ENSHROUDED

32

Aisha cried all day and slept all night. She woke up after midnight and was lucky the fever had gone down and she realized she was hungry beyond words could tell. She slowly walked to the kitchen and cooked for herself, after she was done, she took the plate to the balcony and sat down with a heavy heart. She sighed and hugged her body before she ate her food, she was still feeling dizzy and sick. She finished eating and stared blankly into space, not bring herself up to cry or even feel. She knew Abba would punish her for this, she wasn't the one that kissed him first, for goodness sake.

She fought her tears back and stood up. She still had some money in her bank account, the one Baba sent to her before she got back home. She decided that she would go to the hospital tomorrow morning and then go to school. It was after some hours that she walked back to her room and laid quietly on her bed but sleep had deserted her eyes. She tossed and turned and it was barely some minutes to 4 am that she slept.

She looked around the house and locked the door on her way out. She had to be in school by 2 pm that's why she left home early. She didn't know where the hospitals were situated nor the banks. She only knew the school. She hailed a cab and sat down quietly on the back seat. "Please take me to any ATM around and then to any hospital." She said to the driver and he nodded his head at her.

He did as Aisha said and she got to see the doctor after waiting for some minutes. As she drove to school, Aisha silently looked through the town while she fondled the surface she got her injection done. He dropped her off in front of their school and Aisha paid him before she walked away. When she sat down in the lecture hall, she had never felt this tired and sleepy all her life. But she knew better than to deliberately miss her class. Jaafar thought her something that would forever be engraved in her heart. She was already drained with what was happening in her life than to add more salt to her aching wound.

She took the cab back home and was paying the driver when Abba's car pulled over. The moment she saw the look on his eyes she knew she was doomed. He approached her and she quickly dismissed the driver and looked at him with her veins bulging out of her throat.

"Where are you from?!" He clamoured and before she composed herself to answer him, he slapped her on both cheeks and repeated his question. "Where the hell is you from, Aisha?!"

Aisha took some dreading steps backwards and she stared wordlessly at him. She shook her head when her tears fell on her cheeks. "I went to school, then I went to the hospital." She quivered, taking steps backwards as he enigmatically walked towards her.

He gripped her wrist and dragged her to the door after he unlocked the house, Abba flung her inside and she looked up at him with tears dripping down from her eyes while she shook her head at his hands that were undoing his belt. The first stroke of his belt landed on her back and she wailed out in pain. "Where did you went to? Tell me, where are you from, Aisha?!" He thundered and stroke her body more mercilessly.

Aisha cried as she crawled to where her bag was sprawled on and she pulled out the medicines she bought from the hospital. Innocently with painful tears dripping down her cheeks, she looked at him as her tears choked on her words. "Believe me, I'm really from the hospital, I went to school afterwards. Ask someone in my faculty if they've seen me. And here, are the medicines I bought from the hospital. Wallahi that's the only places I've been." She showed him the medicines and instead of Abba to slowed down, he stroke his belt on her body even harder and mercilessly.

"Who was the guy I saw you with?! He was the one that brought these medicines for you so you can fool me? Aisha, don't even try me." Despite how he was stroking her with his belt, Aisha didn't flinch. She stood there motionless as she stared into space with her hands still clutching on the leather that had the medicines in. She wasn't out with a guy. She wasn't the one and she was sure he knew, he just took this way to punish her for the crime she didn't commit. He stole her first kiss, she was the one to get angry not the other way round.