"Anya."

My head turns swiftly to the left, dark hair whipping into my hollowed cheeks as I move. The voice is familiar, and though serious now, carries a hint of laughter and naivety.

"Ima," I reply, though my own voice is much weaker. I'm older now – even if I claim time is not real – but one could argue that age is not what has affected such a strong sound. "I could have arranged a car."

"I can drive," comes my little sister's firm disagreement. Car keys are jangled in my face to gloat. "Daddy bought me a car when I told him about my motorbike."

"You were studying law."

"That was before you got sent to prison."

I shake my head gently, with no intention of adding fuel to the fire. There is a slight resentment in Imara's tone; understandable, yet not entirely fair.

"You know it wasn't my fault." We both smile then, the way sisters smile at each other, and soon my sharp bones are crushed into Imara's much stronger embrace. "I missed you," I whisper.

And that is that.

Forgiveness has always been easier with Imara, hence why I had booked my flight to Barcelona no less than a week after I landed in Heathrow. The endless doting of those at home has been exhausting. Almost held hostage once more, I had been forced to the country house under the attentive eye of my grandmother. And the staff. And, for some reason, my younger brother, with a surprising disregard for his actual job at an actual hospital.

Imara proved faff-less and, with barely any money of her own, she – I figure – would be busy enough to allow me some time to pretend none of it ever happened.

That being said, the drive to Imara's duplex in Gràcia shows that someone has beaten me to it. My sister is aware of the top five clinics in Barcelona, and has already familiarised herself with the one I will be attending. "In fact," Imara says smugly as she parks her ridiculous car near her more-ridiculous home, "I gave them my number as well as your new one. You definitely won't be able to ignore their calls now."

"I'm fine."

"Hi, fine. I'm Ima."

She laughs heartily at her own joke as she springs out of the driver's seat and towards the boot, hauling the small suitcase of luggage onto the road before crossing the street and shouting for me to follow her. Acquiescing, I oblige, partly wishing a scooter would come racing down the concrete and take me out before I have to endure a sunnier version of the torture I'd believed myself to have escaped from in England.

The duplex was clearly a gift.

It has been filled with vinyls and empty bottles and patchwork quilts with traces of white dust. It is so Imara that I can only feel at home, as though I've stepped into my sister's childhood bedroom in Highgate.

I scan my new prison cell with as little apprehension as possible, geared to fear my environment yet knowing I have nothing to be worried about.

Against better judgement, my finger jabs through the air. "I thought they were joking." Laid out across the marble worktops of the open-plan kitchen are mixing desks and turntables, plugged into speakers with death-trap wires that Imara must tumble over whenever she is drunk.

"I turned the third bedroom into a studio but it spreads like a rash." She laughs again. I decide that my sister is nervous, and then consequently decide she has no reason to be. "Water?"

With a nod, I shadow my way into the kitchen, flinching at the gurgle of the tap. My jaw clenches at the action and I regret it. Hopefully, my sister will not have noticed. "So you went from future KC to... DJ?"

"I finished my degree."

"That's when you're supposed to get a job, chhoto bon." My calloused hands are hard against the glass handed to me. "What's the point of working hard if you–"

"I do work hard." She waits for a moment. "I started in Ibiza but Amma said the lifestyle wasn't sustainable and we compromised: I moved here. I said I'd think about qualifying in Spanish law, but it was a lie." A cheeky grin spreads across her face at her admission. "I have a steady gig four nights a week, and I free-lance for the other three when I fancy it."

"In comparison to a war correspondent and a doctor, Ima, you're slacking."

"Ex-war correspondent."

Ima's phone begins to ring.

"That should be the clinic. I'm thinking the day after tomorrow for your first appointment?"

I watch as Imara answers the phone in Spanish she had not known two years ago. Unlike mine, it is drenched in Englishness, and perhaps even with Catalan intonation. Her tone has matured and she has discovered professionalism, and I find myself mourning a year and a half of my life.

As my sister hangs up, I bite my lip and refuse to cry. "I guess I have nothing else to do," I say in lieu of agreement. Despite my efforts to appear composed, anxiety gnaws at my insides as though the prison rats have escaped from Sudan with me.

Imara raises an eyebrow, her gaze piercing through the façade. She's always had the ability to read me. "Are you sure you don't want to be at home?"

I shrug nonchalantly. "I'd rather go to therapy and the beach." I remember the e-mails from the newspaper, urging me to take time away. Firing me, pretty much. Imara hasn't been told, but she knows. And if things spread that quickly from London, maybe it will be better to be overseas.

Maybe I haven't been home in so long that I have lost sight of what it feels like.

Imara doesn't seem entirely convinced by the answer, but she lets the matter drop for the time being. Instead, she changes the subject, eager to catch up. It has been ages, after all.

"Tell me about prison," she says with a mischievous glint in her eyes, lightening the mood via her own approach. "Did you make friends? Were there gangs? Did you get the penguin bars we were sending you?"

