Twisted Affection

Episode Four: Testing the Wound

Monday in Ibadan she wakes early, leaves Dayo sleeping, and walks gardens in a light rain. Phone in hand, she almost asks IT to trace Emeka’s email. She doesn’t “almost” anymore—she composes the request, deletes it, recomposes. By 7:03 a.m. she sends: _Need IP log for clinical supervision review._ Official phrasing soothes her.

Reply lands at 9:41 a.m.: IP resolves

to residential address in Lekki. She copies it into Maps: seven minutes from Dayo’s apartment. She sits on the balcony while his aunt braids another guest’s hair, presses the numbers into memory, then deletes the email trail. Knowing does something to a person; Amara knows this professionally. Right now, knowing is leverage.

She doesn’t confront Dayo. She replicates his method instead—the game, the experiment. Tuesday in group she leads a free association about thresholds for leaving. Hers slips out: _I’m afraid I only love people I can fix._ The room gentle-nods. She adds it to the whiteboard and

underlines it twice. At 4:07 p.m., glancing through clinic blinds, she sees Dayo walk past on the opposite sidewalk. He pauses, looks up, raises his hand. She steps back so the glass hides her. She’s testing whether he’ll appear if she voices a wound. He did. She counts that as data.

That night she follows him. She’s never done this. She dislikes herself a little and does it anyway. He takes a motorcycle to Yaba, dismounts at the tailor shop where Adaora works alterations after her pharmacy shifts. Amara waits across the street, hoodie up, therapist mind split: part case formulation, part voyeur. Through the window she sees Adaora’s face shift—

surprise, caution, tired recognition. Dayo hands over a small paper bag (medicines? money?). Adaora shakes her head, accepts it, says something sharp—Amara reads lips poorly, gets _“not yours.”_ Dayo says something conciliatory; Adaora rubs her chest like she’s regulating breath. Amara thinks: _He keeps her too._ The phrase surfaces without permission. She waits until he leaves, then walks home in the opposite direction. She doesn’t call him. She doesn’t text Emeka. She grades papers. She grades them like her life depends on how perfect the margins are.

Back at her apartment she waits for his shower, borrows his laptop under

the guise of checking Ibadan photos. She finds the folder quickly—*Amara*. Screenshots of her texts to Emeka (she thought those were deleted). Transcripts of voice notes she sent late at night. List titled *moments she chose Emeka*: _She answered at 2:13 a.m. She didn’t tell me. She underlined my sentence in her file._ Her mouth goes dry. Twisted affection: he needed to be her project hardest thing so she’d pick him. With Emeka she’s tender; with Dayo she’s a partner, which means an equal, which means sometimes bored, which means sometimes he’s afraid she’ll leave. Better to be her wound than her option.

He finds her on the couch, laptop open. She expects fury. He drops to his knees, crestfallen actor recognizing his audience: “I needed you to see the worst part and stay.” “I did see it,” she says quietly. “That’s why I’m scared.” She means: _I recognize this as pathology; I recognize my role in it; I am scared I won’t leave._ He hears: _I love you anyway._ He pulls her hand to his chest. She lets him. She needs to see what her own compliance feels like before she names it.

She’ll name it tomorrow. Tonight she grades one more paper, draws margins straight as a ruler’s edge, and ignores that her hand isn’t shaking.