ALMOST UNFIXABLE.

032 - Shutter Speed and Small Talks.

Tola has been treating me like an egg ever since I woke up from unconsciousness. Always all up in my face so that I won't hurt myself. But the truth is, I can't hurt myself more than Kingsley Okojie has hurt me.

"I'm fine, Tola," I answered him, but he rose his eyebrows skeptically. I sighed again. "It's not like I slipped and broke my leg or anything," I added, punctuating with a shrug.

"What if you had?" He questioned back, shutting the still opened door of the bathroom before coming to stand in front of me. "Do you know how many people die or get injured in a year because they slipped in the bathroom?" He asked, quirking his eyebrows inquisitively and I shrugged.

I don't know.

"Over two hundred thousand people, Jidenna." He answered his question. I let out a puff of breath from my lips.

"Thank you, Tola but I'm fine," I told him, then continued. "And I need to wear something before you clean my back up, so if you'd excuse me..." I trailed off suggestively, but he didn't move a muscle, only staring back at me.

"Except you want to see me completely naked which would be extremely weird," I added. He rolled his eyes back at me, muttered some incoherent words but made his way out of my room, shutting the door behind him.

I couldn't help my lips tugging slightly in a small smile.

No doubt, Tola cared about me. On the outside, he might be this huge and muscular bodyguard who never smiles, but I knew him. I've seen the way he always is anything I'm subjected to Kingsley Okojie's affliction and torture, even though there's nothing he can do about it. Just like I said, he was like a big brother to me.

But there was so much his care could do. My subconscious reminded me, making the smile disappear from my lips.

His care couldn't fill the void.

I've tried to fill the void in the past. Being friends with Hilary, Kizito, Dawn, and Semeeha helped a bit but not totally. In all honesty, being best friends with TK hasn't helped much either. So truth be told, Tola cannot fill the void, no matter how much he tries.

And lately, I've been feeling the void getting larger and deeper.

Lately, I've been feeling so alone.

I exhaled, putting on a pair of joggers just as a knock came to the door of my room. I knew it was Tola, probably trying to check if I was done.

"You can come in now," I answered and he did, walking in with a steel tray that contained everything he'd need to clean up my back. He didn't have to say anything before I got on my bed and laid face down, my back exposed. He sat on the bed as well, dropping the steel tray on a stool.

This has been a routine since I woke back to consciousness. Tola coming to dress my battered back every morning and evening. My entire back was so unrecognizable, filled with thousands and thousands of slashes as if it was a knife that cut through my skin. I even stopped looking at the mirror to check it. That's how hideous it looked

And then, there was the pain.

The undiluted and raw agony I haven't stopped feeling. There's nothing else you can feel, but pain, when there are slashes like this on every part of your back, all the way up to your neck and down to your lower waist.

Just pain.

The kind of pain that no amount of painkillers cannot relieve.

"Do you want to bite down on something?" Tola asked me, his voice cutting through my thoughts. I looked at him over my shoulder. "For the pain," He added as an afterthought.