Only You

thirty-one

I felt my face get warm, as I saw him walking towards us in his white dress shirt and blue tie, his gaze focused on the paper he held distracting me with his impeccable looks.

"Quick, hypothetically what do we do if he decides to go down to get coffee. I'm pretty sure he does because it's the middle of the day but hurry what's the plan." Zahra blurted quickly.

"We? No, you! I'm not going to talk to him, I'm scared." I said,

She began to speak but then he came to us.

"Dr. Illias," He called walking towards us,

A little panicky I pulled out my phone to act like I had an important task to do. I opened my email and wrote random stuff.

"This is for you." He said, giving her a paper.

Then I felt his gaze at me and I began to type quicker, as I grew more nervous. He began to walk away, and then Zahra called him.

"Wait, Dr. Khan! Where are you headed?"

"To the cafe, why?"

Oh No.

"Quick, act as if it hurts bad," Zahra whispered.

I looked at her baffled as to what she was saying, and then suddenly she tripped my foot making me fall down.

Act as if it hurts.

"AH!" I yelped.

I looked up to see Dr. Khan turn around quickly and stride towards us.

"CRY!" Zahra said.

I looked at her perplexed. I was going to kill her later.

I began to sniff.

"Are You Okay?" He said leaning down towards me and Zahra.

I looked up at him, and then It wasn't so difficult to fake cry.

What if Mariam didn't lie after all? This would really end forever. My tears welled up as I stared at him, but then I quickly looked down letting my tears fall to the floor.

"I'll be fine," I muttered inaudibly

I tried to get up, and Zahra helped me get up by my arm.

Jacob came in from behind Dr. Khan and gave a thumbs up to us.

I noticed that Dr. Khan was still staring at me, and I wanted nothing more than to disappear.

"Thank You," I said.

"Let's get back to work," Zahra said,

Dr. Khan was the first to walk away, as we gathered around each other.

"Are you okay?" Zahra asked.

"Yeah, a little overwhelmed," I said.

"I'm sorry that I didn't have another way of distracting him."

"Your good. So what'd you find?" I said.

"Let's go somewhere private," Jacob said.

We all went to Zahra's office as it was closer, and took a seat.

"We were right," Jacob said grimly.

"To begin, she said yes to a date with me. If she was so madly in love with Dr. Khan why would she? I asked her about her past job and she told me J's Diner. I also asked her if she had a boyfriend or any kids...and guess what."

"No, don't tell me," I said.

"She said no."

"What the hell!" I exclaimed.

"I know, and then most importantly I asked her what she did for a living as of now. She told me that she didn't have a job and she was in debt."

"What? The whole point of her leaving him was-"

"She's a gold-digger!" Zahra said.

"She left Dr. Khan when he was an intern, and then came back when she found out he was now the lead." She explained.

"We should call that diner and ask if she even worked there." She said pulling out her phone and quickly typing away.

She did ask me who the lead doctor was when we first met, and then she showed no interest in Haniah multiple times even though she insisted Dr. Khan to take her back because of her being Haniah's mother. Hadn't she paid back her debt? That's the reason she came back after so long because she was away paying back her loan sharks so they didn't disturb her family.

"Hello, yes I wanted to know if you guy ever hired a girl named Mariam Shekih before?"

"Yes, I'll hold,"

A minute passed as we waited for an answer.

"No? Are you sure?" Zahra asked, looking at us with widened eyes.

"Okay, Thank you." She ended the call.

"They never hired her. She's lying." Zahra said.

I put my head in my hands trying to get my thoughts straight.

"So everything she's doing right now is to trip Dr. Khan into paying for her needs," Jacob said.

"Wait. Let's start from the beginning. First, she comes to know of this hospital because of her brother's surgery. Then she finds out that the leader of the pediatric department is Dr. Khan, she realizes that he is no longer single and planning to marry me from overhearing others. She convinces me and makes me pity her enough to back out, then does the same to Dr. Khan but more obstinately and then gets a man to act as a part of her plan so we know she isn't faking it." I spoke.

I scowled at how shameless her actions were, and how if we hadn't proceeded with this she would've succeeded with her facade of loving Dr. Khan.

"But, what was she doing during these six months?" Jacob asked.

"You should've asked!" Zahra teased.

"HEY! I tried." He pouted.

"She could've been with someone else. Because How does she plan to re-marry Dr. Khan? He divorced her- Islamically she cannot marry Dr. Khan unless she had been married to another man." I said.

"I got it!" Jacob said.

"So here's the plan. Huda, you are going to talk to Mariam and ask her exactly what you just said- how is she going to marry Dr. Khan since blah blah blah and then she should be thrown off by that, but if that goes wrong you can score the other way and ask her why she told me she was single and 'childless'. Lastly, if that doesn't work then we'll have to just take this to Dr. Khan to let him be aware of how sketchy she is." He said.

I nodded at him.

"Where will I be able to find her though?" I asked,

He waved his phone at me and showed me her contact number.

"She invited me to dinner tomorrow night at La vie Restaurant." He said, making a disgusted face.

"That swine, how dare she go around asking guys out after making Huda go through hell and back," Zahra said slamming her hand on the table.

"Hey! No!" I scolded her.

"She's right though, I had to fist my hands for so long under the table while she flirted with me because all I kept thinking of was my best friend crying," Jacob said, showing me the small red marks on his hand.

"I love you guys," I said warmly.

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Hey! Do you guys like Zahra, Jacob, and Ruth? Comment down your thoughts!