LOVING Aman | ✓

1

CHAPTER ONE

Kaduna, Nigeria
August 7th, 2016
01:27am

It's rainy season again.

I frown at the gigantic tears falling from the heartbroken sky and it's grumbling companions; lightning and thunder, as they hit, shriek and drown the world like the steamy pages of a romance novel.

Not again.

It can't be happening again.

My eyes pool with tears; a hot string of thread birthed from the deepest depth of the remains of the caged wreckage dwelling on my chest, as I stood there; in front of the window in my room, watching and dying, as the world swallows, quite heartily, the bleeding sky accompanied by the wind's telltales, resonating like it was playing to a certain note—no doubt serenading the stormy sky with its gracious tunes.

And yet here it was, again, the rains, and like always the feelings of doom drums vividly in my ears.

It's rainy season

Shuddering, I hugged my high collar white colour cotton long sleeve nightgown a bit tighter, biting down, thickly, on my lips as I try to keep my emotions in check; not that it was working nor has it ever worked but still it was better than nothing. Anything is better than nothing—especially on days like today.

Days like this has always reduced me to a shuddering mess.There was no denying. There is something sinister about the disgorging skies which has nothing to do superstitions or clairvoyance. I can't deny the feelings of an impending danger clawing out of the sheets of anguished downpour, experience has taught me not to.

What am I losing now? I wonder helplessly, Do I have anything more to lose even? I have already lost a lot; my grandpa, and my dad, and Irrfan. What more does fate wants from me? It couldn't be cruel enough to take—

Mother?

Shaking my head vehemently, I shove down the evilness creeping its way into my consciousness, washing it away with a silent prayer of protection for my mother and myself. My mother has suffered enough. Her and me both.

Sighing dejectedly, I walked back to my desk and pulled the chair softly against the rug that carpeted my large room, sitting, and staring forlornly at the white sheet of paper sprawled in front of me.

My room is painted lemon green and orange and curtained in the same shade of green and some white. It is bare of any furniture save my reading desk, which is close to the floor-to-ceiling window and a master - size bed. There are no hangings, drawings or pictures either. There is no mirror either. Not in the bedroom. There is one though in the walk - in closet next to my bathroom. And as my eyes lingered on the white sheet of paper in front of me with the pen lying beside it, I couldn't help but think them more intimidating than the premonition of doom abode the bouts of lightning and the raucous thunder gracing my ears from the weather outside.

I fear they held no candle to my present predicament nor the wounds cutting me deep-nothing can.

My scars are seared too deeply.

'Poisonous and deadly, especially to herself. ' my therapist, Dr Ahmad Williams, had told my mother yesterday when he came over for dinner and she had asked about our sessions after I left for the kitchens to do the dishes.

They had been engrossed in their discussion about which part of me needed more fixing and failed to notice the dark figure looming the entrance to the living room where they were both sitting, comfortably, and sipping the hot tea I had served merely seconds ago.