Warning!!! Triggering contents ahead.

My body feels tired and worn out every day, it's so exhausting.

Aminah Abraham.

KUNMI

I'm not...

These things can't be happening.

It can't... It can't...

No, please. No ooo. God!

I can't do this anymore.

What has Aminah done? What has that girl done to herself?

What...

Kunmi, it's Aminah.

I couldn't get Gab's voice out of my heart. Like a broken record, it kept playing, it kept repeating.

"Kunmi, stay calm. I'm sure it's nothing big. Your friend will be fine."

Mayowa was telling me from the other side of the car where she was driving.

Yes, we were currently driving to the hospital where Aminah was. After Gab's phone call, Mayowa and Junior had rushed to my room at my scream. I did not even know I had screamed and in a state of total panic and mad anxiety, I had to tell them what Gab had told me.

"Hello Kunmi, it's Aminah.."

"Someone called me from her phone around midnight last night because I was the last person she spoke to."

Mayowa overtook a car narrowly and sharply and it made me jolt out of my seat. Behind us, I distantly heard the driver scream curses and obscene words at us. Words like "Olosho driving their sugar daddies cars."

"We're almost there." Mayowa was telling me again and she darted a worried glance towards my direction before she faced the front again.

I knew we weren't almost there. We couldn't be almost there. It was more than an hour's drive from our house and we've not even driven for 15 minutes.

I closed my eyes, tried to calm down my racing heart but it wouldn't calm down, it wouldn't calm down, it wouldn't stop racing, wouldn't stop threatening to burst out of my chest.

Oh, God! Aminah!!

"They found her unconscious in a park around 11:30 pm."

She was found unconscious in a park around 11 pm to 12 am. What was she doing outside that like? What was she looking for? What...

It made me remember too, how she'll disappear late at night during the Olympia to the field and only God knows where...

Why? Because of what??

After Gab ended the call, I wouldn't stop panicking, wouldn't stop shaking, wouldn't stop crying... I didn't know what to do. I couldn't sit still. I wanted to leave the house, I wanted to go to the hospital immediately but it was 4 am, the estate gate wouldn't be opened and no excuse will make the security open the gate especially when mom and dad weren't around.

So I just kept pacing the entire length of my room with anxiety and terror and fear trying to cripple my sense of reasoning. My brain wouldn't stop thinking and my thoughts wouldn't stop spiraling into a thousand directions.

Mayowa was doing her best to calm me down, to tell me not to worry, that she was sure it wasn't something big blah blah blah.

Junior, on the other hand, wasn't saying anything, he was just sitting on my bed and staring, eyes alert, into nothingness.

I couldn't even calm down, couldn't do anything except wallow in the anxiety and panic and terror and fear that was wrecking my whole body.

In the end, I went back to the dairy. I needed answers because I wouldn't be able to calm down for the next one hour when we'll be able to leave the estate.

I kept flipping through the pages of her words, of her sentences with sadness and heartbreaks and brokenness threatening to spill out of them.

Aminah had always been a sad, broken, and damaged girl, and nobody knew. Nobody paid that much attention because of course it was Aminah and she was someone who could have no worries. Once she has food and junk and data and a shopping pass, she was good to go.

That's all we all thought she was but she was so much more. So much more.

My breath hitched when my eyes landed on an entry that gave me an answer to everything.

This is the fourth time I'll lose my period. I'm so scared. I'm so so scared.

I... I... I couldn't breathe for a minute after that. I couldn't stop staring at the entry. At those words.

Fourth time?

Did she lose her period for the fourth time?

And she was scared... She was scared.

She was losing her period and she was scared.

"Oh, God!" I yelled, shrinking back from the diary in total terror. Mayowa was quick to come to my side and to pull the diary away from me while saying something that sounded like "Stop reading this thing. Your friend will be fine. She is fine."

But Aminah wasn't fine... She couldn't be fine.

She lost her period. She could only lose her period and be scared of... If...

Someone had been sexually abusing her.

Someone had been... God!

Aminah did not look like someone who could get abused. She couldn't possibly show up in school every day like that if she was getting sexually abused at home.

If she was...

Well, she could... Everything we've known about her has been a lie, a facade.

But if she was... Fourth time. She lost her period for the fourth time and she was scared...

Was the person... Could the person be... Was she... Had she been getting pregnant and the person had been forcing her to abort??

Was that even possible?

And who could it even be??

Her brothers and her dad and Kunle were the only male figures in her life and it simply wasn't possible that any of them would...

