FLAWED SOULS

CHAPTER 23: A DIMPLED LADY (2)

"... Your love I'm lusting even though I'm nothing to you, no..."

~Lewis Capaldi--- Bruises

•••• •••• •••• ••••
They went back into the living room and this time she sat next to him.

"I hope by now you've realized I didn't really have anything important to talk to you about and that I just wanted your company."

Muhammad shrugged, "I think I've always known that."

"Smart. I like." She winked at him and he simply shook his head at her.

"I have homemade yoghurt, will you like some?"

He stared at her in shock, "after that meal? You just want me to explode from overeating." He joked.

"Nope, I just want you to grow fatter. You look like your wife doesn't feed you enough. See how thin you are" She said laughing

"Ummi..." He warned even though he had a small smile on.

"Okay fine, no bad word about the lucky woman who snagged you off the market."

He didn't reply her and they both say down side by side quietly.

"My parents hates me you know, that's why I can't get my paintings from there. I can't go to their house." She said in a small voice. He turned to look at her, she was staring right at a painting on the wall almost unblinkingly.

"What?" He asked even though he heard her perfectly.

"My parents, they hate me." She repeated.

"I'm sure they don't." It sounded ridiculous. Hajiya was the worst mother he'd ever met and even she doesn't hate her children.

"They do. They told me."

He was shocked, "they told you? Why?"

She smiled sadly, "isn't it easy to guess? I converted. I've always been a Christian, I grew up in a Christian home and then one day I decided to change my religion, of course they should hate me."

Muhammad was speechless, he had nothing to say. He simply knew she was a revert but he'd never really thought of how she'd done it, her relationship with her family, why'd he when most of the time he spent it avoiding her and her flirting.

"They hated him. Hassan was his name and they hated him because he was a Muslim but I loved him with all my heart. He was the nicest person ever, the kindest and funniest."

Muhammad noticed how she used was to describe this guy. It was the same verb he used when talking about Jamilah, not that he ever did.

"He smiled the brightest and never gave up, he was a believer. He believed everything happens for a reason and barely anything made him sad, it was like he knew he wouldn't be in this world for long so he lived freely and as happily as he could. Do you know how that feels? To always be happy? To never let anything get to you and look at the world with bright eyes full of hope?"

She looked at him and Muhammad shook his head as an answer to her question.

She smiled at him, "me neither but Hassan did, I loved him so much God and he loved me too but he wanted to explore, he wanted to see everywhere, everything, it was hard to not love him. He did the riskiest of things with a laugh on his face as he called me a bore when I screamed at him he shouldn't."

It was like she was talking to herself, she simply stared at the painting, her sad smile still in place. Muhammad let her even though he wanted her to stop, he was beginning to remember Jamilah and he didn't want to.