The rain came down in sheets over Port Harcourt that morning, the kind of rain that turned the streets into shallow rivers and made every step feel like wading through memory. Amara Nwosu stood at the window of her small flat in GRA Phase II, watching water streak the glass like tears that refused to fall properly. She was thirty-eight, tall for a woman in her family line, with skin the deep warm brown of polished mahogany and eyes that carried too much quiet. Her hair was wrapped in a simple gele of deep indigo Ankara, the fabric still crisp from last night's ironing. She had dressed for the day ahead: a fitted navy blouse, high-waisted trousers that hid the slight swell of her abdomen from too many mornings of holding everything in, and low black heels that clicked with purpose even when her heart stuttered.
Today was the day she had promised herself she would try again.
The promise had started small, whispered in the dark at 3 a.m. when sleep refused to come and her bladder ached like a clenched fist. "Tomorrow," she had told the ceiling fan spinning lazy circles above her bed. "Tomorrow I will walk into the office restroom on the third floor, the one with the flickering light and the loose door that never quite latches, and I will sit down and let go." It sounded simple when said to shadows. In daylight, it felt like volunteering for public execution.
Amara worked as a senior environmental compliance officer for an oil services company on Trans-Amadi Industrial Layout. The job paid well enough to keep the rent current, the generator fuel topped up during blackouts, and her younger sister Chioma's school fees sent to the village without begging anyone. But the office building—glass and steel, modern on the outside, indifferent on the inside—was a daily battlefield. The women's restroom on her floor had four stalls. Four thin metal doors. Four places where someone could hear everything.
She had not used it in seven months.
Instead, she planned her day around the forty-five-minute drive home at lunch, or she waited until the building emptied for the evening, slipping into the ground-floor restroom after security had done their rounds. Sometimes she drank nothing after 7 a.m., letting thirst become a companion rather than risk the pressure building into pain. Other times she held it until her kidneys throbbed and her lower back screamed, until tears pricked her eyes not from sadness but from sheer physical betrayal.
This condition had no name in her language that she knew of. In English, doctors called it paruresis, shy bladder, a social phobia wrapped in biology. But names did not matter when the body refused to obey. It had begun quietly, like most tragedies do.
She was twenty-four then, newly posted to Lagos for her first real job after NYSC. A team-building retreat in Badagry. They had hiked through mangroves, laughed over grilled fish, drunk too many Star beers under string lights. Late that night, after the bonfire died, she felt the familiar tug low in her belly. The lodge had shared bathrooms—open-air style, concrete floors, no roofs, just stars and mosquitoes. She waited until the others were asleep, then slipped out in her wrapper.
A colleague—Emeka, broad-shouldered, always joking—was already there, standing at the urinal wall, humming off-key. He turned, saw her, grinned. "Sister Amara, you too dey fear darkness?"
She froze. The beer had made her bold enough to come, but not bold enough to ignore him. She tried to laugh it off, stepped into a stall. The partition was low; she could see his shadow moving. Her body locked. Nothing came. Nothing. She stood there, skirt hiked, thighs trembling, until he finished, washed his hands, and left whistling.
She emerged minutes later, empty, burning with shame she could not name. The next morning she told no one. She smiled through breakfast, excused herself early from the second hike, claimed a headache. Back in Lagos, the memory lodged like a splinter. Every public toilet became suspect. Every sound outside the stall became proof of judgment.
Years passed. She married briefly—to Chidi, a banker with kind hands and zero patience for what he called "her bathroom drama." He never understood. "Just go, Amara. Everyone does it." She tried. God, she tried. Therapy once, in a tiny office in Ikeja where the psychologist spoke in soft tones and prescribed breathing exercises that felt like prayers to a deaf god. Pills that made her drowsy but did nothing for the freeze. Nothing worked. Chidi left after eighteen months, saying he needed a wife who could travel without mapping every hotel for private bathrooms. She did not beg him to stay. Some loneliness felt cleaner than constant explanation.
Now, single again, living alone except for the stray cat she fed on the balcony, Amara carried the weight alone.
She checked her watch: 7:42 a.m. The driver would arrive in eight minutes. She drank one small cup of tea—black, no sugar—because caffeine made it worse but also because without it her head pounded. She felt the warmth spread, the first warning twinge. Already.
In the kitchen she packed lunch: jollof rice from last night, wrapped in foil, a boiled egg, an apple. Routine was armor. She slipped her phone into her bag, checked for tissues (always extra), hand sanitizer, a spare pad just in case stress made her leak. She hated that part most—the infantilization of her own body. Thirty-eight years old and still packing like a child afraid of accidents.
The horn sounded outside. She took one last look in the mirror. Her reflection stared back: composed, professional, eyes shadowed but not red. Good enough.
The drive was quiet. The driver, Mr. Sunday, played low Fuji music and commented on the traffic. Amara nodded, murmured agreement, her mind elsewhere. She crossed her legs tightly, pressed her thighs together. The pressure was building, steady, insistent. Not emergency yet. Not yet.