My tears wouldn't stop falling in torrents, my heart wouldn't stop pounding and breaking and my hands wouldn't stop shaking, wouldn't stop trembling.

It was Mayowa that sat beside me, it was Mayowa that held my hands, it was Mayowa that wouldn't stop telling me that it'd be okay, it was Mayowa that volunteered to drive me to the hospital once it was dawn.

In the end, I had to leave the room to go and sit in the car so we'd be able to leave on time once it was dawn.

"We're here now," Mayowa announced and I did not wait for her to even park properly before I undo my seat belt and ran out of the car.

I ran blindly into the hospital without even knowing where I was to go.

"So she was rushed to the hospital. She's currently in surgery."

"Kunmi, wait," Mayowa was calling out after me but I was paying no heed to her.

I just kept running...

I just wanted to... I needed to get to Aminah.

"We're here for the young girl that was brought in here last night... Yes. Aminah."

I heard Mayowa tell the receptionist and I heard them say something to her.

"This way," She yelled from behind me again whole pointing in the opposite direction of where I was running.

I followed her lead till I was running into, till I was running blindly into the ICU.

I stopped walking.

I just stopped walking.

And the dread. The dread and terror and fear that were building up in me wouldn't make me take another step further.

God... Please...

My heart was feeling too heavy, so heavy that talking a step with the way it was pounding heavily in my chest was making me feel like I was going to trip.

That I couldn't walk with that kind of weight in my chest

Mayowa stopped too.

"Kunmi, have you seen her?"

I could not answer her. My attention was focused sitting on in the hallway, back to the wall and head between her knees of her raised legs.

I knew it was Gab.

But why was she sitting down there like that?

As if sensing that someone was watching her, she looked up, saw us and she stood up immediately.

I was in front of her in no seconds.

"Heyyyy... What happened? How's she? Is she out of surgery? Is she awake? What did they say happen to her?"

I was attacking her with all my questions but the poor girl, Gab, who was dressed in her pajamas and bonnet, with swollen and baggy eyes as if she had been crying since she got here did not even say anything to me.

She just kept staring at me, tears spiraling uncontrollably from her eyes.

What's this? Why was she acting like this?

What... What... What?

"What's it?" I asked in her voice that didn't sound like me. My heart wasn't even pounding again, it was just there, not breathing, I couldn't feel my heart again.

"What's it? Why won't you talk? What happened? Where is Aminah?"

I was grabbing her by her shoulders and shaking her uncontrollably but she still wouldn't talk, still wouldn't stop crying.

I was a crying mess myself.

"Gab, please, just tell me." I sobbed, feeling my legs starting to give way and strange dizziness threatening to overtake my entire body. "Please, Where's is Aminah? Where..."

She looked away from me and she lifted a finger ever so slowly to whatever was behind me.

I turned back to see a room with top to floor window, one that made it possible to see everything in the room.

And what was I seeing?

Machines. Just Machines. Big machines, beeping machines that I didn't know their names, big machines that were used to treat people with chronic diseases, like cancer and leukemia and heart failures and...

I did not understand why she was pointing to that room when I was asking Aminah.

Until I realized that there was someone on the bed in that room.

Someone that all those machines were connected to, to the various parts of the person's body...

My breath got cut in my throat.

The machines were connected to so many parts of the person's body.

The head, chest, hands, legs, mouth...

There was a tube connected to the person's mouth with something like plasters on either side of her mouth as if to keep the tube in place.

"God!" Mayowa muttered... Whispered behind me and even she couldn't hide the fear and terror in her voice.

No way...

I shook my head, focused on getting a clear picture of whoever was on the bed, whoever was in that much physical pain that they had to be connected to that many machines...

That they have to be alive right now because of those machines.

Dread, creeps, terror, panic, and fear were. threatening, threatening to...

My eyes zeroed in on the person lying on that bed with that many machines connected to their body and a terror-filled gasp escaped my lips.

It was Aminah.

I staggered and would have landed straight on my butt if Mayowa wasn't quick to hold me.

"What's that?" I turned blindly to Gab who was still crying silently, uncontrollably. "What's that?" I asked her again, not recognizing my terror-filled voice, not understanding the dread and fear that was taking over my body.

"Why is Aminah there like that? She has always been healthy... How is she suddenly this sick and with that..."

I trailed off when I remembered the time her hair had fallen off, the times she had screamed and grabbed her stomach in pure agony, that day in class when her hands wouldn't stop shaking, her reaction to Sophia's sister's illness?

