Numb (Revising)

Chapter 34

Ninola 'Deleke

It's been an hour since Arthur left my flat, I used to call it my 'House' but after seeing what houses look like and what apartments look like, now I go with 'flat' instead...

He'd stayed two hours here with his car parked outside the compound properly,

He waited for me while I bathed and when I returned to my room he was reading one of my dadee's handwritten books...

We talked a bit about its content which made me feel odd and shy, it also didn't help that I was actually naked underneath the towel because talking about dadee's book made me feel naked and raw in front of him

Infact, I think I've been feeling raw ever since I exposed myself in his car, he was the first person I'd told I was raped and now I'd spoken about it in graphic explicit detail, I'd recoiled so many memories I thought I'd lost.. Felt so many things that made me feel choked up, empty, hurt, dirty, destroyed.

Made me feel naked once more and my lower back felt like it had a tiny hole in it that was set on fire. It was like it was physically on fire..

So I tried to quench the fire by taking back dadee's book and replacing it with my towel in his hand, which meant I was now actually naked.

He'd stared at me with an open mouth and a clenched fist by his side.

I could see his internal battles through his eyes and I know he said he wasn't stigmatizing me.. But it felt like he was subconsciously... Viewing me as too broken and too fragile, like he couldn't touch me out of fear that he'd break me some more.

I hated seeing it all in his eyes.

It hurt.

But I decided to use the negative feelings and channel it into something positive..

Into me looking forward to my next therapy session. So I grabbed back my towel, my outfit and walked outside to dress.

The door slamming shut snapped me back out of my vivid reminiscing and I looked up to see Mami, angrily strut to me.

"Mummy Anita pikin, say she see you come down from man car and Mummy Anita say, she see the man enter my house self. And the man stay for close to two hours. Watin una dey do for my house Niniola?" She spoke so fast and pronounced her words so thickly too, like the rapper Erriga did on his songs and she had a Yoruba accent and he had a Warri accent, yet to me they just sounded the same. Her lips were scrunched up as she eyed me.

Mess up. I messed up.

Why did I forget I had noisy neighbors?

Mess up.

Can I salvage this?

"Mami welcome. You dey mind mummy Anita and 'im pikin? Na you tell me mummy Anita dey very irresponsible and Anita dey bring regular men come their flat, so na lie.. Mummy Anita just wan give you bad impression of me so she go say I don join her bad pikin"

Speak pigin with her...

It ought to calm her down a bit..