Burnt Embers

Chapter One

They don't know the promises he makes to her at the late hours of the night, they don't know how her heart beats accelerate whenever he's around ,they don't know how he makes butterflies erupt in her tummy and she guessed they'll never know. She's more than happy to be his and can't wait to spend forever with him. There will be hurdles but they promised each other cross each of them together .

That was Khadija , getting married to her heartthrob, her first love and best friend Ahmad, they have been together for a long time, she just graduated from secondary school and due to lack of money to further her studies she choose to get married instead ,her Baba had tried his best sending her to a private school where she had learned a lot, the twenty five thousand naira school fees every term was hard to get but still he had tried and now he's old and frail not due to ageing but hardship .

Ahmad had finished secondary school and is working as a carpenter in one of the carpentry shops in the city. He had tried securing admission in any of the tertiary institutions but to no avail thereby deciding to get married instead of waiting for what he thought he will never get .

Khadijah is an introvert. A very decent and shy girl ,but she's a different story when she is with Ahmad and her closest friends ,they used to tease her about having a double personality, she hardly talks unless she's been spoken to and she always smiles at annoying and amusing things, a very patient lady who takes life easy and never over step her boundaries , she had suffered in the hands of her mates who were born with a silver spoon at school but she never give them the satisfaction to see that they hurt her ,they have never seen her tears and no one know what she has gone through and Alhamdulillah it's all over now and she's getting married .

There wasn't any much crowd at her house since it's just the nikkah ceremony and conveyance of bride , her father had insisted that she should organise a walimah for her friends but she had politely declined saying that what they have done is enough , she knows that her parents had gone extra miles to see that they buy the necessities she will need to take to her husband's house and the traditional Gara is enough to make them bankrupt ,after all the most essential event is the solemnization of the marriage , then that's enough ,she knows too well how they are suffering and she's not ready to make her beloved suffer more because of her , she's letting go of her dreams of furthering her studies for them after all ,she loves Ahmad so much ,but she has a dream and he understood and encourage her to pursue it but fate had other plans for them so she had asked him to bring the proposal and within months here she is already crowned as his wife .

" Mabruk habibty , now your dream had come true ,uwargida a gidan Ahmad,mashaa Allah am so happy for you dear" Zainab her friend since childhood yodelled giving her a hug ,Khadija didn't say anything and Zainab playfully smacked her saying " Because you're now a married woman that's why you are feeling too big to talk to the singles huh ?" She cocked a brow waiting for an answer but all she could get from Khadijah is a small smile and the movement of her head sideways .The rest of her closest friends came in a while later and they huddled around her teasing her and yodelling .

Her Nokia torchlight rang and she knew it was him ,her heart fluttered at the thought and the girls gave her some privacy by giving her naughty looks and leaving the room in two's and three's .Ahmad had bought the phone for her when she was in SS2 and the sim they use is a CUG he always manage to recharge it for them after every month. She called him back again and he picked at the second ring .

" Assalamu alaikum Cat Mrs Ahmad " she face palmed , he started calling her cat the first time they met, telling her that her eyes reminds him of cats from that day onward he used to call her that from annoying it becomes endearing to her .

" Wa'aikassalam Mifteey " she calls him Mifteey meaning the key to her heart ,her key .
" Alhamdulillah, today is the happiest day of my life, having you as my other half , we've been partners in crime and today you're crowned as mine, I fear that I might not do right by you but I pray that Allah will give me the means to treat you like a Queen because you deserve the world in a flatter of gold " its his words that captured her heart right from the beginning , the way he praises her ,makes her feel worthy like she means the world to him always makes her happy and now that she's married to him ,she suddenly felt shy just like the first time he had asked her to be his girlfriend, she kept mum for a long while until he told her that he knows she is on the phone and that there's no more shy shy between them ,she had laughed at that " Alhamdulillah ,am happy also dear may Allah bless our Union and may we have a lasting peace " she had said finally and he heaved a sigh of relief .
" Ameen thumma amin,see you later wifey and don't forget your promise " He hadn't forgotten what she told him three years back when he teased her by saying he will marry her someday and she had glared at him telling him that it will never happen and she's gonna give him a resounding slap whenever she opened her eyes and see herself in his house as his lawfully wedded wife , it was a stupid promise she don't wanna fulfil considering the fact that it happened when he was this annoying stalker who gets on her nerves ,she was so young and naive that time ,thinking of nothing but her studies but Ahmad is the kind of person that easily captures hearts seeing that she will not let him date her, he choose the other alternative of friend zoning himself till she was so free around him ,telling him everything and running to him with her problems,how can he let this innocent damsel slip off his fingers ? He had mused and the day she came to him with so much excitement telling him she had gotten a boyfriend he just had to tell her about his real feelings for her and that was the beginning of Khadija and Ahmad's love story a love admired by all , a love so pure and honest you can feel it from a hundred mile radius .She is the sister he never had and brother she never had unknown to them the burning embers of love between them will soon burn to ashes .Whose fault will that be ??