The cold February night Byron and his homeboys were shot was definitely the worst night of my life. Before I learned about the shooting, it had been the best day of my life because I’d received a full-ride scholarship to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. I’d found my way out of West Baltimore but my joy was cut short because the only boy I’d ever loved was shot five times and was fighting for his life. I remember going to the crime scene and seeing the black Ford Expedition riddled with so many bullet holes. There was blood everywhere and even though it had happened hours before and I wasn’t there when it happened, I could still hear his screams and his cries for help. My breath was taken away. My heart was taken away.
By that summer, he was still in a coma and I was depressed. I was barely eating anything and I only wore black. I never hung out with my friends and I only left my house to practice dance routines at the studio. All I could do was think about my Byron and pray that he’d make it through. For some reason, our last conversation would always pop up in my mind. It wasn’t an argument or anything like that. Our last conversation was about me having his back no matter what. His last words to me were, “Never let me go.” It was so random but I didn’t even think about it at the time he said it. I didn’t understand how important those words would be later.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go with me?” my mama asked me as she put in her earrings. “You know Lynn and Gayle won’t mind.”
“Ma, it’s a ladies’ night out,” I said. “Y’all go have fun.”
“Yes, I’m sure. You’ve been working all week and you need to have some fun for a change. I have some reading to catch up on.”
“Reading? You just graduated high school a couple of months ago and you’re reading?” She laughed and shook her head. “When I graduated high school, the last thing I wanted to do was read something that reminded me of classwork.” She noticed that I wasn’t laughing and came over to the sofa where I was sitting. “Sweetie, I know this year has been difficult but you have to keep your focus on your future. You’re going to New York in a few weeks to start a whole new life.” She softly stroked my hair and sat down beside me.
“How can I start a new life when Byron will still be here? What if he never wakes up, mama?”
“Kyle, I know you love that boy but what happened to him isn’t that much of a surprise.”
“No, you need to hear this. I have been walking around here on eggshells for months hoping that you’d move on but it’s gone on too long now. Byron was a thug. He’s in that stupid Lafayette Street Killas gang and he sold drugs. He couldn’t even be with you in public. I do not understand what you saw in him. I’ll never understand it.”
“You could never understand it because my connection with him is unexplainable, mama. It’s like he’s a part of me and I’m a part of him, and when we’re together there’s this overwhelming sense of unity. We’re complete opposites but we fit together so perfectly.”
“You’re going to have to let him go, Kyle. You cannot put your life on hold just so that you can hold onto some shred of hope that he’ll wake up out of that coma. What happened to him and his thug friends was unfortunate but he put himself in that situation.”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“See, every time I try to get through to you, you shut me down and then you shut yourself down. You can’t keep going on like this, sweetheart. You weren’t the one sitting in that car, he was. You’re not the one in the coma, he is. Count your blessings and move on.”
“Count my blessings? Mama, besides you, Byron was all I had. I shared things with him that you could never understand. He was more than just my boyfriend and my first love, he was mine. I truly believe he and I were put on this earth to be together. And the fact that I can’t be with him right now…it’s a pain that you could never know.” Tears filled my eyes and I buried my face in my hands.
“I’m sorry but all I want is for you to take advantage of the big opportunity that has been given to you. I want you to get out of this place and never look back. And when you make it big, send money for my cute ass to get out of here.” She laughed and I couldn’t help but look at her and crack a smile. “There’s that smile I miss.” She hugged me. “I don’t care how old you get, you’re always gonna be my lil’ itty bitty. I love you, baby.”
After assuring her that I’d be fine, she headed out to have fun with her friends. Instead of reading the novel I’d planned on reading that night, I decided to just curl up on the sofa and scroll through my phone and look at all of the pics of me and Byron that I had stored on it and on my micro SD card. Some of the pics on my micro SD were from my old digital camera, back when he and I first started talking and I was still a virgin. We spent most of our time in my bedroom talking and cuddling, so most of the pics were in that setting.
I met Byron Patterson on the first day of ninth grade at Frederick Douglass High School. It was after school and I was walking home when a group of boys started picking on me and threatened to beat me up. They chased me down an alley and just as they were about to jump me, Byron and his homeboys came out of nowhere and fought the guys who were messing with me. They whooped their asses and I took off running. I didn’t even realize I’d dropped my backpack in the alley until Byron showed up at my door with it. My wallet was inside and so was my ID, which was how he found me. He told me he saw the group of guys chasing me and that he rounded up his boys to save me. When I asked him why he did that, he just smiled and then handed me his number.
I learned that day that Byron and his friends back then lived by a specific code. They never harmed children or older people, and they always stood up for people who were outnumbered in a situation—such as the one I’d been in. Byron was my first everything. He treated me like royalty and I was so in love with him. Even when we I did something to make him mad, he’d easily forgive me and then kiss me.
“I can’t stay mad at you,” he’d say with that cute smile of his. “How can I stay mad at my boo?”
