My brother wasn’t awake yet from the anaesthetic. He didn’t look too good. Tubes going in and coming out of him in all directions. They said the first forty-eight hours were critical. If he survived that he’d be OK.

I didn’t budge from that chair, not even to go to the toilet. I was afraid if I took my eyes off him he’d slip away into the other world. There was a lot going on in my head. None of it happy. I was doing a lot of bargaining with God and the ancestors. They’d probably heard it all before.

I was dozing in my chair, around eleven that night, when I woke up with a big jump. Commotion in the doorway. Someone was trying to fight her way in past the nurses. I stood up in relief, thinking it was Ma arrived at last. But it wasn’t. My heart sank when I saw who it was. She rushed right past me like I was Mr Invisible and flung herself, weeping, on the patient.

“Prinz! My beautiful Prinz! Look what they’ve done to you. Those rubbishes! Cowards!”

Tears washed her face like tidal waves.

“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. The blesser took my phone and he read all my messages. He was so jealous. He told me he’d make sure I never spoke to you again. I tried to warn you not to go to the gym – didn’t you get my message?”

My brother’s sticky eyes squeezed open. He looked at her with this look that a drowning man gives to his rescuer.

“Ingolozi!” he croaked. “Ngishonile na?” He thought he was seeing angels and wondering if he’d died.

“It’s Princess – Pretty. Don’t you remember? From Facebook. Don’t you recognise me?”

“The Princess,” my brother whispered. “You’re the one …”

His swollen lips twitched into what could have been a smile. He murmured something. It sounded like, “It was worth it”. Then his eyes gave up trying to stay open and he passed out again.

Princess Pretty burst out crying once more.

“You’re my One too! Don’t die Prinz,” she wept. “Don’t leave me. I love you!”

Her only answer was the beeping of the machines.

My Pretty Princess turned from the bed. Her eyes saw me now.

“Will he be all right?” she begged me, like I had the power to make sure he was.

I nodded. What else could I do?

“You’re his brother, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Magcina.”

“I can see,” she said. “You look like him.”

Did I? No-one had ever told me that before. Except Rubi, once. But I never listen to what she says.

There was so much that needed to be said. So much confessing and explaining to be done. But not right now. This was the time for hurting and crying.

“That blesser!” Princess said. “How could he do this? What kind of a man is he? I’m never going back to him. I don’t care if I have to live on the streets. I don’t care if he kills me! I hate him so much.”

My ex-dreamgirl fell into my arms and sobbed against my chest as if she wouldn’t ever stop.

***

Tell us: Will Prince fall for Princess and what will she do when she finds out that Magcina is not her ‘Prinz’?