The Price Of Revenge

Twenty Two

They did not say a word to each other after getting into the car.

Now, they sat in the living room at home, with the same silence hanging between them.

Thirty minutes passed.

Forty.

Fifty.

An hour.

Another ten minutes passed before Fuad finally spoke.

"Did you know about it?"

"I swear, I never knew Salam had been in an accident before."

They fell silent again.

"He was my best friend, and so was she. They were my closest friends, and when they got married, I was so excited that they were finally going to start their lives together."

He stopped for a moment, his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Then he started hitting her. He was abusing her, and even though she tried so hard to hide it from me, I found out. They already had two children, and I didn't want them to separate, so I spoke to both of them. She would go through his things and mess them up, and he had no patience, so he would beat her badly. Eventually, I helped them sort out their problems, and things seemed fine."

"How did things go wrong when everything seemed perfect?" Rumaisa asked.

He looked at her, although his mind seemed somewhere else entirely.

"I have no idea. And it killed me every time I saw her beaten up and him bruised."

"Then what happened?"

"He told me she was pregnant and that he had received an offer from a company in Abuja. He was going to go and check it out. We celebrated and thanked God for the opportunity."

He swallowed.

"The next call I got was from the hospital. They told me he had been involved in an accident and that I was the last person he had called."

He paused again.

"I immediately drove to his house to tell her and console her and the children. It was two in the morning, but I drove to Abuja that night. By four in the morning, I was there."

"He was already dead when I arrived. I took the only belongings they could find and contacted some people I knew who could help me get his body back. I knew I couldn't drive in the condition I was in. His body was completely crushed. The doctors said it was a miracle he was still alive when the ambulance reached the scene."

His voice grew quieter.

"I wanted to be there when they brought the body so I could console her, but I didn't want to stand there looking at his body and watching the pain she was going through. Still, I had to go."

"I'm so sorry. I really am."

"By the time I finally got myself together, it had been two months and one week since the incident. That was when I noticed something."

Rumaisa listened quietly.

"The last time he and I spoke was around six in the evening. But I saw several missed calls from him. He called me so many times around midnight, which was his time of death according to the doctor."

He shook his head slowly.

"But I don't remember receiving those calls. They weren't in my call logs. I even went to an MTN office to ask about it, but nothing came of it, so eventually I gave up."

Rumaisa stood and moved closer before sitting beside him.

She placed a hand on his shoulder.

"That's the past, Fuad. It's all in the past. You should go and take a bath, then come back and eat something because you're only going to keep hurting yourself."