Loving You

chapter eighteen

Please be okay. 

Durdanah breathed hot air into her cold hands rubbing against one another. The weather was cooling down as the seasons were changing, leaving the nights particularly chilly, but she didn't care. She needed the fresh air to cope with the anxiety, and watching the sky at night helped her nerves. As she caught the faintest glimpse of the moon behind the clouds, she hoped it was a sign that Hamsa would be okay.

Feeling guilty for distracting Yusuf and diverting his attention from his daughter, Durdanah wished she hadn't picked a fight with Yusuf just then. If she hadn't let her issues get in the way, Hamsa wouldn't have fallen off the bed while crawling and hurt herself so badly.

While talking, neither of them had realized she had woken up in the bedroom and Durdanah couldn't help but feel this could have been avoided. A biological mother would not have forgotten her daughter for even a moment — and Durdanah did. A pang of hurt ran through her body as she remembered that even Yusuf had made the distinction when he grabbed Hamsa and ran to drive her to the hospital without sparing a single thought to Durdanah. She had ran all the way down with him, consumed with worry for Hamsa and waited for him to unlock the door when he sat in the driver's seat but to her dismay, he drove off, leaving her standing in the cold underground parking garage.

In that moment, he had made her an outsider. Durdanah was nothing more than an interloper. Maybe even less. She was nothing.

And as she turned her back to the moon, and headed inside with her heart heavy with guilt, worry, anxiety, panic and all the feelings she couldn't put into words for a girl she so desperately wished was her own daughter, for a small moment so brief that it was gone in a blink, bitterness consumed Durdanah.

He would never have left Rania stranded alone like this with their daughter in the hospital.

***

Yusuf ran his hands down his face, desperately trying to conceal the tears threatening to spill in front of his co-workers. This was not his first time here. He worked at the ER every day for the past couple years. Saw horrific cases. Children battered and bruised. And he had seen children die in this very room in front of him. Not once had it ever crossed his mind that in place of them, would be his own daughter one day.

Now that he had to sit and wait for hours to find out what was going on with Hamsa, Yusuf felt guilty for all the times he had felt frustrated by impatient parents and family members as he operated. He wouldn't wish this kind of heart wrenching, self consuming fear on his worst enemy.

Hamsa was all he had. She was his purpose and if anything happened to her, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. This is why he shouldn't have gotten married. This is why he was hesitant. He was so caught up in his newfound partnership with his wife that he had neglected his daughter and it had resulted in this. His worst fears were coming true.

"Yusuf?"

The voice was familiar, yet his name on her tongue was foreign.

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This is a half chapter LOL and therefore super short but I wanted to do an update so bad while I write the rest! Next chapter should be twice as long and the usual length now that I'm back🤞🏼