LOVING Aman | ✓

7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dedicated to BilkisQazeem

KADUNA, NIGERIA.
21st September, 2016.
4:00am

PTSD—Post traumatic stress disorder. That is my self diagnosis since Dr Ahmad wouldn't tell and I couldn't stand not knowing; something about knowing won't do me any good crap, not that it stopped me anyway. I had done it with the aid of the internet and some psychological textbooks I had stumbled upon in my mother's library and was able to come to a single conclusion;

PTSD. I am absolutely positive.

Why?

Having PTSD in layman's language basically means having survived;
1. A traumatic experience; which leads to,
2. Inadequately equipped to deal with stress; and to my knowledge, I fit both criteria quite perfectly.

I don't like talking about it but I almost died in a car accident after a huge argument with my dad when I was fifteen. I can't remember much about that day or the argument but I know it was night and it had rained quite heavily just like it had when I met Aman. It was the same feelings all over again; the nagging emptiness, the echoing silence, the caustic anxiety. . .but it was the after I feared the most. The dreadful after. . .

. . .That niggling feeling of doom; a feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong.

It is the after I feared when I had awoken to an empty room. It is the after that had made me check my bathroom, closet, sitting room, even kitchen- everywhere after swallowing two white tablets to keep the demon at bay. It is the after that had made me go into the woods at that hour, not far, just enough to see if I could catch a glimpse of him with my flashlight, and it was the after that made me break into a run on my way back and went straight to check on my mother.

I brought home a stranger with a gunshot wound and he escaped into the dead of the night after killing my mother? That sounds incredibly filled with pretense.

There was no excuse, I realized as I stood in front of her door drowning in breathlessness and hesitation.

One. . .two. . .

I opened the door.

And there she was, praying, just as I had prayed she would be.

Crumpling to the floor as my legs buckled suddenly, I let go of a sigh of relief not wanting to even imagine what I would have done if something had happened to her.

You would have died without her.

"Reima?" She called tentatively. I forgot that I was a shadow in her doorway

"Good morning, ma," I greeted softly as I made my way to her. I laid on her legs as soon as I was close desperately wanting to bask in her strength and warmth.

"I saw your light in the woods, what's wrong?" She asked whilst patting me softly on my back.

"I went to search for the gunshot victim. He wasn't in my room when I woke up," I explained softly trying to keep my disappointment and fears away.

"He left?" It was more of a statement than a question and I found that odd, I was expecting a different reaction.

"Yes, ma. I couldn't find him." I snuggled even closer, burying my face completely on her legs inhaling her motherly fragrance which often smells of musk and love.