Muslimah Next Door { Editing }

{ 5 } Hospital

{ Saabira }

After Yasin and I came back from school, I want to my -also known as Ifrah's- room. I'm so angry at that James guy. He's so annoying.

"Saabira, come to my room please!" I hear Yussuf shout.

"Okay, wait, I just have to change," I say, walking through the door to "my" room.

I quickly take off my short abaya and my light pink hijab. I put my bag on the bed and get out of the room.

"SAABIRA!" Yussuf yells.

"I'm coming," I yell back. I walk into the room.

I stand there for a moment while he looks down at his phone.

"What did you need, Yussuf?" I ask in a polite voice.

"Um- I have really goo-" he's cut off by the phone ringing.

He picks it up, forcing me to stand there, waiting for him.

"Can I tell you later, please?" He asks.

"Yeah." I smile and leave.

I really should find a job, I think.

"SAABIRA!" I hear Ifrah call me.

Why is everyone yelling my name today? I thought.

It's national day of yelling, Saabria. Gosh, I hate it when the voice in my head is like this. She's probably right. And yes, she's a girl.

"I'm coming," I shout back, dragging my feet to Ifrah's room.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" Ifrah says with popcorn in her right hand. In her left, she's holding a movie.

"What movie is it?" I question, glancing at the popcorn.

"It's The Interview," she replies.

"Yeah, okay. Only if I can I hold the popcorn," I say, eying the popcorn once again.

What? Popcorn is awesome.

"No. You go downstairs and make your own popcorn, 'cause I won't share," she says with a glare.

"Ugh. Fine. Pause the movie while I'm gone, though," I order.

I leave the room and walk down the stairs. Once I get in the kitchen, I hear a shattering sound coming from the right.

And then it hit me. Literally.

A rock flew into the kitchen window and hit me. All I remember is the loud noise, and I fell.

Later on, I wake up. All around me are police, ambulance lights, and blood. What happened, where am I?

"Saabria. Saabria." I hear someone calling my name, but I don't know where the voice is coming from.

"Saabria, it's me Ifrah. I'm right here beside you."

"What happened?" I repeat, but out loud this time.

"You got hit with a huge rock, and you fell in the kitchen." The room went silent.

From the corner of my eye, I see the very rude and bias neighbor of ours, James.

He looks drunk. He knows something.

The police are probably going to question him.

I close my eyes for a while, I hear the ambulance driving away. I don't care where I'm going at the moment due to all the pain I'm feeling. I wish it would just leave.

I'm praying to Allah that I will make it safe to the hospital and that they would take care of me.

I keep having flashbacks from one time when James looked me in the eye.

Something really fishy is going on here, I think.

I finally arrived at the hospital, Alhamdulillah, safe and sound. The pain is getting worse. "Oh Allah, help me, please," I pray under my breath.

Nurses and doctors are all around me, talking to each other and asking if am okay.

"You'll be fine, you'll be fine."

"Can you hear me? Blink if you can."

"Stay awake, hun. You might be sleepy, but you just have to stay awake."

I just want this pain to go away.

I'm getting more and more tired and the voices start to fade away. I no longer know where I am.

The pain is slowly getting worse, I can feel it, but at the same time, I'm losing sight of it. From this point on, everything goes black.

◈

As I was waking up, I could hear people talking.

I couldn't understand what they were saying, but it sounded like two male voices and one female voice.

I started to try sitting up on my bed, rubbing my eyes to get all the eye crusts out.

After a while, as I was sitting there, I heard the same voices from earlier. I look to my left and see three police officers standing there, looking right into my eyes.

One of them introduces himself. "Hi, there Saabria. My name is Officer John, This is Officer Mary and Officer Mike."

"Hi," I say, scared and feeling shy.

"So, Saabria, we're here to ask you about the incident that happened last night," Officer Mike informs me.

"Could you answer our questions, please?" Officer Mary says as she steps closer to my bed.

"Um... yeah, sure, why not?" I reply hesitantly.

"Ok, well, did you see the rock flying into your house?" Officer John says whilst sitting down on the chair next to my bed.

"No, actually, I didn't," I reply.

"Well do you have any idea who threw it?" Officer Mike asks, writing down the information that I just gave him

"I really don't know who might have thrown the rock, but I kinda have a hunch," I said, sitting straight up on the bed, which, let me tell you, was really conformable.

"Who do think it might be, Saabria?" they all enquired at the same time.

"Well, we have a neighbor named James. And he hates- HATES Muslims. I went over to his house the first night that I moved in with my uncle, there was loud music playing. I couldn't fall asleep. I knocked on his door, and his breath reeked of alcohol. I asked him nicely to turn down the music, but he just snapped at me. He told me to go back to my country if I didn't like it here. He pushed alcohol at me, thinking I would run from it, just because I'm a Muslim."

"We've actually talked to Mr. James about it last night. !e thought he did it too. He informed us that he didn't," he said.

"Oh. Okay then," I reply.

"Have you had any encounters with Mr. James since that day?" Asks Officer Mary.

"No, ma'am, I haven't," I respond.

"Ok. Thank you, Saabria, for this information. We'll see what we can do," Officer Mike says while walking out the room.

All the officers leave the room and I'm sitting here alone, trying to figure out who might have done this to me.