I swear whenever he called me his boo, I melted inside. Things changed when he dropped out of school near the end of our tenth grade year. He joined the Lafayette Street Killas and began selling drugs. I wanted him to leave that gang but he said he couldn’t because his brother was a member and when he died, the gang approached him to join. He told them no at first but they threatened to kill him if he didn’t join. So he joined and I hated it, but I wasn’t going to give up on him or our relationship. I stayed with him and we made sure we were careful. The only people who knew about our relationship were my best friend Erika and my mama.
So there I was curled up on the sofa looking at old pics of me and Byron, when all of a sudden I heard footsteps running upstairs. Startled, I jumped up and hurried over to the staircase. I looked up but didn’t see anyone. The lights were off upstairs so I slowly walked up the stairs. When I got up there, I turned on the hall light to see my bedroom door had been closed. I distinctly remembered leaving it open.
“Hello?” I called out as I approached my door. “Is anybody in here?” I opened the door and screamed when I saw Byron lying on my bed shirtless. I grabbed my chest because my heart was pounding.
“Oh, I ain’t mean to scare you,” he said with that smile on his face. “You a’ight?”
“What are you doing here? How are you here right now?” I pinched myself. “Have I lost my mind?”
“Kyle, you didn’t lose your mind. Boo, I’m here.”
He sat up and climbed off my bed and told me, “I’m here.” He grabbed my hand and that’s when tears filled my eyes. “I need you.”
“No, I really need you. Boo, you gotta pay close attention because there ain’t much time left.” He stared into my eyes. “You have to stop them.”
“The people in my hospital room right now. They’re gonna kill me, Kyle.”
“If you don’t stop them they’ll kill me. It’s not my time. You’re my only hope, baby.”
“But I don’t understand. How can…”
“Never let me go, Kyle.” He wrapped his arms around me. “Never let me go.”
Before I could say anything else to him, I woke up on the sofa. It was a dream. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa while looking at the pics of me and him. My heart was still pounding in my chest and I had the strangest feeling in my gut. I put my hands up to my face and that’s when I realized his scent was all over me. He always smelled of Axe body wash, cocoa butter and a hint of Black & Mild because he smoked those all the time. That scent was on me as if he’d just been holding me. And I kept hearing his voice over and over in my head saying, “Never let me go.”
I didn’t even put on presentable clothes, I just slid on a pair of shoes, grabbed my keys and phone, and dashed out of my house. I figured I’d get to the hospital faster if I ran, so I ran past the bus stop instead of waiting on the next bus. The urgency in Byron’s voice was driving me by that point. I knew it was only a dream but I had to be sure. I had to know if he was really in danger and if I could save him the way that he’d saved me years ago.
When I got to the hospital he’d been in since February, I took the elevator up to the tenth floor where his room was. I got to the door and paused for a few seconds to catch my breath. I then opened the door and stepped inside to see some of his family and friends gathered around his bed. Sitting next to him was a doctor, who looked like he was trying to remove something.
“Stop!” I called out, causing everyone to turn their attention to me.
“Who the hell is this faggot?” asked one of Byron’s homeboys.
“I think you’re in the wrong room, honey,” said Byron’s mama. I knew who she was because he’d shown my pictures of her before.
“No, I’m not in the wrong room. I know Byron from…school. I used to tutor him before he dropped out and…”
“Get the fuck outta here!” another gang member shouted.
“Nah hold up,” said Dequan, one of Byron’s old friends. “Your name is Kyle, right?”
“Yeah. Do you remember me? Remember the guys tried to jump me after school and y’all helped me?”
“I remember. What you doin’ here?”
“I know this sounds crazy but…it’s not his time.”
“It’s time for you to leave,” said one of Byron’s family members.
“No, please,” I pleaded. “My grandma used to always say God speaks to us in many different ways, and all we have to do is listen. God spoke to me tonight and he told me that it isn’t Byron’s time. I don’t know when he’ll wake up or if he’ll be alright after waking up, but he is going to wake up.”
“This is fucked up,” said Byron’s homeboy. “I know y’all not gonna let some faggot ass bitch come up in here and play games!” He reached to the back of his pants and said, “I should smoke this bitch right here.”
“I wanna see you try,” I snapped at him. “I am so sick of you and your poison. It’s your fault this happened to him in the first place! He didn’t deserve this! He’s not bad like you and your fake ass thug wannabe homeboys. Fuck you and fuck the Lafayette Street Killas!”
Everyone lost their cool by that point. We were all shouting at each other and getting in each other’s faces. All of a sudden, I noticed the doctor leaning over Byron. The machines were beeping faster and louder. The doctor raised his hand and our yelling died down gradually. We all turned our attention to the doctor. The moment I heard Byron wheezing, tears filled my eyes.
“He’s coming out of his comatose state,” said the doctor.
“Oh thank the Lord,” called out Byron’s mama.
The doctor looked at me and informed me, “Had you not walked in that door at the exact time you did, this patient would be dead. I was moments away from disconnecting the machines keeping him alive.”
It only took about twenty minutes for Byron to wake up and get through some excessive coughing. The doctor made us all step out into the hall while he and some nurses checked Byron’s vital signs and other functions. While his fellow gang members still looked like they wanted to kill me, his family were thankful.
