A walk on thorns

Chapter 37| Trapped

Sabrina's POV

"Stupid girl! Will you stop shedding these fake crocodile tears and look at me?!" Hajiya Zahra shouted at Anisha.
"Were you not the one who heartlessly did it? Huh?! Along with your shameless sister telling me that if I think you aborted the baby, why didn't I kill my son before giving birth to him?!" she sneered.

"Is that what she said?!" Mukhtar asked, shocked and bewildered.

"Did you even listen to me before hanging up? That's exactly what she said. But right now, it's the last thing I care about, Mukhtar. You providing a male child is my priority!" Hajiya Zahra proclaimed with a sense of finality.

"A male child can't be bought in the market, Madam!" Mukhtar shot back rudely.

"I should be the one to tell you this, Mukhtar Wazeeri!" she snapped. "If a male child could be bought, you wouldn't be my only son. I would have been at ease by now. You're not a child anymore. Get your act together and start behaving like the man you are supposed to be!" she scolded.

"Okay, Ma," he replied mockingly, leaning back with a smirk, clearly enjoying her frustration.

"What does that mean?!" she thundered, furious.

"Look, Hajiya," Mukhtar continued, his tone turning more serious. "My girlfriend is not ready to be a mother, and this trash you've forced on me does nothing but eat, sleep, and annoy the hell out of me! She killed almost four babies, and you're here shouting at me? What is wrong with you?!" he yelled.

What the heck? A revelation like that! Anisha? Four babies? Innalillahi! This was awful, something was definitely off.

Hajiya Zahra slammed her satchel onto the table, making an explosive noise, then stormed toward Anisha. I couldn't help but notice how every single fault seemed to get twisted and manipulated into Anisha's fault. Honestly, it was maddening how Anisha tolerates this nonsense. Watching her flinch in terror was both hilarious and frustrating, it was a mix of wanting to laugh and cry at the same time.

"In your pathetic life, the only thing you could destroy in this house is my son's life? Why, Anisha? Why?!" Hajiya Zahra raged, faking an attempt to slap her. Anisha flinched, covering her face instinctively.

"Hajiya... I am so sorry... it's not my fault... I..." Anisha cried bitterly, her voice breaking.

"Whose fault is it, then? Whose?!" Hajiya Zahra yelled, her voice echoing through the room. "That's what you've been saying from day one, and you're still saying it! Who's fault is it, Anisha?!"

"But Hajiya, have you ever listened to her?!" Naziya, the girl in Ankara, interjected, her voice steady but laced with concern.

"Don't you dare interfere in this, Naziya! Don't!" Hajiya Zahra warned angrily, her eyes narrowing.

"As you were saying, young lady, whose fault is it? Because you know what? I'm tired! I'm exhausted and fed up with you and your devilish character!" Hajiya Zahra shouted, her voice cracking with rage, far louder than anything I expected.

"It was him!" Anisha blurted out. The words hit like a thunderclap, so unexpected and heavy that for a moment, I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. The truth was breaking free, the dam finally cracking cos how can you be a human and be able to accumulate torture to this extent!

Mukhtar turned swiftly, his face showing disbelief, while Nadeera looked up, shocked. Hajiya Zahra's eyes widened in utter disbelief.

"What did you just say?!" Hajiya Zahra asked, her voice trembling with disbelief as Anisha began to shake her head in denial.

"Talk!" Hajiya Zahra roared, her voice rising to a fever pitch, demanding the truth.

"Hajiya, it was that day at the gym... He... he beat me... and stomped on my... stomach..." Anisha's voice trembled as she stammered through the words, her breath hitching painfully. And then it happened, her tears. The way she was crying, they way they poured out, not in the usual quiet trickle of sorrow I had seen before, but in heavy, wrenching sobs, as if a dam had broken within her. It was a cry of agony that felt like it came from the very depths of her soul, hoarsely inhuman, the sound of it sent a chill through the room, an aching, raw cry of a mother, of a woman who had endured a torment too long held inside and a mother who lost her child with no liberation to speak about it. I couldn't help but feel the weight of her grief, the kind that doesn't just speak to the loss of a child, but to everything she had been silently carrying.