Cancer... Was it cancer? Has it always been cancer all these while on top of being sexually abused by someone?

What... What kind of pain had Aminah stomached?

What...

"What did the doctors say?" That was Mayowa to Gab. The latter did not say anything at first. She just sank to the floor till she was sitting on the bare floor.

Talk Gab! Just talk, please. What's going on...

Why is Aminah lying there like that with that many tubes going into her body?

Why???

"They won't tell me anything." Gab finally spoke her voice calm which betrayed the way she wouldn't stop crying. "She was in surgery for hours and when she finally got out, they won't tell me what happened, why she became unconscious, why even after the surgery they still have to connect her to that kind of machine, why she's not waking up. They won't tell me anything. God! I'm so scared. What if..."

She trailed off because she was crying uncontrollably again, her whole body wrecking with so much sob and grief.

My stomach wouldn't stop churning, the heart wouldn't stop dropping, dropping, dropping. I looked away from the girl on the floor to the room again, that cursed room, to their machines there, the beeping sound, the numbers and lines that kept running and I just kept thinking to myself:

What's this?

What's this?

How was it Aminah, the energy personified girl, the bubbly who has so much energy that would think the energy would start spilling out of her, who could scream and jump and run about all day without feeling tired... How was it that she was the one dying there with that... With those...

"Her dad and brothers are not in the country and her mom traveled to Abuja... I've called though and the doctors spoke with them before the surgery. They'll all be flying back with the first flight today."

Oh, God...

I clutched at my chest, suddenly feeling intense physical pain. It was getting... It was hard to breathe.

"Kunmi, come, come and sit down," Mayowa said, grabbing me by my sides and leading me to the waiting chair beside Gab.

I sat down... I was sitting down but I didn't feel like I was sitting, It felt like I was falling into an abyss, a bottomless pit.

My hands wouldn't stop trembling, my body wouldn't stop shaking and my heart... My heart... I could barely even feel it.

It was just a heavyweight in my chest.

"Kunmi," Mayowa said beside me and she grabbed my two hands, squeezed them, tightened hers around them as if to reassure me, "Sis, calm down, she'll be fine. She is fine. She'll wake up."

I couldn't even say anything in reply to her. I just kept staring, unseeing.

I just kept remembering the last time I had seen her one-on-one.

She was on her knees, begging me to forgive her, that everything had been lonely without us.

And now, she was lying there, unconscious, breathing because she was on oxygen, living because she was on that many machines.

God!

I found myself shifting uncomfortably on the chair and something fell off the chair.

Something I hadn't seen there before.

A polythene bag.

Its content fell out.

"What's this?" I found myself asking Gab, my voice quivering a little.

"That's what she was wearing when they found her." She replied simply as if it was just normal.

Normal for her to be running or jogging or practicing running by 11:30 pm.

Because what just fell out of the polythene bag was a tracksuit. The black one with red stripes, the one Aminah always wears every time she wanted to run or jog.

The one she wore every other night during the Olympia where she'll disappear late at night to go and practice.

But why?

Why practice that late at night?

**************

Aminah's mom looked heartbroken when she arrived.

She just looked... There were no words to describe what she looked like. It was just like she grew old overnight with how sunken her face had looked.

She legit wore bathroom slippers from Abuja.

I wondered how many times she had lost her mind overnight.

Being told that your healthy daughter had suddenly collapsed at her park, being told that she had to immediately go under the knife while she was miles away from her. While she couldn't even hold her hands, while she couldn't even see her.

And her expression on seeing her daughter's face just tore my heart into pieces. She arrived at the same time the Doctors came to check on Aminah.

She just stood outside by the door while staring at the girl on the bed in disbelief. The denial, the disbelief as stared at her daughter wouldn't stop tearing my heart into pieces.

She just stood there for a long while, staring at the doctor's check things on her body, staring at the girl on the bed before she charged into the room like a mentally deranged patient.

She just charged into the room, grabbed Aminah by her shoulders, started shaking gently, started yelling her name and telling her to wake up, to stand up.

It took two nurses to drag her out of the room and immediately they made her sit down on the chair, she just broke down into tears, gut-wrenching and grief-filled tears.

One that made even the nurses' eyes fill up, one that made Gab, who had initially stopped crying start crying again.

Me, I couldn't even cry again, I just kept praying within me that Aminah should wake up and this nightmare should end for good.

