Big Boys Cry

Chapter Five

            "Please I just want to go, please aunty Chineyere let me go...please I just want to go..."

"Rah! Rah!"

Rah awoke from his sleep like a thousand bolts of electricity had shot through his veins. He looked around his room like he was in an unfamiliar place but when his eyes fell upon his sister's face, his heart rate began to slow down.

"It's ok Rah I am here, I am here, its ok." Chioma lifted his head placing it on her laps as she sat on his bed, leaning against his head board.

"I just wanted her to leave me alone, I wanted it to stop....I wanted everything to stop."

"It's ok Rah, she can't hurt you anymore, and you are safe." He wrapped his arms around his sister's waist like a drowning man holding on to his last gasp of air. "Everything is ok now."

He could feel the bed underneath him drenched in sweat and he could almost feel his heart bouncing against his rib cage. For a while the night mares had stopped and he let himself believe he was finally beginning to get better but in the last few days they had returned, invading his dreams ...and his life.

"I wanted to kill myself Chioma, I really wanted to."

"What?"

"It was after my tenth birthday. I was tired of it all and I wanted it to end. I wanted everything to end."

"But why didn't you tell me all these Rah? I want to help you, I could have helped."

"But I didn't do it. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving you all alone so instead I bared her assault night after night after night and there was nothing I could do to stop her."

Chioma did not say anything, she couldn't. Rah knew there was nothing she could say that would make it all better. Nothing. He had to keep living like he had been the past twenty years; be weak in the dark but when the light comes; be strong.

Feeling embarrassed to be lying on his sisters laps at the age of thirty one he lifted himself off the bed and began to pace around the room. "What brings you here sis? On a Sunday morning of all days. Shouldn't you be in church?"

"Well I am back from service and as I got home I decided to get you something to eat." She stood up and walked over to him. "I worry about you, you know."

"I know and you shouldn't."
"What do you mean I shouldn't? What I saw today is proof that I have to keep worrying because you have no one to worry about you. I will always worry."

"I am fine sis." He said and retreated to his bed room window to open it and let a little air in. "I just had a bad dream that's all."

"You were having a nightmare! You were screaming your lungs out that I thought you would hurt yourself. I don't want to intrude on your life but I think you need to see someone."

"Like a shrink? Thanks but no thanks. I don't need someone pocking around in my head. I am fine."

"I hate to say this Rah but you are not." She walked towards him and placed her palms gently against his heart. "You are not fine. The things that trouble lay deeper than the surface and you cannot just wish it away or hope it would fade away. It's been twenty years and all of these are still happening, you need to talk to someone."

All he wanted to do was fight her on that. He wanted her to believe he was fine but he didn't believe it himself. Yes, he had built one of the largest advertisement firms in Nigeria in just eight years and he had had his fair share of awards and recognition but he knew something was wrong with him. He needed help, he needed to change but not because of himself but because of her. The way people saw him at the office never affected him, he really didn't care but when he saw those same looks in Phebe's eyes he felt like doing everything for the rest of his life to show her he can be better.