Sadiya: Our Story & Our Truth

Chapter Three

***

ABUJA, NIGERIA.

Who said planning evil was ever easy?

Ramlah rushed to the window upon hearing the sound of a car engine. He was back. A malicious smile took over her chapped lips. He came back soon. Normally, he would've been out for probably two hours before deciding to come back home. Not that he cared, anyway.

She laid back in bed as the wall clock glared at her, as if threatening her with its sound. If her conscience wouldn't rid bad thoughts off her mind, time seemed to be. It failed. Because when she set her mind on something, nothing would change. Absolutely nothing. Not before, not now, and with how far she'd come, not ever.

The creak of the bedroom door urged her eyes shut as she pretended to be deep in a slumber - which was quite realistic for Yazid to not have picked up on her unsteady breaths. All that was on his mind was apology, apology, apology. Nothing more.

It was as if he picked up on her unsteady breaths and the twitch in her eyelids, he sighed, saying, "I know you aren't asleep." Was that how lofty his level of monstrosity was? "Your breaths are unsteady." If he thought letting out those words could change her mind, he turned out wrong.

How ironic. Roles were altered now.

Silence washed over the tensed couple. She could not help ask herself what'd changed. Why was he acting like a man who had a petty fight with his wife over who'd make dinner?

"Ramlah." A feeling of dysphoria washed over him. "Can we talk?" Then shame and nervousness. He gulped, "please?"

The woman in question almost jolted from the bed in astonishment. Yazid and the magic word, were like OJ and coffee. Incompatible. Silence washed over the tension in the atmosphere. Her silence killed him. And his soft words confused her...she just didn't get Yazid's intellect, sometimes.

He wasn't used to it. He'd always been aggressive during and after a fight, but then, why was he acting any different?

"Please, we really need to talk." She almost scoffed at his last words. Need? She almost let out, but chose not to. That wasn't necessary.

"Look, Ramlah."

Ramlah held back the laughter that crawled up her throat.

"...I'm sorry," she raised a brow. "...for the hurtful words, for hitting you..." This was getting so difficult for him. He had a whole script planned out in his head, now, gone. "I'm sorry for everything."

"Ramlah, please look at me, at least."

Ramlah pasted a hurtful mask and sat up, the quilt slipping to her waist from the abrupt movement. She looked down, arms crossed over her chest, refusing to meet his gaze. Ramlah kept mum, as every sad wife who had been slapped by her 'oh so lovely husband would.

"I get that I was in the wrong, I know, and I've come to realize that. That is why I'm here, asking for your forgiveness, and I mean it." Yazid rolled his lips in contemplation. Now what? Her silence and emotionless face smacked his hearing and vision. The silence was salt on his wounds.

The faint handprint on the cheek happening to be on his line of sight glared back at him. As if daring him to produce a twin for it. "Ramlah," he pushed.

She didn't know if a submissive wife would do what she thought was right, then, but she did anyway.

"Why do you hate me?" Her words sent a pang to his chest, his face fell. "What? No, no, why would you say that? I can never hate you, Ramlah. Never." He might've disliked her, but it was not exactly was she implied.

Hatred was a strong word.

She gave him a questioning look. "No, Ramlah, I don't. And will never," he sighed once more.

"I know we left off on the wrong foot, I only disliked you 'cause I..." He hesitated, the look she gave him urged the words out, "...I- you know what? Can we not talk about that? I'm sorry for hitting you, for every damn pain I brought unto you. I'm sorry. Fresh start?"

He pulled out his palm.

Ramlah seemed hesitant for a while, "what if you turn back to the..." She did not complete that. Monster he was? Another pang.

"I won't," he smiled softly. "I won't."

***

All so invested in the file beneath her gaze, the office door was forcefully swung open, to which she looked up, annoyance splashed across her facial features.

She sighed exasperatedly. "Yes?" Sadiya didn't bother concealing her expression. The enterer rolled her eyes and popped the gum in her mouth.

"Rita instructed me to give you this," and a file came flying onto the desk. Rita; the arrogant, bossy, black haired five-foot Medical Director. Long story cut short, she took advantage of the position she was in, to control the staff. Rita had an assistant, the nark before Sadiya that'd chosen to drop a file on her desk like hot coal striked a minuscule puzzle in her.

Sadiya winced for her - knowing how hard it must have been for her to say the word "instruct".

"She assigned another patient to you," again, that woman had inferiors. "Why not you?" This time, Nusaiba rolled her mouth in annoyance.

"You know the way to her office, I assume." One could tell the two weren't the best of pals. She had an assistant too. Was the day a World No Assistant Day without her knowing?

Nusaiba Adam, of twenty-six twelvemonths, born with a silver spoon and upturned nose. Schooled at a university in Pennsylvania - seldom no one didn't know about that part, anyway. Of course, her father was rich, he was bad in the petroleum field, so, one could only imagine. Albeit there was constantly tinsy bits of rumors that he was a launder.

"If that will be all." She was lowkey telling her to get the hell out of her office, just without having to say the exact words. She was in no mood for drama, as it was.

"An emergency in ward 132, Doc." That wasn't any of the rivals, it was the voice of Nurse Safeenah.

Her words rising action in Sadiya. She raised her head, only to be met with Doctor Nusaiba's glare. "I'd rather not have a certain person's eyeballs rolling on my sanitized floor." Sadiya couldn't help spewing the words as she brushed past the sore thumb in the room. She with the gum's face flushed light crimson.

"Shut my door on your way out, would you?" Sadiya's smile was anything, but sweet.

"The patient?" She turned a questioning gaze toward the nurse who'd seemed quite uncomfortable with the exchange between the two doctors.

"Oh, yes. Reported bleeding..."

And they left the red-faced woman behind them.

It was a miracle her teeth hadn't turned to granules, with how hard she was gritting them.

^-^

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