My friends and I went to church in Groutville. It was on the 28 of April and 2 weeks without getting a call from Mthobisi, not even a text message. But I was still angry at him so I didn’t bother to call. I just didn’t understand why he stopped calling me while he was the one in the wrong. I was so mad at him.

Passover started on a Thursday night and he didn’t come. It was cool, people don’t come on the first night, I told myself. I thought he would be there in the morning, but still on Friday there was no trace of him or his friends, not even a text. I just told myself that maybe he didn’t want to be my friend anymore.

Maybe my friends were right, he loved me but was too scared to tell me, that’s why he couldn’t even face me.

It was on a Sunday, on our way home when my friends told me again that he was in love with me.

“See what igwababa is doing to him?” they joked about my situation even though I was a bit sad. No, I was heartbroken and furious.

If he loved me that much, then why didn’t he just come and tell me and stop playing games? He knew how much I hated being played, so if did the same thing how did he expect me to feel?

Days went by with no call or anything from him. I told myself that I would be the bigger person and just call him. But no one picked up. I sent him a message.

Hey Ntwana yam. I am sorry, even though I don’t know what I have done to you. I didn’t mean for our friendship to end like this, you mean a lot to me. Life is really hard without you and Mkhulu. I miss our long crazy conversations, your advice and Mkhulu’s. I am tired of making excuses to my little sister whenever she asks me to call you. We both miss you guy. I am sorry Mnyama, please call me when you get this.

I knew after that message he would surely call me, and the first thing he would say would be “Voetsek wena brownie.”

Hours went by but still no call from him. I was getting worried now. I knew even if he was angry at me he would still call me. He couldn’t stay angry at me even for an hour, now it had been weeks and that was really unlike him.

I had known him for a year now, I knew how he thought, what made him angry, how long he stayed angry, his voice when he was not OK, his voice when he was too excited. I knew everything about him and what was happening now just was not him at all.

I decided to go and check on his Facebook.

When I got on his timeline I saw his selfie I laughed so hard, I mean he took that selfie for me and said he would never post that on any social network. So I wondered what changed his mind. But when I looked again I noticed that he hadn’t posted the picture, he was tagged by his friend, Sarh.

I wondered how Sarh got that picture, I was the only person Mthobisi had sent it to. I started thinking maybe he was angry at me because he thought I sent it to Sarh, but then I again I knew he would have asked me. So I started reading the long caption written by Sarh.

I read the first two lines, which didn’t surprise me, they were best friends.

He was saying how amazing Mthobisi was and how much he loved him. What confused me was that he wrote it as if he was no longer his friend, or that Mthobisi was dead.

I scrolled down to the end of the message.

I had a big lump on my throat that I couldn’t sallow. I couldn’t breathe when I saw the part that said “May Your Soul Rest In Peace Mthobisi Mxhakaza.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought it was one of their stupid jokes until I started reading the comments. My eyes filled with tears.

Everyone was saying “RIP Mikit”. And one comment really broke my heart.

RIP Mthoh, it’s sad because I saw him few weeks back and he was really sick but trying to act strong as always. No one has ever seen him sad or angry because he always put a smile on everyone’s face while dying inside.

After reading it I just broke down.

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