I Want You to Stay

Chapter 1

Hana's POV

Standing in front of my mother's hospital bed, watching her take what seemed to be her last breaths before the cold and sinister disease that affects her heart, takes her away from us. I once heard that life is cruel. I didn't want to believe it. I had everything I wanted... Until today. All I wished for was for my mother, the woman who sacrificed everything for me, the woman who raised me alone, after my real mother passed away. I just wanted that woman to stay alive for a couple more years.

Tears roll down my eyes like a waterfall as I hold my mother's hand tight.

"Mum, please don't leave me!" I cry as I watch her close her eyes.

"I-I... I won't... I'm just tired... I-I... I w-will wake up... After a sh-short nap... I p-promise." She tells me between breaks and opens her hand to reveal a small piece of paper with an address on it and a message underneath.

I look back at my mother as her eyes close completely and I fall onto the edge of her bed, crying my lungs out. She has been severely ill but she never passed out on me like that. She always tried hard. She never gave up this easily.

"Mum, wake up! Please, wake up!" I hold her hand tight as the nurses come running into the room and ask me to wait outside, but I refuse as I hug my mother's probably now lifeless body. "Mum, I am not losing you as well... Mum, please wake up... Please..." I hug her tighter when the nurses try to pull me away from her. "Let go of me! I am not leaving her!" I scream on top of my lungs but they carry me out and close the door behind me. "Please let me go in. I can't lose her. She is all I have... Please..."

"Try to remain calm, it is not a lost case yet. We will recover her. We will try our best." The nurse who remained outside with me says.

"No! What my mum needs is the surgery that you criminals refuse to get her!" I scream attracting eyes on us.

"I'm sorry, but for the surgery to happen, we need to get the surgery fees first or at least 15% of it before we can begin. I am sorry, I am only following orders. Perhaps a family member of yours could help. I know you said you only have your mother who raised you, but she kept talking about someone named Qasim." The nurse says and looks at the paper I had in my hand which my mother gave me, before going back inside.

Qasim?

I look at the piece of paper that my mother gave me and I find the same name on it with an address.

But why does this address seem so far?

I put the address on Maps and it shows that this person lives in France, which was where I and my mother were living before we came to the UK. But I was really young. I don't remember a thing.

I sit down on the hospital benches, hopeless. Is my mother even going to wake up? I can't go all the way to France and leave her here alone.

I look at my wristwatch and it was already Isha time, so I lay down my prayer mat right there outside my mother's hospital room and pray my salah without minding the many people staring. Every prayer for me was an opportunity to call upon Allah and to make dua for my mother.

As I am done praying and I start making my dua, the nurse from earlier leaves the room and she waits until I'm done and I have folded my prayer mat, before speaking. "We have got her back." She tells me with a smile and my tears begin to slide again. "But she won't last long without the surgery. She repeated the same name again and asked if he is here." She tells me and I look at the address again on my phone.

I've been saving for my mother's surgery for three years now and they won't accept it because it's only 3% of the total money. Perhaps if I use that money to go to France and get this man... I wish my mum had given me his number instead.