Chapter 58
Zioh
I jolted awake.
Drenched in sweat, my breath came in and out too fast. I lifted my hand to my throat, because it felt bound as though wrapped in sharp thorns. The pain was genuine—too real. Unable to contain it, I forced myself to my feet.
With a quick motion, I turned to my side and saw Tshabina, still fast asleep beside me. Her face was calm and peaceful, her breath soft and steady. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was four in the morning.
Another nightmare. Again.
But this time, it felt real.
Or maybe…
A chill wrapped around me, and my heartbeat hammered against my ribs.
My hand trembled as I reached for Tshabina.
The warmth of her skin grounded me, and I clung tighter until a faint groan slipped from her lips.
I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I needed her warmth, the pulse beneath my fingers.
I kept holding her for a while, and when her warmth spread through my skin, I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus on her face, and a slow breath of relief escaped me.
It had been five days since the nightmare, where I had dreamt I’d made a terrible mistake in the hall. I remembered how it was when I woke, screaming like I’d lost my mind while looking for Tshabina. My thoughts spun out of control. I was crushed, like something enormous had fallen upon me.
Only Tshabina’s presence that morning kept me steady. Since then, I begged her to stay with me. To keep me company. And without hesitation, she did.
Only for me.
I felt it, her warmth still by my side, but my body felt like nothing more than an empty casing, while my spirit wandered through darkness.
That was what it felt like.
Darkness.
No drive. No spark. Even concentrating was impossible. I also hadn’t been able to go to work, and Mas Zaeem had been helping me with that.
Because you’re crazy and you always will be.
“Can’t you lot shut up?” I whispered, before realising Tshabina was still asleep beside me. Quietly, I kissed her cheek, then slipped out of the room. “Please… shut up,” I muttered—no, begging them. Then I put my AirPods in.
I let out a long breath.
I just wanted to lie down, hug Tshabina, and stop this dark circle. But I knew I had to endure it, because I had to leave. After everything, Mas Zaeem finally called my therapist. Perhaps he’d realised how far gone I’d been these past weeks.
My therapist, Mrs Handerson, couldn’t come because she was away for weeks, so her former assistant, Ms Yang, was sent in her place. She insisted I call her Ladie.
Not only that… Zaeem also reached out to my psychiatrist. Dr Margareth had complained I hadn’t replied to her messages, especially when she needed to check if I was still taking my medication.
Shit.
? ── * ── ?
I was back at this estate again, because I had to see Ladie.
Earlier today, Zaeem picked me up after I dropped Tshabina off at her home, as I always did.
But these past few days had been different.
She usually asked to be dropped off a few houses before her house, but lately she had wanted to be left at a cafe or on a street before we had even reached her neighbourhood.
I hoped I hadn’t caused her any trouble, and that she’d give me the chance to talk to Tsabinu. But her calm face and bright smile every time she stepped out of my car gave me a flicker of relief. I hoped it wasn’t all an act, a mask for masking her worries when she was with me.
When I arrived at this estate, I didn’t linger. I went straight to my room or my study and locked myself in.
Eyes.
Countless eyes watched me. Countless mouths whispering about me, countless hands pointing at me. Yet being in this study room always brought me a small sense of calm. This place had been my hiding spot in this house.
Sitting on the carpet, I stared through the wide window at the view outside.
Even though I was sure I was alone, it still felt unbearably loud and crowded.
The voices whispering right beside my ears refused to fall silent for even a moment.
Even the medication seemed useless now. That was why sometimes I’d ignore them because I was so sick of it. It all felt endless.
I was trapped, like running on a treadmill; no matter how hard I ran, I never got anywhere, leaving me with nothing but ragged, uneven breaths. I walked a road with no end, trying to fix the wreck inside me.
The road only grew darker and darker until I got lost.
It made them keep mocking me, jeering, accusing, slowly trying to kill me.
Crazy. Defective. Don’t go there. Don’t do that. Stop! You look pathetic.
I whispered. “Shut the fuck up…” I barely had any strength left in me.
I kept shaking my head as the voices spoke and provoked me. There was no way to make the voices that had been with me for over a decade disappear.