Grateful for something less serious, I chuckle. "It wasn't Orange is the New Black. It was very boring, in all honesty." I keep my eyes open, afraid of the memories that will plague me if I let my guard down. "And I was safe."

Imara nods. The lie has successfully washed over her, clouding her judgement with comfort. It's a success. I'm one step closer to wriggling out of the complete recovery plan, which will suck up an unnecessary three months of my life. I've already lost enough time.

"I'm glad you're here. I must admit I'm quite chuffed that you've chosen me, but maybe it's because Barcelona is more attractive than London. Or worse, Fulmer."

I shudder, making my sister painfully aware of my sallow skin. It doesn't take a genius to discern the reason for such stick-thinness. "Fuck me, not Fulmer. Dadi captured me and took me to Bank House. She was worse than the Sudanese government."

Imara laughs. "I fucking hate the Sudanese government."

I tip my glass of water towards my sister. "I'll drink to that."

I look around the room as I take a long slip, letting the cool water trickle down my hoarse throat. Being refreshed is... foreign.

Imara's home exudes a certain sense of freedom, which I try to absorb, quietly leaning against the worktop as my sister busies herself with dragging my suitcase up her fashionable floating stairs.

Here, the dirt floor is replaced with warm wood; mud-walls swapped for tiles and dark blue wallpaper. Curiously, I skim my fingertips along the nearest turntable, wondering if I ever saw this coming.

Out of the three of them, I have always been the one to go rogue. Always. Our brother, Idris, has his faults, but they are not apparent in his choice of career. Imara wanted to follow our father. Or at least, she did, when I last knew her.

"So, what's the plan for tonight?" I ask, eager to find something else to focus on.

My sister lets out a proud huff of air, muttering about going to the gym under her breath, and flexes her biceps in the reflection of the oven door before answering. "I've got work tonight, but I reckon I could get someone to cover me if you're not up for it. The doctors said food would be a 'thing', so, like, I figured why not go out instead?"

"Food is fine." A lot of things are fine, contrary to popular belief.

But it seems that Imara only needs to look at my body to convey her point. "Amma said to make you plain rice and chicken until the doctors get you on a nutrition plan." The sigh that leaves me is deep and a little bit dramatic. "Hey, I'm taking you clubbing! You wouldn't get that in London. But I'm sure you know everything's later here, so we have a few hours before we have to get there to set up. I've got the first set – we'll leave early."

"Yeah, I don't mind," I say. "At least you're not treating me like a baby."

"I could never baby you, boro bon." I roll my eyes at the insolence of Imara's use of tradition. It means 'big sister'. She hardly ever calls me that – it's way too stuffy, in her opinion. "Right, your stuff is on your bed upstairs. Sort yourself out while I wash the rice. Dinner will be ready in half an hour."

I nod, my mind already drifting as I make my way up to the stairs of my designated bedroom.

The room is spacious for this version of myself; someone far less accustomed to the lifestyle of my childhood. There is a plush rug covering the floor that warms me in the worst way possible, and the bed looks sickeningly comfortable. Imara has unzipped my suitcase for me, opening it on top of the mattress, and I hate to imagine how appalled she must have been to find it relatively empty.

I still have my place in London and it had felt wrong to take things from there. It is almost a shrine to the past, kept pristine by the cleaners my mother must have hired in my absence. I thought to leave it as it is. Was.

Instead, I've brought with me five t-shirts – far too big now – and a pair of linen trousers.

It's February. I'll have to go shopping.

As I move closer to the window, my breath catches in my throat. Choppy memories flood in – guns firing, screaming. Me, screaming. I can feel it in my ears.

I press a hand onto the window pane, expecting it to disappear from my touch. It doesn't; it's cold and hard.

It has seen heat but not the blazing desert sun. It shows me pedestrians, but they are not dressed like people did in Sudan.

I am not there anymore, I remind myself.

I force slow, deep breaths, willing the panic to subside. My hands rise to my ears to shut off the echoes of noises I shouldn't be hearing in Barcelona. But it is suffocating.

It is trapping me in a cell; it is hurting my throat.

Fretfully, I drop my hands to my sides and sink to the floor, hating the softness of the rug. One hand reaches out to claw at the ground, but I catch sight of the bones and feel sick, unable to move for fear of seeing more of myself.

Imara was right to remove the mirrors in the room. I have always been frightened of ghosts.

The screaming continues, but it is difficult to differentiate it from reality. My throat hurts anyway. Am I even capable of making a sound?

Imara must be boiling the rice when she hears me; desperate and terrified. She races up the stairs – I can almost make out the urgency of her steps – and she's holding a kitchen knife, as though to defend us from some imaginary robber.

What she finds must be just as distressing. Curled into myself, eyes glazed over as take in her presence and shake my head. My lungs feel detached, but with no breath to explain and no preparation given to my sister, she cannot do much else than sit beside me and tell me that I am not in any danger.

Again. And Again. And Again.

Until eventually, I am back, stretching out my legs. When Imara stands, she offers her hand out to me. I push it away.

"Don't," I say. "I'm fine."

notes:

here we go...