Our Memories Together 2

2.4

FLASHFORWARD TO BREAKFAST AT THE VILLA IN MADRID:

Hadiyeh sits there speechless. What was there to say? Her husband was pictured lip-locked with another woman in front of the music studio. Was there anything to even say?

Hadiyeh turned to JJ who was staring at the screen. He felt his heart sink to his stomach. He had fucked up. He had fucked up bad. Really bad.

"It's not-" 

"Saeedeh, do you remember the adventure park in the middle of the city, I think you and Talia should go there today, it was part of the activities that I'd planned for today." Hadiyeh butts through JJ's sentence, she didn't want to have this conversation with others here, no matter how close she was to them. She needed to solve this with JJ alone.

"Yeah, the driver's outside right?" Saeedeh asked trying to sound neutral, the tension in the room heavy. Talia had learned her throat the tension was so thick that it could be sliced with a knife. 

Hadiyeh nodded. She had her jaw clenched and her eyes were hard and emotionless. 

Saeedeh and Talia were quick to get up and leave, closing the dining-room door behind them.

"Hadiyeh, I swear-"

*slap* 

Hadiyeh's palm had swept past his cheek so viciously that the noise echoed through the empty dining room.

"You are fucking disgusting." She spat at him, her words hard and heavy. 

JJ felt the sting of her hand on his face, he didn't rise to her nor argue because deserved that. He knew he deserved that. His eyes fell to the marble floors. 

Hadiyeh's chair scraped the floor as she got up, he felt her eyes burn through him, yet he didn't meet her gaze, too ashamed to do so.

"I hope she was worth it." Hadiyeh looked down at him leaving the room.

Hadiyeh hadn't even bothered packing her bags, she simply filled her backpack with her necessities and went to Senora Lola. She was so enraged that she didn't feel upset. She simply thanked Senora Lola, made her promise to take ample care of her guests and she left. She hadn't even bothered saying goodbye to her friends.

"I need two tickets to London today," Hadiyeh was trying to maintain her patients with the woman behind the desk. She was immensely frustrated, Jannah had begun crying and needed changing. 

"We have a flight leaving for London in less than an hour, but you are unfortunately unable to buy tickets at this time." 

"Miss, I have a crying daughter in my hands and important business to attend to in London, please!" She was close to bursting into tears out of rage and bitterness. Nothing was going her way. The world was refusing to co-operate with her today. It was as if she was standing against the world. The man who had always promised to be there for her had cheated and all she could do right now is stand here and beg for this woman to give her a flight ticket. 

"I will need to talk to a few people, but you might have to pay a bit more-"

"Anything," Hadiyeh nodded, right now she would accept all the terms and conditions. 

The lady nodded and picked up the phone on her desk ready to make calls to get an exception for Hadiyeh and Jannah. Maybe people weren't as heartless as they seemed to be. 

During that flight Hadiyeh had apologised to almost 15 people for how noisy Jannah was being, the flight crew however did their best to try and help, fetching Jannah refreshing wet wipes and hot water so Hadiyeh could fix Jannah her bottle of baby milk.

When Hadiyeh had finally arrived back home she simply pulled out her suitcase from under the bed and packed it taking it from under the bed and left. 

When Jannah had finally gone to sleep, Hadiyeh fell onto the hotel room bed and let her thoughts take over. She wasn't angry anymore, she was upset and heartbroken. To see the man she loved snogging another woman on every Instagram page and outlet shattered her heart, what's worse is that he hadn't told her. Maybe, even maybe, if he had, she would have understood and forgiven him, but the fact that he had chosen to lie and not tell her made her burst into tears. They had been through so much and for him to decide to fuck things up for them just as things were getting better, she felt as though he had stabbed her, not once but thousand times. 

That night she cried. For the first time in years, she cried herself to sleep. What JJ had done hurt more than a million bullets.

~~~~

JJ on the other hand had arrived in England 12 hours after Hadiyeh's landing. She had blocked his number and blocked all means of access to her. After arriving home to their apartment he had seen that her vanity was cleared and most of her belongings were gone. 

He had never felt so embarrassed and ashamed of himself. He was angry with the world, and even more so with himself. He couldn't bring himself to chase her after she had slapped him. Hadiyeh wasn't a violent person, they would play fight and often wrestle playfully but she had never hit him. He was angry with himself, with his ego, with his fucking pride that had stopped him from chasing after her, from stopping her, from telling her that it wasn't what she had seen. His phone was blowing up the constant notifications had made his head spin with annoyance. Out of anger, he threw his phone at the wall, the noise of the screen shattering cooled his anger. 

"Shit!" He swore in regret as he rushed to pick up his phone. Maybe it was the regret of shattering his phone maybe it was the regret of not telling Hadiyeh, maybe it was the regret of not going after her, but all of this had caused his eyes to water and his throat to swell. So he cried. No one was here to witness him breaking down, no one was here to see him fall apart, most importantly Hadiyeh wasn't there to tell him that everything would be alright. 

So he held her pillow between his arms as he cried himself to sleep, just before sleep consumed him, a single phrase came from his lips.

"I love you."                         

Written: 18/09/2021

Published: 18/09/2021