Bound ✅

Heartless

I know😶 and I'm very sorry. I promised yesterday and then didn't update. Sorry about that. Please, vote and comment. Na beg I beg. Thank you also for 70k 🎉🎉🎉🎉

August 12

A knock at the door woke Halima from the mini snooze she was in. She got up with a deep sigh and wore her bedside slippers, slipping on the floor-length purple hijab lying on the bedside bench over her violet pyjamas.

The knock sounded again, this time gentler. She reached the door finally and opened it to Jamal's smiling face. Then, she widened her own lips into a smile.

"Good Morning!" He greeted chirpily. She nodded and greeted him back, watching him adjust himself of her door frame. He was wearing a pair of black khaki shorts and a sweatshirt with 'Nile University' written on it. She understood why he was wearing such a sweat shirt, she read somewhere that he lectured at the University's business school once a week.

"How was your night? Sleep fine in a new room and the thunderstorm?"  She smiled and nodded that she had slept very well, even woken up in time for Fajr. It had rained from around twelve to around Fajr time.

"Good, so I came to ask, do you like oats?" She nodded. "Yes. I like them. Let me brush my teeth and make some for you. I'm sure you must be hungry, sorry I slept so late." She watched as the muscles of his face arranged into a frown.

"I didn't ask you to come make it. Yes, you could go freshen up, I should have been done making it by then. Just take two turns after the end of the staircase to get to the kitchen." Halima sighed and slouched. She definitely was not expecting that from him, so she nodded quietly and walked back into the room when he walked away.

She sat on the padded bench and leaned back, bracing her elbows on the bed, stunned. Halima wondered what kind of training his mother instilled in him. She deserved a medal for the kind of man she raised.

Halima got up and wandered to the window and parted the cream curtain with chocolate brown embroidery to look down at the car park and the house that she could see across the road.

She walked to the bathroom and sighed as she looked at the decor again. It was all like a dream. Her room was decorated in shades of brown, with a vanity table, mirror placed on a side, near the bathroom door. Her bathroom had a glass shower box and white ceramic bath-tub, a small vanity mirror in front of the washbasin.

Hajjo had helped her unpack her cosmetics the previous day, the vanity table was filled with her bottles of humra, spray gel, body creams, hair products and makeup. She swiped a container of scrub and applied some to her face.

As she waited for the scrub to activate, she went to her stack of boxes and took out a dark blue atampa skirt and blouse that she would wear later in the morning. She also took out a light blue veil to wear over it and placed them all on the bed and entered the bathroom.

When she came out, she wore the atampa and wore the purple hijab over it. After eating, she mused, she would come back to finish dressing. She came out of her room and shut the door behind her and walked the carpeted hallway painted in dark green and arched ceilings.

She reached the kitchen very soon, the rug hiding her footfalls. When she touched the door, it swung open and she walked in. Jamal was scooping oats from a pot into two bowls. She walked in further and waited for him to finish.

"You're here? Good." He took another bowl, filled with cut up bananas and strawberries and scooped some unto each full bowl of oatmeal.

"Here. That's yours. Have a seat." He pointed at the eat-in breakfast bar holding the granite kitchen island. Halima sighed and took the spoon wedged in the food and took a bite skeptically. She swallowed eagerly after finding out that it tasted really good.