Bound ✅

Therapy

Please comment oo. Abeg 😩😩😩

"Halimatu Sadiyya Aliyu. What a surprise."

Halima sighed and played with her fingers. Her emotions were all over the place. She had been restless since the announcement of her engagement to Jamal. She played with the pink princess cut diamond that served as her engagement ring.

"Hello." She timidly said to the dark skinned shapely woman who had served as her therapist in the darkest moments of her life.

"How are you?" Halima watched her walk the one eighty degree movement that would seat her in front of Halima.

"I'm fine?" The lady frowned. Then she tilted her head in question. The question was what kept Halima awake for days.

"Will I ever be truly happy?" Her therapist shifted to makw herself more comfortable. Halima had come with a million dollar question.

"What do you think? Why do you ask?" Halima sighed and looked out of the window to see the the psychiatrist hospital two blocks away. She tried to answer her therapist, she looked for words to explain how she felt. She found none.

After the incident when she came to see Dr Ngozi for the first time, she had prayed that she be put in the psychiatrist hospital to escape the pain she was going through at the time. It took hard work from the therapist, her mother and the doctors at the hospital for her to get better and she acknowledged their help, she thanked them everyday.

"I am getting married." Ngozi smiled fondly at Halima. She had seen pictures of Summayah and Halima a few days back with Jamal Abubakar's kids. She knew.

"I know." Halima swallowed noisily but she didn't speak.

"Why do you think you'd never be happy? Some would count being with JA as being happy." Ngozi said firmly. Halima smiled, remembering Jamal.

"Im scared. I'm worried. I'm overwhelmed. It still rankles that a victim of gang-rape could still do greater things." Ngozi clasped her hands at Halima's words.

"I want you to list your greater things." Halima laughed and brought out her left hand from the folds of the dress she was wearing.

"I'm a survivor, I can discuss with men without fainting or going into a shock, I opened a business, I found strength in the marriage i was in, I didn't kill myself inspite of the many times I thought of it.  I find food no longer something i have to beg for, I can walk the streets without feeling faint due to the clash of scents. So, Alhamdulillahi." Ngozi sighed and leaned forward.

"So, why are you worried?" She asked Halima.

"My worries are many, I worry for myself, that i might not be able to love Jamal the way I should. I worry, that I'd not be able to sufficiently raise his kids and ours, I worry that when he finds out he'll be a different man. I worry that life may hit me harder than I thought." Ngozi nodded at Halima. She was finally seeing the scheme of things.

"Have you made up you mind to tell him?" Halima goggled at Ngozi's question. Tell Jamal?

"How can I tell him such an ugly thing, imagine putting myself through the pain of talking about it again. I don't see myself doing it." They sighed almost at the same time.

"By the way, the reason I came was, i found out Salisu's mother has been telling all those who wish to hear that I sold myself to three men. And yeah, she told people I was raped, it didn't stop the judgemental stares or whispers. Ever since she found out about the engagement." Ngozi picked out a Kleenex box from her drawer and handed it to Halima. Tears had silently ran down her supple cheeks and they had turned red from her inner grief.