Falling For Haneef

22.

Saleem's POV

Only Allah knows how much I've missed every single one of them, to think that they already concluded I was dead even broke my heart more. Well they're honestly not to blame at all, I was gone for almost three months.

I was the only survivor from the plane explosion, watching hundreds of lives leave this world in that explosion stirred up the raging hatred I now have for Haneef, which is the basis for the first question that pops up in my head for the past few months, Why would Haneef want to get rid of me?
He's someone I literally grew up with, we were together in all the phases of life, all the obstacles that life threw at us, we faced it together, so I've been wondering why he would do this to me. Why get rid of me suddenly?. It's not  as if we had a very bad beef or anything of that sort, so why?.

After I jumped off the plane down to the middle of the sea that day, I drowned and also got a very horrible infection which almost led to the amputation of my right leg. Some fishermen found me luckily, took me to their small village where I was treated with tons of herbs during the months I was away. I remember how I would always have a very high temperature on some days, feel nauseous on other days, I was a mess. The name of the village was qaryat alaeshab, which means the village of herbs.

People didn't frequent this village that much, only when they needed effective rare herbs which they grew, which helped me overcome these past few months. They were native Sudanese, they didn't have that many social amenities, there weren't schools or hospitals or banks or libraries or anything much. They basically didn't want to be part of the electronics influenced life.

They had vast farms for mostly their herbs and livestock, and everything was not modernised even a bit. There were countable homes in the village, with many beautiful children always playing around. They got married within themselves, and that's how they continued to grow, little by little maintaining their cultures and traditions. I'd always watch their happy smiles weakly, and when I got better, I was taken to one of the people considered rich in their village because he had a phone to call my family, which was just the day before yesterday.

I called Hafiz to inform him of my condition and my well being and he broke the news to the rest of my family before finally speaking with my Umma and Abba. I had carefully made sure to inform them about the cause of my absence these months and which is why, I'm yet to go back to Nigeria in order for Haneef to be unaware of my status. I don't know what he's going to do if he finds out my alive which is why, I told them to help me gather information as to what lead him to do that to me. It's all being done in secret. When I was informed about Zakiyah moving on with Haneef, God knows how betrayed I felt, I still feel.

Even though I know we weren't together for long, I felt we were building something true and irreplaceable only to hear that they were already the talk of Instagram as one of the cutest couples in town. I love Zakiyah with everything that I have, every bit of me has yearned for her right from when I saw her that day in her baggy uniform in school, looking adorably lost.

But she moved on with my bestfriend who tried to kill me, sucks right?. Well, I was informed that she and Juwairiyah had to leave the country for treatment and also that Haneef wasn't with them which made me wonder why he let his newly found love fight cancer alone, without him being by her side. That's not how he loves, well that's not how he loved Ameerah. He was literally willing to do anything just to keep Ameerah by his side, I remember how he courted her, went through different extremes just to have her, he was literally obsessed with Ameerah and now that he moved on with Zakiyah and isn't here by her side?, there's a missing piece in this story which I believe is going to answer all my questions and clear my doubt. If Haneef could try to kill me, what more could he do to the person I cherish deeply?