𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄

Sitting up from the white bed, he walked out to the bathroom and waited to be handed a toothbrush. He brushed his teeth, showered and got changed before going out to eat.

Glancing around, he saw many people that he felt like he didn't belong with. He'd been here for 5 months now with no hope of getting outside. His life was a constant repeat of waking up, eating and talking to Dr Hill.

He was slowly going crazy. Weirdly enough, his only escape was talking to her.

He didn't have any weed so he struggled to sleep at night. Every night, he'd see nightmares of all the people he'd killed in his past. All the niggas he's shot, all the things he'd done and it ate him up. Every act he'd committed ate him up and slowly, slowly he was losing himself.

Living in the projects was hard, all his brothers were in a gang and he didn't have any other choice but to join. Without a gang, he'd have been killed a long time ago because of the lack of protection. And in this world, he had to kill those men or they'd have killed him.

Kill or get killed. That was the code and he followed it.

Grabbing the tray full of food, he placed it down before trying to eat it. Cameron hadn't made any friends and he wasn't interested in socialising. All he wanted was to leave.

Memories of Koop, Tyquan and Wooski filled his mind, he couldn't breathe without thinking of them. He hadn't really gotten closure with any of his brothers because he'd shove the pain away and move on. That was how it was done in the streets. Nobody had time to cry.

Everything was so much harder now that he was sober. Cameron actually had to live with the pain with nothing to numb it. It felt suffocating.

-XX-

"And how did your oldest brother, Tyquan die?" Dr Hill asked as she grabbed a pen and sat down on a couch across from him.

Sighing, Cameron answered, "His girl told him to pop up to her crib real quick and I came with him, me and him was tight as fuck, you feel me? So boom, we get there, he tells me to wait inside." Cameron paused to rub his face before continuing, "I'm just chilling, I see big bro walking back to the car and I look up, before he opened the door, a nigga come out the house and gun him down."

"His girl set him up."

Dr Hill wrote some notes down.

"And how old were you when this happened?"She asked softly, looking into his glossy eyes.

"I was 10, just about to turn 11." He shrugged, although he played it off, that shit fucked him up.

"Did that affect your childhood?" She asked.

"Yeah, I looked at females different after that. Niggas used to joke and say I had a phobia but shit made me have major trust issues." He admitted, Tyquan's death had caused him so much pain and suffering, he'd started taking percs to numb the pain but they didn't work so he moved to weed.

"What about your younger brother, Wooski?" She asked, Dr Hill wanted him to say these things out loud and admit his feelings of hurt and realise that he was struggling. Which was slowly beginning to happen.

"Wooski overdosed. He committed suicide when he was 15, that was two years ago." Cameron began, "out of all of us, he was the softest. he'd just shot his first nigga and it was haunting him so he killed himself."

"Who found his body?"

"I did. We was staying together cuh Mama didn't want his high ass at her house no mo. I came home after a party and found him with foam 'round his mouth." He explained. Cameron grabbed the cup of water and gulped it down as Dr Hill wrote down her notes.

"What about Koop?" She asked carefully, she knew this was still a very touchy subject.

"Koop was my nigga from birth. I held him in my arms 'till his last breath." Cameron said quietly, tears welled up in his eyes but he looked up at the ceiling so they'd go away.

Nodding, she realised that was all he'd say and she wrote down some notes. Cameron's case was one of the most complex yet simple cases.

"Do you still believe Reneé set Koop up?" She finally asked the question she wanted to.

His brows furrowed together as he let out a deep sigh, Cameron had been thinking about it this whole month. His heart told him that Reneé was genuine and the she loved him just as much as he had loved her but his thoughts..

"Ion know, I'm just torn" he admitted.

"Why?"

"My heart be tellin' me that she don't have the heart to do that. That she was in love with me just like I was with her. Reneé loved Koop, you feel me?" He started, "But my thoughts, they be telling me that she didn't love me, she wanted to kill me like Tyquan."

"Do you love Reneé?" She asked, looking up from her notes and into his eyes. She wanted to see his emotion.

With no hesitation he replied, "I love that girl with my whole being, man. I just don't know what's going on."

Taking off her glasses, Dr Hill sat up straight and began telling Cameron her conclusion.

"From these past few months, I've seen that you understand what you've done wrong. I can tell that you feel all the basic human emotions, so no Cameron, you are not a Psychopath or a Sociopath."

"However, you do have PPD. You have Paranoid Personality Disorder. Which simply means that you suffer from paranoia, an unrelenting mistrust and suspicion of others, even when there is no reason to be suspicious."

"Reneé hates you right now and she has every right to but your reaction was the only way you knew how to react. Cameron, you weren't born with this disorder, you developed it over time. It was simply a result of your environment. Within a year, If you're willing to co-operate, I can help you learn to live with it."

Taking in all the information, Cameron modded. He'd began to trust Dr Hill and he believed that she could help him. They'd signed a contract stating that she wasn't allowed to tell the police anything that they talked about so he could freely talk about all the murders without the worry that they'd use it against him.

After his session, Cameron walked back to his bedroom and laid down. He hoped that Reneé was safe, the guilt was something that he carried with himself everyday.

Looking back, he realised that he was so in over his head that he couldn't even see the love that she held for him and Koop. Sad thing was he couldn't even apologise since she wouldn't meet him. He prayed that she'd be safe, after all, there many enemies that were after her.

Before he'd gotten locked up, Cameron had heard news about an opp of his, 021 Melly.

He'd been begging Dr Hill to call her daily to try and get her here so he'd warn her but she wouldn't come. Cameron wanted to apologise but most importantly, he wanted to warn her about a nigga that he'd been researching before he was locked away.

O21 Melly's younger brother, Amir.

-XX-

Double update! Y'all hate me yet?