At the office she greeted security with a smile that did not reach her eyes, took the elevator to the fifth floor. Her cubicle overlooked the industrial sprawl—pipes, tanks, flares burning day and night like eternal candles for the earth. She powered on her computer, opened emails, answered three messages before the first meeting at 9:00.
By 8:35 the tea had done its work. She felt it low, heavy, demanding. She stood, smoothed her blouse, walked toward the hallway.
The restroom door was ajar. She pushed it open.
Inside: cool tiles, fluorescent hum, the faint smell of bleach and something older. Two women were at the sinks—Bisi from accounts, and a new intern whose name Amara could not recall. They chatted about weekend plans. Amara slipped past, chose the farthest stall, locked the door with shaking fingers.
She sat.
Silence.
Her heart hammered so loud she was sure they could hear it through the partition. She closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. In... out. The way the therapist had taught. Picture a river. Let it flow.
Nothing.
She waited. One minute. Two. The women left, heels clicking away. The door sighed shut. Alone now.
Still nothing.
Amara leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in hands. A sob caught in her throat—small, strangled. She swallowed it. Crying would make it worse; tears tightened everything.
"Why?" she whispered to the tiles. "Why can't you just...?"
The pressure mounted, sharp now, radiating into her back. She rocked slightly, forward and back, willing her body to remember what it was made for. Nothing.
Five minutes. Ten.
Someone entered—heels again. A flush from another stall. Water running. Amara held her breath. The person left.
Alone once more.
She stood, pulled up her trousers, washed nothing because there was nothing to wash. In the mirror her face looked drawn, older. She splashed water on her cheeks, patted dry with paper towel. Back to her desk.
The morning crawled. At 11:15 she could no longer sit still. The ache had become fire. She excused herself from a call, walked to the stairwell instead—quieter, less trafficked. She descended two flights to the third floor, where the restroom was smaller, only two stalls. Empty.
She tried again.
Same story.
By noon she was trembling. Lunch at home was no longer an option; traffic would take too long. She texted her sister: "Busy day. Call you later." Then she turned off her phone so no one could see her online and wonder why she wasn't answering.
She went to the car instead. Mr. Sunday was surprised. "Madam, you dey go house?"
"Yes. Urgent call."
He drove. She sat in the back, legs crossed so tight her calves cramped, hands pressed between her thighs. Every pothole jolted pain through her. She bit her lip until she tasted copper.
Home. Up the stairs. Key in lock. Door shut. Bathroom.
Finally.
The relief was so intense it hurt. She sat there long after, head against the cool wall, tears coming now—silent, steady. Not just from the physical release. From the humiliation of needing to flee her own workplace. From the knowledge that tomorrow would be the same. And the day after.
She washed her face, reapplied lipstick the color of ripe plum. Ate nothing; appetite gone. Lay on the bed staring at the ceiling fan.
Memories came unbidden.
Her mother, years ago, scolding her for taking too long in the outhouse back in the village. "You dey form like white woman. Just do am and comot!" The shame then had been small, childish. Now it was adult-sized, heavy as iron.
Her first boyfriend in university, teasing her when she refused to use the hostel bathroom during a party. "You dey shy? Abi na queen you be?" She laughed then. Left early. Never told him why.
Chidi's last fight: "You make everything hard, Amara. Even simple thing like travel. I can't live like this." His suitcase wheels rolling across the floor like final punctuation.
She rolled onto her side, curled around the ache that lingered even after emptying. "I want to be normal," she whispered. "Just once."
The rain had stopped. Sunlight slanted through the blinds, striping the floor gold. She watched dust motes dance, fragile and free.
Something shifted inside her—not hope exactly, but refusal. Refusal to let this be the rest of her life. She had survived worse: losing her father young, paying for her siblings' schooling, rebuilding after Chidi left. This was another thing to survive.
She rose, went to her laptop, searched "paruresis support groups Nigeria." Nothing local. International forums instead. She read stories—men mostly, but a few women. One in the UK: "I cried in stalls more times than I can count." Another in America: "I held it for twelve hours once. Ended up in ER with infection."
She typed her first post, anonymous.
"34F in Nigeria. Cannot go in any public place. Work is hell. Home is the only safe place. Feel broken. Anyone understand?"
She hit send before she could delete it.
Then she closed the laptop, stood at the window again. The city moved below—okadas weaving, vendors calling, life refusing to pause.
Amara touched the glass. Cold. Real.
"I am still here," she said softly.
The words felt small against the vastness of her struggle. But they were hers.
She would go back to work tomorrow. She would try again. Not because she believed it would work this time. But because stopping meant letting it win completely.
And Amara Nwosu had never been one to surrender without a fight.
Even if the fight was silent.
Even if no one else could see the battlefield.