𝓜𝔂 𝓫𝓪𝓫𝔂, 𝓶𝔂 𝔀𝓲𝓯𝓮

53# Body

ENROUTE CENTRAL MOSQUE,
ASOKORO, ABUJA.
JUNE, 2022.

To Zaynab, it felt like it'd been ages since she was last outside. From the second she sat on the car seat, till their company arrived at the mosque, her nerves hadn't let up. So much so that she could've been ignorant to the lack of noise in the car. Jamilah and Rahma had said their salams before getting into the car, but after that? Nothing.

Throughout the ride, Jamilah played on her phone, throwing Zaynab a concerned glance every few minutes. And Rahma...well, she looked like she wanted to become one with the car seat, sucked up into the leather and become a non-speaking, non-socializing automobile. Their seating arrangement itself was quite odd. Yahya had arranged for a limousine, one small one that wasn't all that long. On one of the seats sat Zaynab, with Rahma on the very edge, trying to blend in with the partition between them and the driver. On the other seat opposite theirs, Jamilah was sat, typing away on her new phone. Since she'd gotten the thing, she'd become addicted to it.

"Girls?", Zaynab called, drawing the girls' attention to herself. Jamilah put her phone aside, and Rahma straightened her back out a bit.

"What are your favourite things to do?", The older woman asked, peering at both of them curiously. The duo looked a bit confused, even glancing at each other for a second, and returning their confused glances to Zaynab.

Jamilah, however, seeming to recover from the shock first, sighed softly and then pursed her lip in thought. "For me, I think it'd be learning".

Rahma glanced at her in curiosity, as did Zaynab. Both women looked at Jamilah, with what seemed like a greater level of intensity, causing the girl to laugh nervously.

"Uhm...", she hummed in thought, trying to articulate the words in her mind. "Since I got here, I'd heard from different people about how much of a whiz I was, or how accomplished I'd been, or how kind I was. All of it was a bit too overwhelming for me...", she confessed, pausing with a far-off look. "...It still is, if I'm being honest".

Zaynab frowned, watching the girl speak. She felt something close to guilt overcome her, remembering that she'd reminded Jamilah of her being at the younger woman's graduation, on her first week living at their house.

"It used to get me down at first you know?", Jamilah laughed, mirthlessly. She hadn't realised how much of her inadequacies she'd pushed aside until she started to talk. It'd always just been Jamil and herself everyday; just talking, learning...loving. She'd never been able to bring up the lingering emptiness she sometimes felt, not when she could see his efforts to fill her moments with joy, and laughter...and food. The silly man!

So, she'd let herself bury her doubts, her fears. She'd welcomed the happiness and warmth Jamil brought her and tried to be content with him painting her beautiful with his words of mouth. Because to Jamil, she truly was beautiful; her flaws, miniscule in the presence of his commitment to her, his love for her.

Jamilah wondered sometimes, the kind of person she'd have been when no one else was there. The things about herself that nobody but yourself would ever know. And the thought that she might never get those answers, that she might never know who she was outside of whatever people had told her she'd been was yet another thing she'd buried deep inside. There was no place for doubts in her search for happiness, she'd convinced herself.

But being here, now, saying all these things...it made her wonder. It gave voice to the things she'd suppressed. "I love learning new things", she confessed, a bit surprised at how easily the thought came to her. "...things I'm told I'd learnt before, and the ones I'm told I'd never learnt before. Because, when I learn...", she paused, letting out a very unstable, very shaky breath. A tear fell on her cheek. When had she started crying?!