Juju leaned sideways for her bedside drawer and I kissed the arch of her neck, the wing of her collarbone, the flesh of her shoulder. She returned to my mouth and tore open the condom, lifting herself again to roll it on. I gasped when she slid back down, her knees digging into the mattress, her hands like brands burning me. I imagined Vivek behind her, his legs mixed up with mine, his mouth against her back; imagined I could reach beyond her and meet his forearms, pull him closer until we were all pressed against each other.

But when my hands reached out, there was only air, unmoving and hot.

“He’s not here,” Juju whispered, as if she read my mind.

I returned my hands to her, settling them on her hips as she rolled them forward.

“I know,” I said. “I’m here for you.”

But he was there, somehow, even if just in our memories of him—he was there because his absence was there. We didn’t mind. He wouldn’t have. He would have smiled that annoying little smile, lain down next to us and watched, happy. How could he be gone when he’d overtaken us so completely while he was here?

Afterward, Juju lay with her head on my chest. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she said quietly.

I turned my head slightly. “You didn’t tell anyone what?”

“That you came looking for him the day he died. After he left here. I didn’t tell your aunt.”

I brought one of my hands in to stroke her shoulder. “Thank you.”