A burning Rose

Episode Two: A Stranger, Again

I spent most of the morning roaming the hospital like a ghost with a VIP pass.

I knew every peeling wall and quiet corridor now—where the good light poured through the window, where the nurses snuck their chai, and the exact spot in the garden where the scent of hibiscus hit strongest.. I’ve even started recognizing the shift changes: the grumpy night nurse with a mole above her lip that looks like it has its own attitude, and the chatty cleaner who swears her husband is a politician even though she takes two matatus to work. I'd become something of a fixture in this place. Not a patient. Not staff. Just… existing.

It had been almost two weeks.

Two weeks since Mr. Ferdinand, as the nurses called him, disappeared. No goodbye. No text. Not that I had a phone, but still, it felt rude.

Mama Deka and Achie stayed close, my unexpected emotional support team. They bought me soap that doesn’t smell like old regret, clothes that actually fit. They helped me bathe, braided my hair with gentle fingers, and even helped me pick out the soft gray sneakers I now lived in. All courtesy of Mr. Vanishing Act himself. Mama Deka said he sent money.

“Good man,” she had mumbled, squinting like she didn’t quite believe her own words.

If he was so good, why did he leave?

I tried not to care. Tried.

But at night, I’d lie in bed wondering. Not about the accident—I still didn’t remember a thing about that—but about who I had been before this mess. Lately, I've had flashes of a dark room with a huge bubbling pot. Maybe I cooked for a living? Maybe I owned a small food joint somewhere, yelling orders and pocketing change. That image wouldn’t leave me.

I hoped I was good at it. Whatever "it" was.

“Asante,” I murmured, nodding at a passing janitor. He smiled.

At least I was learning Swahili and reading. The reading sensation, being neck deep in another's story, help me find pieces of myself, one phrase at a time. I’d even picked up a novel—some dusty old paperback about an angry detective who drank too much and trusted no one. Same, buddy.

My thoughts wandered until my feet did too, carrying me toward the front of the hospital. I didn’t even realize where I was going until I saw him.

Feddie.

I froze.

There he was, striding toward the hospital like it owed him money. Like a deleted scene the universe accidentally pasted back into the script. His shirt was tucked in this time, a certain sharpness in his jaw I didn’t remember from before.

Why was he back?

He doesn’t look around, doesn’t hesitate. He’s walking straight—intentionally—like a man who’s made up his mind.

My heart jumps so fast, I almost yell “Code Blue!” at myself.

What is he doing here?

I thought he ghosted me. Did he change his mind? Is this a dream? If so, I’d like to request he be shirtless.

I instinctively tried to duck, eyes scanning for the nearest escape room. A supply closet? A bedpan storage? Maybe I could slip into that old man’s ward, the one who swears he was a Mau Mau soldier and yells in his sleep?

Just as I’m calculating my escape route, he stops.

Phone.

He pulls it out, stares at it for a second, then answers.

His face changes. The way faces do when the real world comes knocking again.

He listens. Says nothing. Nods once.

And turns around.

He walks away.

Just like that.

No hesitation. No searching for me.

Gone.

I blinked.

Feddie’s POV

The phone call had come at dawn two weeks ago, piercing the fog of guilt I’d wrapped around myself like a blanket.

Just when I’d finally decided to be a decent man and fix what I broke, he calls.

I hadn’t spoken to my brother in three years.

“Fede, it’s Papa. He collapsed. It’s not good.”

And suddenly, I was on the next flight to Mexico. No goodbye, no explanation. Just guilt, grief, and a suitcase packed with more regret than clothes.

Papa was the kind of man who demanded respect with silence. Never needed to raise his voice. He raised eyebrows instead—deadly things. The heart attack didn’t kill him. The second one almost did.

Two weeks became an endless loop of visiting hospitals, negotiating with lawyers, and trying to convince my father I was still capable of protecting our family name. I had no time for anything—or anyone—else.

While the doctors poked at his heart, I kept poking at mine.

What the hell was I doing in Nairobi?

Was I really planning to run?

She wasn’t my responsibility. I didn’t even know her. A stranger I hit with my car on a night I was supposed to be dealing with betrayal, not cleaning blood off my windshield.

And yet, I sent money. Told the nurses to buy her clothes, whatever she needed. Even called a lawyer, just in case.

But I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her.

Why?

Because something about her scared me. Not in the way danger scares you. In the way truth scares you.

She looked at me that day in the ward with eyes that had questions I didn’t want to answer.

So I fled.

Mexico forced me to sit still. To remember what family meant. To see what being absent really costs.

Deigo was still very mad at me for moving to Africa."You always disappear when I need you," Diego hissed. “Now you want to play Big Brother?”

I didn’t answer. There wasn’t a script for this kind of reunion.

Papa survived, but the silence between us stayed. He never asked about my life. Just gripped my hand before I left and said, “Finish what you started.”

I knew what he meant.

But even in that chaos, my thoughts drifted back to Nairobi.

To her.

The girl with the bruised face and nameless soul. The girl I didn’t want to be responsible for. But also—the one I couldn't stop picturing in that hospital bed, lost and alone.

So I came back.

The moment I stepped onto Nairobi soil again, I went straight to the hospital. I didn’t even drop my luggage. My chest pounded—not from nerves, but from purpose. I needed to see her. Apologize, maybe. Explain, definitely.

So here I am. Back in Nairobi. Back at the hospital.

And God help me—I hope she’s still here.

But halfway there, my phone rang.

Another investor.

Another fire to put out.

I took the call. I listened. I turned around.

Just for a moment.

Fiyin POV

I watched him leave, not knowing if he’d seen me.

Not knowing if he even cared.

And for reasons I didn’t understand, that hurt more than I was ready to admit.