“I don’t know who you are,” said his mama with tears in her eyes, “but you saved my baby’s life. That’s my only child in there and I’d given up on the hope of him ever waking up.”
“It wasn’t me,” I told her. “It was Byron.”
The doctor stepped out of the room and told us, “In my twenty years of dealing with comatose patients, I’ve never witnessed this. He’s going to make a full recovery. He’ll need to stay in the hospital for monitoring for two weeks but after that, he’ll be able to return home.”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Radcliff,” said Byron’s mama.
“Oh, he wants to see Kyle,” the doctor told us. “He specifically requested to talk to Kyle in private.”
They all looked at me and I assured them, “He probably heard me when I entered the room. I’ll tell him you’re all out here waiting to see him.” I stepped into the room and closed the door. There were still some nurses in there moving things around, so I was expecting him to be coded with me in front of them.
He smiled and coughed a little before saying, “Damn, look at you. You look just like you did the last time I saw you.”
“You remember?” I asked him as tears rolled down my face.
“I remember everything. Come here, boo.” I sat down beside him and he placed his hand over mine. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you have nothing to apologize for.”
“Yes I do. I fucked up. Fuckin’ around with that stupid gang shit…” He shook his head. “I can’t even think about what you been goin’ through.”
“Byron, you’re here and you’re going to be fine. That’s all that matters.”
“No, I’m supposed to protect you. How can I do that if I’m not here?” He touched my face. “I love you, baby.”
I looked around and laughed nervously before telling him, “Byron, we’re not alone.”
“I don’t care. I’ve been in this hospital a long ass time, ain’t I?”
“Yeah, it’s been about six months.”
“Six months without seein’ you and touchin’ you.” He leaned forward and kissed my lips. “I promise you I’ll never leave you alone again. On my life, baby.” He wiped my tears.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to New York in a few weeks.”
“Oh yeah, the dance scholarship. You found out about that the day I got…” He stopped and shook his head. “You were gonna stay here because of me? Nah, I wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“You know your moms woulda kicked your ass if you tried to stay here instead of goin’.” We shared a good laugh.
He paused and had this look on his face as if he was remembering something. “Yo, I had this crazy dream. I probably had a lot of them but I can only remember this one.”
“I was in bed with you in your room and we were about to go to sleep. Of course we were naked.” He laughed and I smiled at him. “So we was in bed and I told you I had to be somewhere at ten, and that I needed you to wake me up at nine-forty-five.” He looked into my eyes for a second and then turned and looked up at the big clock on the wall. “Boo, when I woke up in this hospital tonight the first thing I did was look up at that clock. It was nine-forty-five on the dot. You woke me up just like you said you would.”
It was in that moment that I realized we really were one entity at times. It wasn’t just some coincidence that we both had surreal dreams and that he woke up from the coma following those surreal dreams. We were meant to be together and there really was no denying it. I was more than just happy that he was going to be alright, I was overjoyed. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure it was really happening.
So after talking and kissing for the longest, he finally explained to me what happened the night he and his homeboys were shot. He told me they were parked outside of a fish market waiting on their food when a white van pulled up and just started shooting. He remembered getting hit once in the shoulder but passed out after that. He had no idea who shot them and when I told him he was the only one in the SUV to survive the shooting, it really sunk in how lucky he was.
Before I left to let him spend time with his family and friends, he told me to do something very important. He’d stashed a duffle bag full of money under the floorboards of a trap house him and his homeboys did work at. He told me I was the only person he could trust with it, and gave me instructions on how to get into the house without being seen.
“You gotta enter from the broken kitchen window in the back,” he told me. “That window is our escape outta the house in case some shit goes down. Sneak in through that window and go into the pantry on the right. The money is under the floorboards in that pantry. It’s gotta be like fifty thousand in that bag, maybe more.”
“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked him.
“Take it with you to New York. Put it in an account or somethin’. That’s our money, boo.”
“I damn sure ain’t stayin’ here. Once I get released from here and I can get around by myself, I’m outta Baltimore. I’ll come up there with you.”
“I don’t wanna leave you, Byron.”
“It won’t be for long, boo. I promise.” He gently placed his forehead to mine. “You have my word. I love you.”
After leaving the hospital, I did just as he’d said. Luckily, no one was at the trap house. I was able to get the money and take it back to my house. I took it up to my room and hid it in my closet just before my mama came home. I told her Byron woke up and while she still wasn’t ready to accept my relationship with him, she was happy to see me happy. I didn’t tell her about the money and the plan I’d made with Byron, but I did tell her that I looked forward to going to New York.
Three weeks later, I enrolled at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. I’d been talking on the phone with Byron daily and I’d put the money in an account with both our names on it. One day after my classes, I had to return to my studio apartment to get something I’d left behind. I had the strangest feeling in my gut the moment I got to my building. I entered the lobby and dropped all my stuff the moment I saw him sitting there waiting on me. I couldn’t believe it. I had everything I could’ve ever wanted, and he was everything I wanted. And I was never going to let go.
[Disclaimer]: Pictures used do not reflect the sexuality or personality of people in the pictures. They only serve as visual examples of the characters.