I remembered how terrified I’d been at the start. I screamed at my mum, my father, and my siblings. I begged them, shouted until my throat burned, to hear what I was hearing—but they gave me those shocked, strange stares. And my father looked at me as if I were shit beneath his shoe.
Because the fear was driving me insane, I began using AirPods and blasting music into them. But it didn’t work. The voices were still there, clear as ever, and listening to loud music all day only left my ears numb. In the end, I gave up and put on the AirPods to cover myself.
I wore them all the time, everywhere, in any situation, except when I was alone. It was as if I were talking to someone through them, when, in truth, I spoke to the voices, hiding the craziness.
Because if anyone saw me talking to myself (back to them), they’d start to look at me differently. Those stares. They’d think me strange, just like he did. They’d start thinking I was crazy. You were, weren’t you? Thinking I was weird, defective. You’d always been that.
Just like my father.
In the past, I had to ask the people around me to make sure they saw what I saw, and it made me feel so degraded because it was only me, always only me, until I stopped doing it.
Tshabina called me a hero… but when all of this began, I realised I was defective, just as my dad had said.
My whole body shook, and my heart tried to escape my chest. I could already see it: the way her bright eyes would shift, turning cold and distant, looking at me the same way they all did.
I pressed my nails into my skin.
Today I met Ladie. At the start, when I first agreed to get help nine years ago, I went to a psychiatrist. Dr Margaret. She began prescribing medication, diagnosing me, and eventually referred me to therapy with a psychologist.
Mrs Handerson, my therapist. She listened to me, treated me, and guided me. A few years later, Ladie, fresh out of her psychology degree, began working under her supervision as an assistant. Then, after a while, she began practising with me.
I had become used to meeting either Mrs Anderson or Ladie. But meeting Ladie was also the beginning of everything changing.
From the start, I had my own reasons for not wanting treatment. For years, I’d been sinking into my own madness because I knew I was being watched, accused, seen.
What if the doctors and professors treating me were my father’s monitors? Reporting on me to him, so he could go on judging me, watching me, telling me how weird and crazy I was.
The thought that my father spied on me choked me so hard I could barely breathe. His words and constant accusations made me feel bound, especially given how clearly he always seemed to be monitoring me.
But after Zaeem offered a doctor he knew, with what little courage and sanity I had left, I agreed for no other reason than to return.
So, I could be the old Zioh again and go back home.
But I never thought it would take so long, consuming so much of my sanity and energy to reach a place called “healing.”
It hurt so much when the reality I craved never fell into place. Or worse, it always turned out the opposite. Because the treatment dragged me into another hell.
A bigger one.
Because that was when… I began to meet Cindy.
I told you, you should never have sought treatment.
Ladie sat across from me, having greeted me a few minutes earlier and entered my study. I’d been sitting on the carpet but shifted, walking over to the sofa to face her.
We spoke.
Or at least, that was how it felt.
I kept talking and talking, but it all felt empty.
There were several kinds of therapy I usually did—CBT, family therapy, social skills training, and psychosocial support.
When I told Mrs Handerson about my panic, my fear, especially when people around me triggered me into an episode, she began to teach me grounding, or as I called it, counting.
She even taught me breathing techniques. But for me, the quickest way was pain.
The pain that surfaced in my body would pull my focus away, and the fastest way I’d always done it was by digging my nails hard into my palms. It helped me press, focus.
I couldn’t remember the last time my palms weren’t rough—years of scars and marks, never having enough time to heal before being torn open again.
The first person to notice was Mas Zaeem. When I was sixteen, he told me there was a way to hurt yourself without actually hurting yourself. Since then, I’d gone to the gym, hours tearing my muscles apart to create that same intense pain afterwards.
I kept talking. I was sure of it—or at least, Ladie’s voice was there. “Zioh, I know clenching your hands gives you a moment’s relief, but I also hear there’s a part of you that knows it’s hurting yourself, right?”
I nodded.
The clock’s ticking filled the space as I spoke. I told her what still lingered in my mind—blurred yet vivid. So many things I’d been forced to erase, change, replace, because they all made me.
Until I began to question and doubt reality.
Was it real? Was that voice real? That smell? That person?
Even my memories—were they real, or my dreams?
I found it so hard to tell reality from not… everything felt so real, even in my sleep. And since Ladie was here, somehow it felt terrifying. The dream had been haunting me.
