Fast forward to Saturday.

I was watching skits on TikTok with Vincent's phone while he solved past questions on physics. He didn't seem to be struggling with the work. When I got tired of the clock app, I scrolled down to turn off his WiFi connection. I was going to disconnect the earbuds too when my eyes noticed his music notification.

My fingers hovered over the 'play' icon for a while before I decided to tap it. It was a harmless gesture. I was just curious about the kind of music he liked.

First thing I noticed was that the music was an instrumental. Second thing, it sounded like a violin. Though there were no wordings, I enjoyed it. It was calm. The music was calming and soft. Just like jazz.

I unconsciously closed my eyes, after I had listened to the piece for about a minute, and swayed my head to the rhythm of the music while humming some tunes that were being repeated.

I opened my eyes and saw Vincent staring at me.

"What are you listening to?"

"Oh." I paused the music. "I'm listening to your music –" I tapped on the music notification box to get its full name and I instantly regretted my action. The music player app opened and I had realised that the very song I was listening to was under 'mum's memories' playlist. "–an instrumental." I didn't want to say its name because I didn't know how Vincent would react to me listening to the song. I just hoped he had instrumentals that weren't under the playlist.

Vincent's eyes darkened instantly and he stretched his arm across the table. "Give me my phone." His voice was not friendly at all. It was strained like he was holding back from lashing out on me. I quickly passed him his phone and earbuds and watched him mutter things under his breath. "You have no right or permission to snoop around my phone. PRIVACY is something. In case you don't know."

I scowled at Vincent. What exactly was his deal? I thought he went for therapy or something.

I was offended by his words and tone but I didn't bite back. He wasn't even giving off the bright vibes this morning. For peacesake. I just rolled my eyes in semi-anger and watched him scribble furiously on his note.

Just because I listened to a song?

He seemed to be brooding and he must have loved his mother so much and her death devastated him. Maybe I shouldn't judge him.

I recalled how he had confessed that he killed his mother that unfortunate day. I still couldn't understand why he would say something like that but then he was drunk. Drunk people say stupid things.

But guilt. That was definitely what was holding Vincent from moving on. His words that day proved it. That was why he was still grieving.

"If you stop feeling guilty and. . .blaming yourself for her death, you would not grieve for so long." I found myself saying.

Stupid. Stupid Nairobi.

What did I know about losing those I loved forever? Facing the harsh reality that they were never coming back? Waking up everyday and realising that they are no more?

Jeez, even Richard leaving to Abuja nearly got me mad. Imagine he died? A plane crash? I had to place my hand to my chest to at least calm my beating heart.

Even the thought of it was nearly giving me a heart attack.

I looked at Vincent who stared back with expressionless dark eyes.

It was definitely not easy getting over the death of a loved one. A mother who had definitely lived up to the definition of a mother.

Poor Vincent.

My heart actually broke for him. He was trying and I just decided to blurt something without thinking.

Insensitive much.

"Vincent sorry about my earlier statement. I. . .I surely don't know how it feels and I know you're trying your best–"

"Nairobi shut up." I shot my head up to look at Vincent who sat across from me just staring at me without any visible emotions.

I gaped like a water starved fish as I tried to say something. I eventually stopped trying.

"Truth is. I'm not trying." He shook his head. "I don't try to get over her death. I can't just forget her like that."

"You're not forgetting her," I butted in with a small voice that didn't sit well with me.

"Nairobi I killed her!" His outburst did more than startle me. It frightened me. He said he killed her and this time he wasn't drunk. I found myself pushing my back against the backrest of my chair. Did Vincent really kill his mother?

Vincent spewed streams of 'fuck' and 'shit' under his breath. "I don't deserve to just get over her. She paid for my spoilt, selfish, arrogant, childish, immature, bratty attitude with her life. Why did she have to die?! I deserved the death! I deserved to burn. I deserved to burn. . ."

Vincent was yelling like a maniac now. With the way he was yelling about death I was scared that he would jump on me and stab me with his pen that he held so tightly. If that pen was a living thing, it would have lost its breath long ago.

Then I perceived it.

Smoke?

I jumped out of my chair in alarm. What was burning? I was scared shitless. The idiot in front of me had been yelling about burning and dying and now I was perceiving a very faint smell of smoke?

What the hell!

Vincent had stopped ranting and was looking about frantically. I could see his nose twitching and I knew he was perceiving the smoke too.

Something must be burning in the kitchen.

I quickly ran to the kitchen. The room we used was the closest bedroom to the kitchen. Immediately I entered from one of the three entrances, Winner ran in like a mad woman jumping about in front of the literal bonfire in a pot. Luckily, it wasn't burning anything.

