Chapter 17 - "His Tragic Past"

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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."

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