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c h a p t e r 54: A Moment For Us

Another update before I go MIA. I'll edit pretty soon

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Beverly

"I love your mom," I tell Zayyad when we get into the room.

He stretches, yawning slightly, "Everyone loves her. She's the pillar of the Danjuma family." He walks over to the bed and collapses on it.

"Are you tired?" I ask him.

"A little bit. I hate plane rides, you already know that,"

The room is as big as the one back in Zayyad's penthouse, but with the decorative taste of a younger guy. The bed is queen-sized, resting at the end of the wall with pictures and posters hanging above it—there are pictures everywhere like I'm in a museum telling Zayyad's story.

"Don't you think you think you should take a nap?"

"Babe, I don't take naps, I hibernate. If I close my eyes now, I'm gonna sleep into tomorrow,"

I chuckle, "Then don't sleep because I wouldn't want to be late for dinner," I tell him, walking closer to take a better look at the pictures lined up in different frames on the dresser next to the bed: There's one with Zayyad as a toddler, his father is carrying him but he's crying and reaching out for his mother who's standing next to his father, holding a baby in her arms. "You're so ugly in this picture,"

"Ugly in what picture? Zayyad and ugly can't be in the same sentence, that's impossible,"

"In this picture where you're crying? You're fuckin' ugly here. How old were you?"

He chuckles, "I'm ugly in that particular picture, I don't know why my mom has refused me to take it down,"

"You were not a cute baby at all,"

"I was... that picture of me crying is the only ugly one I've got," He stands up from the bed and walks over to me. "See this one," He shows me one he just picked up, "It was on Sallah day, my favourite picture,"

In this picture, six kids are sitting on a white four-seater couch. "That's you," I point when my eyes land on the golden brown-skinned boy in the middle with a smile on his small face, looking way more innocent than he is now.

"Yeah, that's me," He affirms with the never-changing smile. "And, right there is my older brother, Hamza..." He points at the light-skinned pre-teen sitting at the left end of the chair, "...that's my older sister, Halima, I was born right after her," He moves his index finger to the chubby girl sitting next to Hamza, "Next to Halima is Zainab, she's the oldest sibling, and that right there is Nafisat, the baby of the family." I look at the skinny girl, Zainab, who has a toddler, Nafisat, sitting on her thighs and I smile, everyone's so small, precious, and beautiful.

"Do I get to meet them today?"

"Yeah, definitely. I haven't seen them in like a year,"

"That's a long time,"

"I know,"

My eyes land on the girl sitting at the right end, he didn't say anything about her, so I ask, "Who's that?"

"Um, that's Aisha,"

"Is she your sister, too?"

"Was,"

My brows crease, "Did something happen to her?"

"Yeah, suicide," He casually mentions, placing the picture back at its original spot and walking to the bed.

"Why?" I ask, following him.

"I don't know," He answers, uninterested.

It feels like I've punctured his mood, and I badly want to 'unpuncture' it. Is there even a word like that? "Sorry I asked," I apologise, sitting beside him.