"Mrs. Abraham, right? I assume you're the only guardian available right now. Can we go to my office to talk about what happened to your daughter?"

The female doctor, Aminah's attending doctor asked in a soft and gentle tone after her mother's tears had gone down a little and the way the woman just stood up and charged towards the doctor, I thought she was going to attack the doctor.

But she just stood in front of the doctor, clamped her hands together as if she was trying to beg for something. She was just shaking as she stood in front of the doctor and watching her like that, watching her shrink each person second just kept breaking my already shattered heart even more.

"Yes... She's my daughter... I... She's my sweet little girl and I don't... I don't understand... What's she doing there like that? Why won't she talk? What happened to her? She's always full of energy and vigor. She rarely even get malaria. She has always been healthy. She doesn't even like taking painkillers. The most she'll do is to sleep a headache off." Her mom just kept rambling and rambling, her voice quivering with each word, her voice sounding like heartbreak itself.

I could tell, from the way she was standing, from the way she was talking that she didn't believe this. That she didn't believe that her daughter could be the one lying down on that hospital bed.

She was in total self-denial.

"Mrs. Abraham, let's just go..."

"She was fine when I left home," Aminah's mom just continued talking as if the doctor did not just say anything, "When I left Lagos for Abuja, she was fine, she even saw me off to their airport. She was telling me she was going to miss me even though I was going to be gone for a few days. She almost teared up when I was leaving. She even asked me to get her one particular pizza when I'm coming back. She was putting on one pair of black trousers and a pink top. She was... Oh, God..."

She trailed off and she started crying hysterically again I don't know why but I found myself standing up and walking to stand beside her.

"Madam, I think I'll just speak with the child's dad whenever he gets here. But your daughter is... Your daughter will be fine." And she started to turn back as if to walk away...

"Just tell me what happened to my daughter!" Aminah's mom just flared up, flared up completely, shocking everyone in that hallway with the intensity of her voice. "Abi kilo de gan? Do you people want to give me hypertension?" She continued talking, sounding nothing like she did earlier and she looked like she was legit ready to attack all the medical practitioners there. "Tell me what happened to her. Did something go wrong? Did something go wrong during the surgery? Is that why she won't wake up? Have you people done something to her? Is that..."

"Your daughter's heart failed."

That was the doctor to Aminah's mom, to us and I just shifted backward.

What...

Aminah's mom just kept shaking her head as she stared at the doctor in disbelief.

"Your daughter's heart failed," The doctor continued shocking all of us into silence, "She collapsed as a result of heart failure."

My heart dropped.

Painfully.

Till it wasn't there again.

The whole hallway was grave silent. No one could say anything.

I couldn't even process my thoughts.

Her heart can't fail. Her heart can't fail. Her heart can't fail.

I kept chanting to myself in my head.

Her heart can't fail. Why would her heart fail? She's 17. She just clocked 17 some months ago.

Her heart can't fail.

People's hearts can fail but not Aminah, not someone as healthy, as energized as Aminah.

She was lying. I concluded, looking at the female doctor with her hair covered in a blue scarf, I concluded she was lying or that this was some sort of nightmare.

I pinched myself hard on my thighs, if only that was going to jolt me back to reality but the only thing that jolted me back to reality was the slow whispers of No, no, no beside me.

It was her mom.

She kept chanting no over and over again like a mantra, like a broken record.

Her face looked like it had been split open and stuffed with pain, sadness, and grief and then sealed back up.

My heart broke into a thousand pieces.

"My daughter's heart can't fail!" She asserted firmly, strongly. "Did you not hear me properly? She has always been healthy. She has never even gone to go to the hospital for something as mild as a headache. Look at me, I don't have any disease, her dad is not nursing anything, her brothers are healthy and you're telling someone like Aminah... That my daughter's heart failed? There must be a mix-up. She has never been ma... malnourished, she has never been sick so why would her heart fail?"

"Mrs. Abraham, calm down, your daughter is fine oo. She'll wake up soon..."

"Why did her heart fail? If you're saying that her heart failed then why did it fail?" She continued talking as if she did not even hear what the doctor was saying at all. "Why? Why???"

"Her disorder worsened." The doctor deadpanned and I found myself turning to look at her mom again but she looked even more confused than I do.

Disorder?

Disorder?

Disorder?

What disorder? Aminah had no disorder. If I didn't know anything about her, I knew this and I was sure about it.

Aminah had no disorder.

But why is this doctor saying she has a disorder? Why is she so sure? Why?

