The Road Remembered Him Too.

It was the same place he died. Only this time, the road gave him back, just long enough for me to lose him again.

Note ; skip music to 1:05

I was halfway across the road when I saw him.
Not someone who looked like him, not a stranger wearing his face, but him.

He was older now, taller, his shoulders broader, his face sharper. But those eyes, they were the same ones that laughed at me under the summer sun, that squinted when he teased me, that sparkled when he called me scaredy-cat before pushing me on the swing.

My breath caught. My heart didn’t.

Because He was dead.

He had died right here, on this same road, eight years ago, pulling me back when I froze at the sight of headlights. I remember the scream, the thud, the stillness.

I wish I hadn’t frozen.

The world had gone quiet after that, as if it too was shocked at what it had taken.

But there he was now, alive.

I blinked hard, once, twice, waiting for him to blur away, but he didn’t. He just stood there across the street, hands in his pockets, the faintest smile on his lips. Like he was waiting for me. Like he’d always been waiting.

Memories rushed in, unstoppable. The beach at Eko, the sound of the waves swallowing our laughter, his hand buried in the wet sand as he tried to build a castle that never stood. The park where we raced until our legs ached and our mothers yelled our names from far away. The day he promised to grow up and protect me forever.

He never got to grow up.

And yet, here he was.

I called his name. voice trembling, too small against the noise of traffic.

He lifted his head and smiled wider. Then, slowly, he stepped off the curb.

“No!” I screamed. “Not again!”

I didn’t think, I just ran. The same way he had all those years ago. My bag dropped, my shoes slipped, my heart thundered like the cars rushing past. I reached for him, his arm, his shirt, anything.

A car sped between us, its horn slicing through the air.

When it passed, he was gone.

There was nothing but the echo of my own breathing, sharp and broken.

I stood there, in the middle of the road, staring at the spot where he had been. My hands were shaking, reaching for nothing. People were shouting now, running toward me, pulling at my shoulders. Someone asked if I was hurt, another if I’d lost something.

I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to tell them I’d just seen my ghost, my friend, my unfinished childhood.

But I couldn’t speak.

Because part of me was still standing on that beach, watching him laugh as the waves rolled in, and part of me was still eight years old, holding his hand for the last time.