BRIDAL CONTEST

Chapter 17

Farhana wasn't sure why her husband was carrying face all through their test to confirm if the pregnancy is real.

"How's that possible Doctor", he let the cat out of the bag and then rephrased his statement, "she's on contraceptives".

One would think the second outburst is a justification for the first but she was more disturbed by the second. How did he know? Was that the reason why he didn't say anything because he doesn't want kids? Or not now? Now she dreads why she didn't have The Talk with him.

Look who has to bare the brunt for it.

She sat for the most agonizing fifteen minutes in the doctor's office hearing him go on and on about how no family planning instrumentation is 100% and 992 reasons theirs failed too.

What was more painful was the way her husband kept a neutral face refusing to let her in on his emotions.

On the drive home the car felt too tense a knife can cut through. She tried to distract herself with the elegant architecture of Abuja but what was in her mind was much bigger than Abuja, for it to take over.

So she blurted what was on the tip of her tongue "do you want the baby?" Fidgeting with her hands like she was some University student on probation.

His hands slipped off the steering wheel and then back to grab it immediately as if that didn't happen.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that? You still don't want my child even as it sits in your womb", she could see the hurt on his face and his weary look for sometime now not hiding in anyway.

"I never said....Whoa! Who even told you that?" She flinched.

"You taking contraceptives isn't enough reason to conclude you don't want to have a child with me?"

Lord. She uses her left palm to wipe her face. Why would you think that?

.
..
...

What are we doing? She asked the question that has been bugging her for centuries. She thought asking a guy about her stand in his life is cheap.

It means I'm desperate. That I want him so badly, that I love him more and he will want to have a cruise on that.

But the girls talked some senses into her without even knowing they did. That's the story of her life in a nutshell. She finds it hard to say out her problems and in return her Lord bless her with finding solutions in other people's predicament.

"What are we doing?" She can tell from his gasp that he is shocked, the fact that he was trying to buy time with the question he repeated is making her heart beat erratically. She has gotten her answer but she pray it's just her being paranoid.

"Yes Khalifa. Who am I to you? What are we doing?" She wouldn't give him time to continue torturing her. If he's not here to stay then it's time to nurse her wounds. If otherwise, then they have to address this his on and off thing.

"We've come this far without defining it, let's just go with the flow and see where it takes us to", he made the greatest damage with his words.

Rainin wayo. What does this nigga take me for? He might be my first love but I'm a first class student for a reason.

"Thank you for letting me know I've been trespassing in where does not belong to me-

-wh..." He wanted to interrupt her and she felt the disrespect getting too much so she shouted through the phone "don't you dare Khalifa. Just......... Goodbye. It was good while it lasted".

She ended the call before he hears her sniffing back the tears. Like an illusion she heard someone knocking the door, who could that be by this time? She walked to the door to get the answer to that.

In a chinos pant and t-shirt of the same color that hung to his body as if it was tailored with him in mind. Arshad stood in his glory looking at her penetratively and for a second she forgets that she's going through a heartbreak. Is that why she's seeing Mr COO in that light?

Amnah left the door not trusting herself with not ogling her cousin brother and he saw that as a cue to follow her suit. He sat beside her on the bed-bench and she could swear she went down a bit from his weight.

"Are you okay?" A three word sentence that unnerved her without much possession.

"I broke up with him", she let out the tears stinging her eyes since the beginning of her call with khalifa.

Arshad squinted his eyes at her.

Wasn't she the one that broke up with him?

Like she saw the question in his eyes she explained further when the tears subsided.

"He was on and off and when I asked him where I stand with him, he was saying gibberish".

Arshad shifted closer to her, her cries tugging the strings of his heart. He brought his hand to her shoulder to pacify her but the both of them jolted to opposite sides because if the zing they felt.

Arshad stood up abruptly and without saying a word he left the room, he couldn't walk back to his pad so he spent Only God knows how many minutes with his head and back to the wall of her room just outside the window stabilizing his breath.

There are times without number that he has been like that with Sophia and he has never felt that and the only difference between the two ladies is one is his maternal cousin while the other paternal, or is there any other reason?

She's your cousin and not your mahram, you shouldn't cozy up to her like that. Akwai aure tsakaninku.  His subconscious mind reprimanded.

Amnah on the other hand was beating herself up for it. She paced up and down the room berating herself.

You let a Man into your room, what else were you expecting? You and him secluded in a room at night, which type of a woman are you turning into?

Her subconscious mind was not helping at all so she let the sensible part of her mind to overtake her. Abluted and hijabed she offered two raka'ats of superrogetory prayer begging Allah to forgive her