He was everything I ever dreamed of, but I should have known because that was always how the Devil appeared. Sweet. Charming. Eyes that peered deep into your soul, undressing every wound you managed to bandage.

The first time I talked to him was on a Saturday, a bad one. I had hit a cab from behind and had to use my last cash—one I was saving to enroll in a Cyber security course—to pay for the damage. We had been texting regularly since we met on Twitter, but that day I told him I could not.

Five minutes later, he called. Surprising me because he did not have my number. “Omosefe, hi.” His voice was soft and calm too. Those should have been the first signs. I should have known that nothing was as it seemed. He said the right words, made me laugh and made me fall in love for the next few weeks.

We met physically once. It was at his apartment, a typical comfortable bachelors house. One room apartment with a kitchen sharing the living room. He did not cook though, instead I ordered takeaway for one. His phone was dead. That should have been another sign.

He once told me he loved surprises, and I kept that with me. A week later, I decided to visit him at home. I didn't text. I didn't call, not like I could. His phone was still dead. Perhaps I should have tried to, maybe then the signs would not make me wonder how I missed them.

Outside the apartment I saw a sign post that said ‘for sell’. Ignoring the bad grammar, I approached a woman outside the door and asked her why it was put out when someone lived there.

“No one lives here,” she rolled her eyes angrily while muttering something in a language I could not understand. I insisted and she asked for a name but I gave a description.

“Seyi, a dark tall man with scanty beards.” I could have added the eyes, or his voice, or the way his hands felt.

The woman paused and looked at me with strangeness in her eyes. “Seyi?” A yes from me did not satisfy her. So I nodded.

“My brother?” I did not know that. But I started to see the resemblance. A compliment hid behind my tongue when she spoke again. “Seyi died two months ago...”

Her words faded while still ringing in my ears. She could not be sure. She was. But I was with him last week. Was I sure? Right here.

“Seyi had a seizure and passed,” she said to me. Apparently he had been sick for months, his comfort was talking about a girl on Twitter he dreamt of meeting. On the day he died he had sent eighteen words he bragged to his family about.

Hi, I lost the key to my heart and you are the only one that has the spare. The words I responded to. The words I called corny yet chuckled at.

But he responded. I opened my phone in haste and slid to my Twitter messages. Tapped his name and I saw empty blankness save for his first message and my first message. Both two months ago. It wasn't real, but my memories were. He was gone before I could meet him. But I met him.

What was the point of life? Maybe I could join him.

I imagined myself falling from a height that ended in a river of my blood and broken bones, and lying within the casket that was my flesh, a soul; long dying now finally dead.

“He left this for you. Somehow he knew he'd meet you.” His sister handed me a book, a simple black notebook with his name designed onto it. I traced it with my finger before flipping open.

Things I will do with Omosefe. The writing was pretty. One, eat with her.

Tears filled my eyes.