Can I Be Your Mrs?

14: Her Chef

She was cuddled up on her bed like how it had become a routine for her, whenever she came back from work, she did nothing but curled up into a fetus position in her bed or her living room, nothing appealed to her anymore. She wanted to go back home, so that maybe if she was there, she would feel relieved. But she couldn't do that when she was in this state of mind, she knew Mama would bombard her with questions of what was going on in her life, and there was no way she could tell her the truth. She'd rather go after she was back to her normal self when it didn't hurt as much as it did now.

Farha always made sure she called to ask how she was doing but it was always not like before. She didn't like the phone calls that much. She just wanted to be herself, alone, in her little world. She was sure she saw the flashing of her phone, it had been on silent mode for all she could remember, but she chose to ignore. Because she knew she wasn't in the right mind to have a proper conversation nor could she act as every other human did. She did more of breathing than she lived. The real meaning of life.

After a few seconds or even up to a minute with her phone's screen flashing, she heard the knocking sound on her door. Maybe it was the delivery man, because for the past days, since it happened, Farha almost ordered for her dinner and had it delivered to her. Jalilah would forever be grateful to her, because most of the times, she would have starved to death. She didn't have much energy left in her to cook for herself. She wanted to ignore the knocking, but the grumbling sound her stomach made was what reminded her that she needed the package, and she lazily pulled herself up from the bed. She wore her hijab and walked out to the door.

The knocks were getting persistent that she softly hissed and wondered what kind of an impatient man this delivery guy was, "I'm sorry, I'll be at the door. Don't break it please." She wasn't strong enough to yell, she would have done that.

She unlocked the door and when she saw the intruder, Jalilah couldn't hide her bewilderment. She couldn't believe what she was seeing right in front of her, were they the one. "Can we come in?" That was Wafiyya, as she smiled softly at her and that was when Jalilah knew what she was supposed to do.

She absentmindedly nodded her head and moved to give them the space to enter. She was glad Farha had forced her to clean her house yesterday if not, she would have been embarrassed. Because her whole house was a mess! But at least today it looked human enough. Wafiyya guided them to the living room and Jalilah walked toward her kitchen to get them refreshments. She was still not over the shock, and she wished she hadn't left her phone in her room, she would have called Farha and asked her what she should do, even though she didn't know what they came here for.

She walked into the living room with a feign smile on her lips as she dropped the refreshments and her cookies on the centre table. "You're welcome." She found herself a seat on one of the unoccupied sofas and stared at Wafiyya, that was the only safe place to look at. Sulaiman, had this big brother look that she suddenly found unnerving, and to talk about Yazeed? She knew if she looked at him there was nothing that could stop her from breaking into tears, she was still not over everything. Just seeing him now had brought everything back to her in such a speed that it nearly knocked her out of her breath.

They took the refreshments before Wafiyya looked at her with a smile, "I just escorted them, more like escorted him." She pointed at Sulaiman and that was the first time he had smiled. "I'm team Jalilah today, forget about the Bunza I have on my last name." Jalilah forced out a chuckled and she turned to look at Sulaiman. She wondered what was happening. And who the hell among them managed to bring Yazeed to her house?

"Good evening, HR." She greeted once again, and he smiled at her.

"Call me Sulaiman, please. You're looking up the creek, we're not here to kidnap you, Jalilah. Please be your normal self." He joked, and she eased off a bit. Funny how having a visitor in your house would make you such uneasy that you'd wish you were the visitor so you could leave.