Diana: "Okay Zano honey, I hear you. She's your woman." She said soothingly. His eyes stayed narrowed for a little while before they went back to being tortured and him having a faraway look. But my heart was singing with joy. The giant had taken a stand for me! Even though he was in a dark place, he came back and took a stand for me. So how could I give him up people? I just couldn't, and I won't. Diana sighed resignedly... "okay I guess you're not going anywhere."
Me: "I guess I'm not." I said cockily. She rolled her eyes.
Diana: "Okay so follow me. We need to talk." She turned and carried on walking and the giant and I followed behind her.
When we got to the family room, Robert was there. Thank God James wasn't. When Robert saw the giant, his entire face transformed to devastation.
Diana: "Where is James?" She sat on the couch. The giant and I also sat on one of the couches.
Robert: "He's resting. The pain medication he took knocked him out." Lucky bastard! The giant had not wanted to take any pain medication. When I tried to insist for him to take some, Diana told me to let him be. I wasn't happy but I let it go...for now. I wonder why the giant doesn't want to take any pills. I mean, he must be in a lot of pain. I also remember the night I saved him when he got stabbed, he didn't take any pain medication, and what what worse then was that he had stitched himself up. I guess the giant was resilient to pain.
Diana: "Oh good." She said relieved. I don't know why they still cared for that racist pig. He could die for all I cared.
Robert: "Is it bad?" He asked, indicating to the giant's state.
Diana: "Yes." She stated sadly.
Robert: "Shit." He muttered.
Diana: "He's not responding to anything we say. Except he keeps on muttering the same line every now and then."
Robert: "What is he saying?" Diana looked at me.
Diana: "I'll let Busi do the honors of telling you." I blushed. Seriously?! I rolled my eyes inwardly. Robert looked at me curiously.
Me: "Well...he keeps on muttering 'Busi...my woman'." Robert chuckled lightly.
Diana: "Robert it's not funny." She scolded annoyed.
Robert: "Well...it's a little funny. I mean his possessive streak hasn't gone away even though he's in this mental state."
Diana: "But aren't you concerned about what this means though?" Robert shrugged. Diana released an annoyed huff... "he's clutching on her Robert!" She said incredulously.
Robert: "I-I don't see anything wrong with that."
Diana: "You-you don't see anything thing wrong with that? Are you insane! There's a lot that's wrong with that." She shouted.
Robert: "Honey calm down." He said patting her thigh... "I don't see anything wrong because Zano needs a reason that will pull him back from the dark place that his mind is in right now, and I think Busi is the key. I saw how much he liked her. I mean, for him to even introduce her to us says a lot since he's never introduced any past girlfriends to us before. So this means she's special to him. So let him use her as a clutch." Diana sighed.
Diana: "I hate it when you make sense." Robert chuckled.
Robert: "I know honey." He brushed her back. Diana blew out a breath.
Diana: "So this means we have to tell Busi everything?" Yes please!
Robert: "Um. Not everything. We'll leave out the other details for Zano to tell her himself if he wants." Diana hummed.
Diana: "Yes of course. So where do we start?" She muttered to herself.
Robert: "Lets start when we brought him home for the first time. I think the current situation forces us to." He suggested. Diana nodded. There was a moment of silence. I wondered who was going to start. My stomach was tight with anxiousness and nervousness.
Diana: "Okay so. My husband and I were struggling to have a second child, so we decided to adopt. We had always wanted two children which is funny that now we have three." She chuckled a little... "at the time we wanted James to have a sibling to play with so that he didn't feel alone. We started going to different orphanage homes, looking to see if we could find a child that we can form an instant bond with. We were about to give up when a friend of ours who's a social worker recommended an orphanage she knew very well to us. She told us that there were a lot of children there who needed the type of security and love that we were offering, so we decided to try it out. I mean, we had nothing to lose. When we arrived at the orphanage we were very skeptical." She paused... "not that we were racist or anything but we didn't know if it was a good idea to bring a black child into this type of neighborhood that we're leaving in since it's white dominated. And there were other things to consider, like culture and religion. Robert and I literally made a list of pros and cons." Robert smiled... "and we discovered that the cons outweighed the pros but we requested to meet one of the kids at the orphanage anyway. We asked for a boy who was around the ages of 13 or 14 since James was 12, but we ended up meeting a boy who was 15 and that boy was Zanoxolo." She paused. I released the breath I was holding... "when we first saw him, we thought they were lying about his age since he looked 18 years instead of 15 because of how big he was. We tried having a conversation with him but he wouldn't respond back. At that time we thought he couldn't understand English but we found out that ever since he arrived two years back, he hadn't uttered a single word." My eyes widened in shock... "we were also shocked. I mean for two years he hadn't said anything to anyone. We asked what caused this and they told us that his father had killed his mother and sister in front of him." I gasped in horror... "yeah that was our reaction too. What a horrible thing to happen to a child. Every day for 4 weeks Robert and I would go and visit him. I don't know why but we became very fond of him. Even though his eyes were filled with brokenness and emptiness, something was pulling us to him. When we would visit, he still wouldn't speak to us and he was very scared of Robert. Every time Robert spoke to him, he would flinch away or start to shake so badly." Oh God! My poor giant... "we didn't know about his scarred back until the day we brought him home with us. I remember crying so much asking myself how can a parent be so evil and cruel to his own flesh and blood. We took him to every psychologist we could think of but it was futile since he still refused to say anything. We took him to speech therapists but the result was the same. He would lock himself in his room for days on end. He didn't play with James, he didn't want to go to school, he didn't want to do anything. He just wanted to be left alone. At night we would hear him screaming and crying for his mother and sister, and we would try to comfort him but he didn't want our comfort...especially Robert's. James started to feel neglected because Robert and I's attention was on Zanoxolo. I remember this other time I just got back from town and I went up to his room to check up on him. I found him on the floor with a bottle of pills next to him. He had overdosed on pills. He had tried to commit suicide."
