Can I Be Your Mrs?

21: Busy Streets

It had already been a week since they had come to what should she call it? Their house or his house? Whatever it was, she preferred to refer to it as his house. That made it nine days since she had left Abuja and ten days since she left Adamawa. It had been one hell of a ride, it had just been ten days since she had her life crushed down, her tears drained and she emotionally locked up. Mama was still not answering her phone call and she got tired of calling Fareeda to ask her to take the phone to her. She realized she was only making Mama angrier than she was by constant calling her, she finally decided to give her time, just like Farha suggested earlier.

She was in front of the building waiting for the driver to come to pick her up, she usually closed at 4:30 pm and she had called him but she guessed he got caught up in the Lagos traffic for nearly an hour now. Yazeed found the driver for her, he said that it would be tiring for him to be taking her to the ballet school and taking her back when she was done, the traffic in Lagos wouldn't easily support that. She loved that, because for the past three to four days, she couldn't be able to point a finger at the Yazeed she once knew. It was as if he got changed again. Not in a bad way, but he made sure their ways didn't cross in the house, it had been four days since she last saw him, but she didn't mind. She guessed it had to do with what he had done to her, somewhere in her heart Jalilah was sure there was that feeling still lingering.

"Khadija, your driver isn't here yet?" She heard her name being called followed up with a question and a tender hand on her shoulders. She wondered who it was, but when she turned, her eyes sparkled with her smile.

"Eunice, yes, I guess he gets caught up in the traffic. Today being Friday doesn't help a bit. I think I'd have to wait some more, leaving already?" She asked and stared at the bag slung on Eunice's shoulder.

She nodded her head softly and smiled, "Yes, I'm done with everything. My boyfriend is here to take me home. Until Monday, right?" She asked as Jalilah softly hugged her and nodded her head. She was the only person she had close to an acquaintance in the ballet school. Eunice was around her age, even though she looked more matured than Jalilah could ever pretend to be, and she was Igbo.

They bade each other goodbye before she walked across the street, where her boyfriend had parked. Jalilah watched as she waved at her until they disappeared before she heaved a sigh and smiled. She hugged her arms around her body and smiled, she truly loved Lagos in its late evenings, she didn't mind the bustling sounds of the vehicles as everyone rushed back home. Most of the times she knew those people wishing to go back home had someone or something waiting for them. It was either parents, siblings, girlfriends, wives or children, and it sounded appealing to her ears. Some rushed to go back home to watch football, some just plainly wanted to sleep like her. Just that she had to practice ballet before she always retired for the night.

When the clock moved past 6 in the evening, Jalilah knew she had to do something. She called David's phone again but it wasn't even going through, what happened along the way? She wondered and walked out of the building in its whole. She began trekking on the street while she wondered what would be of her life today. Yazeed must have gone back home already, even though she wasn't sure of the time he closed for work, it wasn't up to 6 pm. She put on her AirPods and began to cherish the solitude if she could call that solitude. As much as she was amid passers, rumbling vehicles and honks wanting to scare her soul out of her body, she felt alone. Just her thoughts, her legs walking to a direction she didn't know of, and the soft music gliding through her ears. Don't forget about the chilling wind, that was what made her felt as if she had won a marathon.

For some reasons unknown to her, she had gotten attached to Tatiana's songs that it got worse for her, she listened or hummed her songs when she wanted to sleep. She believed that the woman knew her way with her songs, with the voice that made sure it calmed you down before anything. And her lyrics were always poetic that Jalilah could imagine then being recited with a poet's intonations, it would have been beautiful. She heard a honk in the distant, but she didn't budge because she knew there tenths, if not, hundreds of thousands of vehicles aggressively honking at one another.