Seven. You read right. It’s a long time to have been dating and not even get engaged. I was thinking about it. I always thought about it.

But I was scared.

What if it was too late? What if I had taken too long to propose and she was comfortable where we were and did not want to get married? What if, what if…

Story of my life. What a stupid guy I was to have taken finding love as such a trivial matter. I could have just bought a ring and went for it. I should have sucked it up and bought the damn thing.

But R8 000 though. What ring would I get with that? A bronze one, maybe. Gosh, she’d hate me for that. She’d have another reason to break up with this screw-up.

Promise a girl everything and end up leaving her with nothing.

If I proposed at that moment, it would feel like I was not really genuine. That I was only regretting what I never did. Which wasn’t too far from the truth.

I still hadn’t told her. She still doesn’t know that her boyfriend for seven years is going to die. Am I bad for trying to spare her the pain of knowing that I am going to die? I do not want her to hurt because of something as trivial as me dying. She can get another worthy boyfriend. One that saves. One that remembers anniversaries.

One that was not about to die in a few months…