I inhaled sharply. Oh my gosh! Suicide?! My heart was in pieces. I was picturing the giant at age 15 overdosing on pills...trying to kill himself to end his pain. He was still a young boy then. I could imagine the trauma of seeing his mother and sister being killed in front of him by his very own father. I'm sure he blamed himself - carried the guilt of not being able to save his mother and sister. I'm sure what led him to decide to kill himself was the guilt and also him thinking that he didn't deserve to live when his mother and sister were dead. Now I understand why he didn't want to take the pain medication which I'm happy about now since it meant he's not thinking about attempting to commit suicide again. It was dangerous for him to be in this mental state because those dark thoughts could come back. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. This was just too much. The grief and guilt that the giant was carrying was weighty and deep...so so deep. I had to ask myself if I was strong enough to stand beside him, to go through this healing process with him because it really wasn't going to be easy. I also had my own issues to work through and I didn't know if I could be strong for somebody else when I couldn't be strong for myself. But God forbid, I wanted to give it a try for the giant. I wanted to be his pillar of strength. I really needed to pray to God to give me strength because I couldn't do this without Him. He needed to guide me so that I can lead the giant towards light.
Diana: "After the pills were pumped out of his stomach, he was kept at the hospital under observation. When we would go to visit him, we saw so much anger in his eyes. I'm sure he was angry at himself for failing in killing himself. He was seen by a lot of psychologists from then on. They even tried to take him away from us since the attempt in suicide happened under our watch, but we fought hard because we just couldn't give up on him. When he came back from the hospital, we moved him to James's room so that at least there would be someone to keep an eye on him. He was still not saying anything to anyone but the difference was now his eyes were no longer filled with brokenness, instead they were filled with anger and hatred. He began to lash out a lot which made him to get into fights...a lot. He fought with James all the time and with other kids in the neighborhood which caused so many problems for us. Parents didn't like that their kids were getting beat up by a 'black kid' so authorities were called in a lot." She took a long breath... "but they couldn't arrest him since he was still a minor. Luckily Robert came up with a solution to send him to gym so that he could take boxing lessons, and let me tell you, he was good at boxing. He won every boxing match he played. They even tried to get him to go pro but he didn't want to do that...boxing was just an outlet to him. He started talking when he was...um...19...right Robert?" She said looking at him for confirmation.
Robert: "Yes...I think it was when he was 19. But he wasn't talking in full sentences. It was one word answers here and there and a lot of grunting."
Diana: "Don't forget growling too honey." Robert chuckled. Oh my giant! How I miss him with his grunts and growls. He seemed so faraway from me even though he was close. So heartbreaking!
Robert: "Yes and that too. He still grunts and growls though." Diana rolled her eyes smiling a little.
Diana: "Yes and it annoys the hell out of me."
Robert: "I know honey but it's who he is." He said gently. She sighed sadly.
Diana: "I guess." She exhaled... "so when he started to talk we took him back to a speech therapist and they helped him learn vocabulary and how to form sentences again since he hadn't spoken in six years." Jesus! I can't imagine not talking for that long! That would be impossible for me. Now it explained why he sometimes spoke in that weird way of his and also why he got tired of talking so quickly. I looked at him, he was staring at his bandaged hands.
Me: "I guess that is why you always complained about me talking too much." I said to him softly. He looked at me. Come on giant! Give me something. Please! I begged him with my eyes. No such luck people. He was just looking at me. I gave him a watery smile... "you'll be fine okay? You'll be your old and annoying, frustrating and bossy self in no time." I promised him softly. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but he closed his mouth again and went back to staring at his hands. I sighed in disappointment. I blew out a shaky breath and looked and Diana and Robert who's eyes were already on me. They both had small smiles on their faces.
Diana: "You're sure about this Busi? I must warn you now that it won't be easy."
Me: "I know but I can't abandon him. I want to help him." I said firmly.
Diana: "Okay then. So I will look for a psychologist that is close to the area where he stays so that he can get some counseling. You will have to be firm with him Busi and stand your ground because he's going to fight you on this trust me. But Robert and I will be hands on, just call if you need assistance." I just nodded... "oh wait. You're in school right?" I nodded again... "but how are you going to do this? He needs 24/7 care. You can't leave him alone for long periods of time lest he tries to hurt himself." She pointed out. Oh my gosh! This is too much. I didn't think of school and work! I was starting to panic... "you see this is what I was worried about. At least if he's here, I can look after him and also we have a lot of help around here." She was going to try and take him away from me again.
Me: "I'll figure something out!" I blurted out. Oh my gosh! What are you doing Busi? Just let him stay here. What about school? Work? Shut up brain! Diana frowned unsure.
Diana: "Are you sure?" She was skeptical. I nodded. I was having a hard time breathing. It felt like my chest was closing in on me... "okay then. Do you know how to drive?" I shook my head. She sighed... "okay, don't worry. I'll arrange a driver for guy guys whilst his hands are still in no use." I was trying to breathe calmly but it was hard... "okay lets discuss a few more things so that you guys can leave." She said in a business-like voice. I just nodded. Oh my gosh! What was I doing? I was in over my depth here..............