STAINED

Chapter 4

Lagos, Nigeria

Inaaya Abubakar.

After they had come back home, Ummi and Asmu retired to their bedrooms immediately, Inaaya undressed Ummita and tucked her into bed, then she went back to her room and freshened up, before laying down for the day.

Even after several attempts to sleep she still couldn't, so she gave up and stood up to perform ablution, she prayed two raka'ats and opened the holy Quran to read some of her favorite surahs, She started with Suratul Maryam, and when she came to her favorite Verse in the surah she could help but go into deep thoughts.

“We only descend by the command of your Lord. To Him belongs whatever is before us, and whatever is behind us, and everything in between"

After she had finished reading she felt much better, so she thanked her Lord and went back to lay down on her bed.

The phone beside her rang and she couldn't help but get startled at the ringtone, she had completely forgot to put it in silence, but again, who could be calling her at this late hour?

She let the phone continue to ring until the call ended, she sighed after the call had been cut off, praying to the Lord for the caller to not call again, but seemed her prayers went un answered because the shrilling ringtone started to play again.

Annoyed, and afraid to wake anyone up, she picked up the call and placed it on her ear without saying anything.

Dr Farouk on the other side couldn't say anything, he had planned to say a-lot of things to her, but as soon as she picked up that call it seemed like every inch of confidence was taken away from him and replaced with a certain fear he couldn't wrap his head around, Maybe it was a fear of rejection?

Hissing she touched the red button and ended the call, before blocking whoever it was.

His hand lingered on her contact, he wanted to call again, but what would he even say? how would he even start to explain himself ? After much contemplation he finally dialed her number.

"The MTN number you're trying to call is unreachable at the moment please try again later"-

Had she blocked him? No it couldn't be.

He called again and again, and he listened to the same thing again and again.

After finally coming to the conclusion that she had blocked him, he dialed another number.

The person on the other line picked up without saying anything, Dr Farouk knew he didn't care about any formalities so he went straight to the point,

"She has blocked my number, sir and now I don't know any other way to get to her"

"Then change your line, but whichever way, i want it done" and with that he hung up the phone.

___

After countless tossing and tossing she finally started to fall asleep, absentmindedly and half asleep she said her du'a before she fell into a deep slumber.

In the morning, she didn't have much to do, just a few things here and there, and also it had been long since they went out on a mother and daughter outing with Ummi, so she decided to take her to her favorite ice cream place, but they had to wait until After Magrib prayer because that was when Umma would come back, she went to see a friend.

"Asmu!" She called out, glancing at the wall clock.

"I'm coming!" The girl answered from inside her room.

Asmu was getting so late, it was past four already and she had a class at three thirty pm, she had tried- keyword being tried, to get her out of the house since three, but the girl was too stubborn, Umma would definitely make a fuss about this, she had already missed two of her classes in this semester, and she couldn't afford to loose more.