"Her disorder worsened," The doctor continued resignedly as if she just decided to tell us everything without leaving anything back.

"Her disorder worsened and it's bad, very bad. Her teeth, her gum is badly damaged..."

My heart dropped.

"Her brain has been affected badly."

My heart dropped again.

"We're looking into the possibility of multiple organs damage here."

My heart dropped again and the ground shifted below.

What's she saying now? Why is she saying all these things? Things that can't... That shouldn't be in the same sentence as Aminah.

That should never...

"That's the reason why her heart failed but we'll keep her on close monitoring for the next 24 hours to..."

"Mrs. Doctor, those things won't be my daughter's portion, Insha Allah. My daughter doesn't even have any disorder so..."

The doctor looked at us, at her mom intently before looking at me even more intently and I saw reality dawn on her.

They we had no idea what she was talking about.

We had no idea of any disorder and that's because Aminah did not have any.

I was starting to think this doctor was just a fool.

"Her eating disorder." She dropped the bomb and my heart dropped to the barest minimum.

"I'm talking about her eating disorder. Your daughter and your friend have always had a very chronic eating disorder."

I staggered till I was almost hitting the floor even Mayowa hadn't been there to hold me.

The woman beside me just went down to the floor. Unconscious and a whole pandemonium broke out as they were trying to get a stretcher to wheel her into a room.

I couldn't even hear anything. There was loud drumming in my ears making it impossible to hear any other thing apart from the drumming and the repeat of "Her eating disorder. Her eating disorder."

I shrugged Mayowa's hands-off and I started staggering away to get away from here, from this doomed hell. I needed the fresh air and with each step I took, my heart grew heavier, was heavier for my body that it practically became a herculean task to walk.

I had to lean on the wall for support.

But I didn't stop walking, couldn't stop walking.

I'm craving ice cream.

Let's go and buy pizza.

Can I eat yours?

Lemme help you finish your food.

I love Soda.

God! I'm so hungry.

Let's go and eat na.

Why would any person want to skip a meal? Are they insane?

I was remembering... I couldn't stop remembering those words, her feeling about food, and her expression whenever she talked about food and my heart wouldn't stop dropping.

I'm talking about her eating disorder. Your daughter and your friend have always had a very chronic eating disorder.

My stomach was turning, wouldn't stop turning, bile wouldn't stop rising to my throat and I had to clamp my hand over my mouth just as I stumbled into the toilet and I vomited the nothingness that was in my stomach into the closet.

Disorder. Eating Disorder!

No way!

Not Aminah.

Not someone like her.

Aminah was always eating but was she always eating??

Hmmm hmmm

EATING DISORDERS are the 2nd DEADLIEST MENTAL HEALTH disorders and the number one cause of this deadly disorder is DIETING!!!

And yes. You read that right! 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽

And still this disorder, as deadly as it is hardly ever exists on its own. 80% of the People that have ED have at least 2 co-existing mental disorders, severe ones too, chronic ones too and Aminah falls under this 80%. We'll know the other disorders she has too before the book ends.

And I'm sure some readers would have commented on how Aminah had pretended to like food while reading the chapter. Please go back to delete those comments 🙏🙏 lemme me not even see them. What Aminah did with foods, said about foods were all because of her disorder.

Her hair falling out, her losing her period are all symptoms of her disorder and that's even nowhere near half of everything. Those things are just what Kunmi gives birth to discovered about her. We'll see even more horrible things in the next chapters. I'm sorry once again but it won't be pretty at all. There's nothing pretty or glamorous about ED. It's just a horrible nightmare that no one wants to live in. I'm almost sure that almost 99% of my readers have little or no knowledge about Eating Disorders and the little knowledge is even probably wrong or stereotypical.

And I never thought I'd have to point this out but since only one reader got the drill, I'd have to now. Kunmi wasn't starving herself after the whole diary thing happened, she was comfortably slipping into an Eating Disorder that'd have been way more horrible than Aminah's. I'll explain this later.

And elppppp, I'm happy that I've finally gotten to this chapter because I've always wanted to post a thousand and one things about Eating Disorders on my IG story and WhatsApp status but I couldn't because I didn't want people to guess this twist but now, I can show you guys...

See ehn, I'm in a very terrible headspace right now and with how irritable and terrible my moods are, it'll affect my writing and I don't want that, especially when this is the most important part of my book to me but still, I don't want to put this book on hold because it has been dragging on for too long. I honestly don't know what to do 💔

See you guys when I see you.