I saw that woman, or Tshabina.
I lunged and strangled Cindy. Or that woman. Or Tshabina.
It all felt so empty, and the cold tremor kept clawing at me even when I convinced myself it was only a dream.
A soft, calming voice reached me. “Zioh?” And somehow, miraculously, it soothed me. Ladie’s voice. It felt as though this woman had been designed and shaped to carry an aura of calm meant for people like me.
She always felt like someone.
Ladie began speaking again, gently, trying to draw me out. My gaze was vacant and unfocused as she called my name several times. After a long silence, I finally spoke again, collecting myself.
“I know… but… it feels so confusing…”
I tried to be present, to gather myself as I spoke, but the noise inside was overwhelming. I noticed I’d been shaking my head, even pounding my temples, until Ladie stopped me. “Zioh… It’s okay. Slowly. What are you hearing? What are they saying?”
Death.
I shook my head again. “I dreamed… worse this time—”
Ladie listened to my confession, a flicker crossing her face before she smoothed her expression back to calm. She wrote things down, listening intently.
It was the first time I’d been able to speak of it. In our last sessions, I’d been too lost, silent the whole time. I didn’t know how long we’d been in the therapy session before she spoke again, but the voices made her words blur.
“Zioh?” Her voice reached me. “Zioh? Are you sure the one who kept you company that night—”
A harsh knock hit my study door. Ladie fell silent.
Zeraiah entered.
Ladie’s eyes flicked to him, her expression hard to read. But I was sure I’d caught it—a spark of surprise, discomfort. Perhaps irritation, too, since she was mid-session with a patient, and my brother, who had long lost all sense of courtesy, walked in with the irritating expression on his face.
Zeraiah smiled at Ladie. His eyes went straight to her, unwilling to let go.
I didn’t know when or how Zeraiah had grown infatuated with my therapist. But that was what it was now.
Ladie looked straight at him, replying with a small, formal smile—the kind you’d get in an office. I hoped my slightly unhinged brother realised she was setting a boundary.
But as though stripped of sense, Zeraiah ignored it and narrowed at her. Ladie’s eyes pushed him back, soft but firm, perhaps because I was in the room. But she didn’t realise that Mas Zaeem and I already knew something existed between them.
We’d caught them together often. Sometimes I’d seen her leaving Zeraiah’s penthouse in London, and the day before, Zaeem and I saw her leaving Zeraiah’s room when we thought she was already gone.
With the maddening smile stretching across his face, Zeraiah walked towards Ladie. The insolent brat tried to sit beside her, but Ladie quickly shifted to the far edge of the sofa.
He glared at her in annoyance. “From now on, I’m going to get involved with Cindy,” he said, his voice sharp as glass.
Cindy...
My vision darkened. My head went blank.
When I looked at them again, Ladie’s eyes had changed. She glared at him as if to scold him. But when her gaze met mine, her eyes trembled, brimming with guilt and a silent apology.
Yes…
That crazy woman hadn’t just ruined me, she had ruined Ladie too.
Zeraiah’s rough, sharp voice pulled me back to him. “I sent you something, Zi,” he said, measuring each word. “When you feel better, read it.” His tone lowered. “Let my words sink in.”
He gave Ladie a look, tugging her elbow until she was forced to stand. “We’re done here.” He glanced at her, then at me. “Can we?”
I nodded, letting him have his way. Ladie shifted, her shoulders tightening, visibly unsettled by Zeraiah’s behaviour, and glancing at me with worry. But once again, I only nodded and thanked her.
After all, my body had reached its limit.
But then I remembered something and spoke. “When will Dad come back?”
Zeraiah turned towards me. His body stiffened as his grip on Ladie’s arm tightened. “Next week, according to Mas Zaeem,” he muttered.
My eyes turned to Ladie. “We’ll continue therapy at my penthouse when my father returns,” I said. I also felt… it was time to let Tshabina in. Fucking fool. “Thank you again for today.”
“Mas Zaeem wants to talk to you,” Zeraiah added, forcing me to glance. “About work.” He shrugged. “I heard Aditya’s taken back the lead content role for the new project, and Dad wants this one run through INDTV instead.” His eyes were fixed on me. “Have you talked to Tshabina yet?”