Tumultuous Love

Chapter 23

*•••*

"So how did this thing with you and Dawud start?" Fatima asks, taking a sip of her drink. "Oh Allah." Amina sighs.

"You really thought I would forget? Now tell me." She replies. "Honestly I don't even know. It just happened I guess." She bites into her burger.
"Don't even start the 'it just happened' nonsense with me. I would beat you up in the middle of this place or I'll call Muhammad and tell him to ask Dawud and tell me, so start speaking." She replies looking around them. It was quite crowded.

Amina laughs nervously, "You wouldn't dare. No but seriously, You know we've been talking even before you and Muhammad and we were just very good friends trying to put you both together. After it worked out between you two we kind of stopped talking until like two weeks ago when he called me and then since then it's just happened naturally." She finishes still not able to look at Fatima.

"Do you like him tho?" Fatima asks and Amina turns crimson. "Are you blushing?" She shrieks teasingly. Amina raises her shoe as a threat and Fatima bursts out laughing. "I have known you for almost ten months now and I never, never in my life thought I would see you blush." She adds pinching Amina's cheek.

"See why I didn't want to tell you." She pouts trying to blackmail her. "Okay okay. I'm sorry, this is not over but let's be serious now. Do you actually like him?" She asks seriously. Amina nods, ducking her head. "I don't know what it is but he just makes me happy and he gets me. We get each other. It's like we don't even have to try." She explains.

"That's exactly how I feel about Muhammad. I can't even begin to explain how happy I am to you. I'm so happy you have finally found the one and even better, we'll be glued by the hips now."

"I'm so happy too. Genuinely. Especially because we'll be glued by the hips now."

After paying for their brunch, which Fatima insisted on doing, they retired to their hotel room and packed the remaining of their belongings around the mini apartment. It is their last day in Madina. They had been there for three days now and they were finally done soaking up al the serenity and loveliness of the two most sacred cities in the world.

They would be taking a train to Riyadh later in the day where they would spend the next 5 days with Fatima's family. Amina was even more excited than Fatima herself.

*•••*
Saudah and Hammad rested their backs on the car as they await their arrival. They were supposed to have been out a few minutes since it has been 10 minutes since the train arrived.

"Should I call them again? Maybe they got stuck somewhere." Saudah brings out her phone. Hammad snatches it and keeps the phone in his pocket. "Calm down. They would be out soon."

Saudah sighs and goes back into the car. She was so  excited to see them again and they were taking forever to come out. She was starting to get tired of waiting.

"And there they are." Hammad announces walking away to help them with their luggage. Saudah comes out too and sprints to hug both of them. "Fatima! Amina! I missed you guys so much!" She explains with her hands after breaking the hug.

"What took you so long? We were starting to think you got lost."

"You were starting to think they got lost. When did I think that?" Hammad opposes. She eyes him and turns back to continue chatting with them while he put the luggage in the trunk. Saudah settled in the front seat and they both made themselves comfortable in the back.

"Malam Hammad ina wuni." Amina greets. "Malama Amina thank you." He replies.

"I wanted the answer in hausa." She teases. "I thought we were over this." He groans and they all laugh at him. Hammad's hausa is the worst amongst the three siblings mostly because he didn't want to learn.

He went to a boarding school for all of his secondary school and barely had any Nigerian friends. Not to talk of Hausa. There were not that many Nigerians in the school anyways and he thought it would make him cool if he didn't speak it at all. So he stopped talking I'm the language completely and would reply his mother in English anytime she spoke hausa to him.

By the time he wanted to relearn it, it was too late. He was already almost done with university. He had no other person to talk to in the language apart from his family and he was barely at home. He had bullied Saudah into teaching him once and it was a total fail. He was a very bad student so was she a bad teacher.

Now he only knows the few things he had retained from his childhood and could say the bare minimum. His accent is very funny too and since they always made fun of him, he stopped speaking it again. He had accepted that it was already too late to learn it properly.

Saudah knew how to speak it quite well. At least a lot better than Hammad because she was lucky to have a few hausa speaking friends in school. She convinced them to speak it with her so she would get better. She also tried to communicate with her parents in hausa even though she still had quite a prominent accent when she spoke it.

Habib is the most fluent of the three for one reason; he is mummy's boy. Their mother always spoke in hausa to him when he was young and naturally, he grabbed into it fast. It was actually the first language he learnt before he learnt Arabic and then English much later in primary school. He has a slight and barely noticeable accent whenever he spoke it.

Ever since Amina found out, she had made it one of her life's purposes to tease Hammad about it every opportunity she got.

"Over what Hammad? I just wanted to hear your hausa or am I missing something?" She jokes. He simply sighs and shakes his head. "Nothing Amina."

The rest of the drive was spent in jovial chatter from the three girls and Hammad butting in when it was necessary or when a statement was directed at him.

They arrived at the house about 15 minutes later and it was already time for Maghreb.

*•••*

Is it still eid?👀

Eid Mubarak to all my muslim brothers and sisters. TaqabbalAllahu minna wa minkum💗
May Allah accept all our acts of worships and forgive us for our shortcomings. Ameen.

This is supposed to be an eid update but of course, I'm late as usual. So sorry for that. But better late than never, right?

I would also like to remind you all that this book is not edited however, it is proofread before posting. Very sure you would see typos up there. Also, this book is based on fictitious happenings and some of the things I write might not be true in the real world. Just consider it true.

For instance, there are no trains from Medina to Riyadh and it is in fact a 13hours+ journey. But I had to tweak it a bit to suite the book. You get what I mean?

Enjoy the chapter anyways and please comment🥺 the last few chapters have gotten a very low turnout on comments. I would really love it if you left your thoughts on the chapter.

See you next Sunday.

With love,
Fatima❤️