Till It Happens to You

Chapter 6

 After the ordeal, Chioma had started to act funny unaware. Not only is she always afraid to be by herself that also she can't stand the touch of men even when it's casual. Once, she overreacted when a man touched her to get her attention that her mother was calling for her on a public bus. The man was embarrassed and so was Chioma's mother but her mother never talked about it. She also avoided sitting in the front passenger's seat of any car because it brought back memories and she could not remember the last time she really looked into a mirror.

All these time she thought she was fine, she believed everything was fine. But now sitting in front of her house crying profusely, she realised it was stupid to think everything was fine because she was going through the post-trauma stages all wrong. The first stage of adjustments for victims is the shock of the trauma; here they have feelings of fear, hurt and guilt. The second stage was denial, they make attempts to forget the whole thing, discuss very little of the incident and denied any feelings. The third stage was integration; where they start to act like it never happened. Chioma started with stage 3 after the ordeal, moved over to stage 2 and now she was presently in stage 1... She was in shock. The good news was, medically she was going through those stages correctly which was a positive sign of healing.

But as Chioma lay on the floor outside her house, her mother is inside cleaning the living room and soon enough, the woman hears weeping coming from outside the house.

At first, Chioma's mother wanted to ignore the sounds thinking it was her neighbour's children and she didn't know her neighbours well enough to meddle in their affairs especially with their children. Her neighbours where noisy, asking a lot of questions most times when she sees them and she hated answering and tried to avoid them ..."where is your husband?" "What school do your children go to?" "What do you do for a living?" She will roll her eyes and underneath her breath, she will tell them "Mind your business kwanu." Chioma's mother did not like them but the more she ignored the cry, the louder it got. After a while, the woman could not stand it anymore so she drops all she is doing and steps out to find her firstborn whom she thought was in a friend's house right at her door post crying and calling for her father, she was shocked.

This was the first time Chioma's mother was seeing her daughter this way. Her instincts as a mother kicked in and she knew her daughter needed her care more than ever. Chioma's mother opened the front door quietly and held on to her daughter. The girl first reacted frightened, pushing back but when she saw it was her mother, she embraced her mother and wept on her chest telling her everything. To Chioma's greatest surprise, her mother was calm the whole time and she just rocked her daughter back and forth. Holding her tight and telling her everything was going to be okay.

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Everything wasn't okay after that day. Chioma refused to eat well, didn't leave her room often and refused to talk to anyone. She was waiting for the day Kunle's flight will leave the country. She kept telling herself that she needed the solitude; it will help her go on with life when Kunle leaves Nigeria.

On the other hand, Kunle made it very difficult for her because he didn't stop calling. He couldn't go to her house because Chioma's parents appeared difficult and Chioma did not go to Church since the day she left his house. This made Kunle worried and not picking his calls made him scared, wondering if she was okay.

Kunle asked his mother questions every time she comes back from Church on Chioma and her whereabouts. Wanting to find out if Chioma's mother had raised any concern on her daughter to her friends but knowing Chioma's mother so well, he concluded that she will never give anyone the impression things were not fine at home. Instead, Chioma's mother will put up an act and pretend that things were great. He was right because; his mother's response is the same every time he asks. "Chioma is fine, she is just preparing for exams". His mother will say.