Rapture

Part 5

Five missed calls. He didn’t even want to look at the ID because he had a good idea who it will be. That guy will just never give up. He knew that a muslim shouldn’t stop talking to his brother for more than 3 days, but he couldn’t help but feel betrayed every time he tried to pick up his calls. He had forgiven him, but that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt.

Suhail had broken up with his sister and left her a wreck. She wouldn’t talk to anyone for days and that’s the reason why he couldn’t bring himself to talk to him.

He didn’t support their relationship right from the start but there wasn’t much he could do since she was a grown woman and could make her decisions herself. But that doesn’t mean his big brother attitude would just varnish because she didn’t agree with him on this point.

The only reason he wasn’t hostile about it was because he trusted that suhail would do the right thing. They were both good people and Alhamdulillah they knew where not to cross the line but he still wished he hadn’t trusted them both to do the right thing.

He has also been avoiding work for the past few weeks for as much as he could. At first it was easier because he had planned to go on a business trip, but after he got back, he tried to work from home as much as he could. But there is only so much that he could do from home. If he doesn’t start talking to suhail soon enough, their company was going to suffer from it.

He has always been one to agree with the statement that one should never mix business life with personal life, but now that he was faced with that situation, he could see just how hard it really was. Running his hands through his already messed up hair, he got up and went to the one place he knew he would always get advice available; his mother.

Walking to her door, he was still contemplating on whether he should tell her or not. She only vaguely knew what was going on. She had no idea that the guy who broke her precious daughter’s heart was none other than someone she saw as a son.

He didn’t know how she would react to this but he had to tell her anyway. He needed to let it out. Knocking on her door, he waited till he got a reply before walking in.

“Salam mum.” He said while settling down on her bed

“Wa alaykum salam dam dam.” She said with a teasing smile, while setting her book down. She knew how much he disliked that name so she used it at every opportunity that she could.

“mum seriously? No wonder I’m still single.” He said frowning playfully. Carefully, she placed his head on her lap and began smoothing the nest he made his hair into. The love of a mother could always put you at ease on your worst days.

“So today you choose to blame your single status on me. The reason why you’re single is because you work so much and you keep rejecting all those proposals that mothers are always suggesting. Do you want me to start adopting cats and claiming them as my grandchildren?”

Laughing, he replied, “Don’t worry mother. You don’t need to resort to that. But I actually came to talk to you about something else” he finished going serious.

“If it’s about naima then it’s about time you kids tell me what’s going on.” She said with a sigh.

He knew his mother suspected something was wrong because suhail had stopped coming over ever since it happened. He would not be surprised if she already knew. Mothers always somehow knew.

“It’s not like we are hiding anything from you, but I feel it’s more like we don’t know what to say. You raised us all better than this and I think we are ashamed that we have failed you”, he paused, “it was mostly my fault because I should have said something mum but I didn’t. Naima was dating suhail. And now he has broken up with her and I don’t know what to do.