"Jesu. Jesu. Mo gbe. E bin pami. What do I do?" She kept repeating as she jumped about the kitchen. I just stood there watching the fire first in fascination, then in fear. I grabbed a big jug from a cabinet top and ran to the tap. I didn't hear Winner's warning yells on time and immediately the water touched the fire, it was like I added fuel to the fire. We both jumped back. Winner ran out of the kitchen yelling something about going to call Timini.

As my eyes lingered on Winner as she ran out, they met Vincent's. Winner had literally pushed him aside but he didn't retaliate. Vincent just stood at the entrance of the kitchen staring at the fire with wide eyes. I saw dread and fear in them.

I rushed over to him. "Where can we get sand around the house?!" I asked. I wanted to be useful at least. I was shaking Vincent but his gaze wouldn't leave the fire. I shook him more panic gripping me with each passing second. "Vincent! Vincent!" I looked from the burning pot to Vincent. And slapped him hard. Vincent didn't move. "Jesus!" I normally tried to control my use of religious names but hell I was extremely scared.

"Vincent what is wrong with you?! Stop staring at the fire like that na!" I stood on my toes and tried to use my hand to block his eyes. Vincent looked down to me like a programmed robot and that look of pure dread and terror were still in his eyes. I noticed his chest heaving heavily. His breaths were laboured.

"Is it asthma?!" I was so clueless and scared. I felt like I could cry. "Why are you breathing like that?!" Soon he was swaying. He staggered a bit and gripped my shoulder for balance. I watched in panic as his eyes started loosing focus.

"Winner!" I yelled on top my voice. Vincent was collapsing and there was a freaking bonfire in the kitchen and I couldn't do anything about either  of them. It left me utterly scared and I didn't know when I started scolding myself for being so weak and useless.

I tried to calm my breathing as I silently hoped that Vincent didn't just die on me. I didn't know how Timini and Winner put off the fire but they did not so long after Vincent collapsed on me.

I would say it again. For a lean boy, he had weight.

I felt Vincent's body being lifted off me. Winner gave me a side hug and kept telling me, 'I'm so sorry for the mess' and 'it's all good now babe', over and over again.

She led me to the sitting room and I sat opposite the couch Vincent was sleeping on. They had removed his top, leaving him shirtless. The AC was turned off and a standing fan was brought closer to him instead. Winner went back to the kitchen to clean up.

She came back a while later looking sad and defeated. "The fire burnt some napkins. The black stains are not even removing ." she chuckled bitterly. "I swear my mother will kill me when she sees that on Monday." She grabbed the TV remote and turned off the TV. "The stupid movie distracted me. Rubbish!" She hissed furiously.

She followed my gaze to Vincent's shirtless lying form. He looked peaceful. "That fire must have triggered something."

Burn. Die.

"About his mother?"

Winner nodded solemnly.

"Can I know how she died?"

"Well. An accident they said. Car was knocked out of the road. Vincent came out with little scratches. As they tried to get his mother out of the driver's seat, but the car caught fire."

My breath hitched in my throat. He must have watched his mother burn.

Oh my goodness.

"I'm scared of even cooking now. I'll have to microwave some leftovers," Winner said after a while. I followed Winner to the kitchen and we exchanged small talks as she microwaved the food. I looked over to where the black soot stain was and I just remembered the look in Vincent's eyes. It looked like he was witnessing his worst nightmare.

When we went back to the sitting room, Vincent was awake. He just sat on the couch, shirtless, looking into space. I just stood and watched him.

"Vince, Do you want to eat now?" Winner asked slowly. He gave a slight shake of his head before standing and heading to the room we used for lessons. I followed him

"Can we. . .stop for today?"

I swear I wondered how I was able to hear his voice. It was lower than a whisper.

"Sure."

Vincent proceeded to pack his books while I packed mine. I got scared when I started hearing his heavy breathing.

"Are you good?!"

Vincent looked up at me, dark brown eyes revealing sadness, then he nodded slowly. "Yes. Just taking deep breaths."

"I'm sorry you had to be reminded of that day." It was the ease with which the words rolled out for me.

I notices a sudden hardness, rage, in Vincent's eyes. "Stop saying sorry for things that aren't your fault." With that he walked away from me, out of the room.

Somehow I blamed myself for the nightmare he saw today. If I had just stuck to TikTok, we wouldn't have talked about anything related to his mother and he wouldn't have remembered anything about fire, burning and death. That fire would not have had that much effect on him, I knew it.

I couldn't and didn't even want to imagine what he saw in that fire. I promised myself there and then that I would do my best to help Vincent in his healing process.

I just hoped he would let me.