A Twist of Fate ✔

Ch. 03

Dr. Jones finally spoke.

"Laila is fine. She made it through surgery. All she has is a broken arm, but we have it in a cast. It should heal within a week, approximately. Her body is slightly bruised, but that's also something minor."

"Alhamdulillah! Allahu akbar!" Ahmad roared, pulling Hamza towards him into a big hug. Hamza clung onto his shoulders, sighing in relief as a weight was lifted off his chest. Sarah's cries of joy echoed in the small room and for a moment, everyone forgot about the bad news.

"There is one small problem though," The doctor cleared his throat, trying to regain their attention.

Hamza pulled out of the embrace and stared hesitantly at the doctor. What else could there be? She was alive; that was ultimately all that mattered. 

Ahmad eagerly nodded at the doctor. "What else is there we should know, doctor?"

Hamza wasn't as worried as he was before, though. His wife had made it! She was breathing and awake, and he couldn't wait to see her again. He couldn't wait to tell her how worried he was and how much he loved her.

"The problem is..." Dr. Jones hesitated, looking uncertain. "Well, there's a problem with her memory. She believes it's still 2014."

- - - 

Desperation and anxiety were the ingredients for disaster; in addition to the deep pang of hopelessness, you simply couldn't sit still. This almost always lead to overthinking and acting out irrationally. The feeling was a very bitter and terrible one, and it was what filled Hamza as he waited outside of his wife's hospital room. 

People always said that after going through life and all the various experiences, you would be able to look back at some moments of your past and change them... perceive them differently, alter certain reactions. But Hamza knew that if he ever went back to re-live this very moment, despite how much time passed, he wouldn't react any other way. 

There was simply no other way. 

Ahmad and Sarah went in several minutes ago and it killed Hamza that he wasn't able to follow them and engulf his wife in his arms. They had decided to talk with her and see what was going on firsthand before allowing him to make an appearance. 

He could hear Laila's hoarse voice between the loud sobs of her mother but wasn't able to make out any of her words. He pressed his ear against the crack of the door in a desperate attempt to understand what was going on when he heard Ahmad say his name.

"Remember Hamza, dear?"

There was a pause and all Hamza could hear was his heart thudding loudly in his ears. Nervously licking his dry lips, he waited for her response. This was the moment of truth; this was what he was waiting for: to prove that their love was strong and could survive through anything that came their way. 

He thought back to the conversation with the doctor.

"She suffered quite a head injury. Patients with TBI always differ with their after-effects." The doctor paused and removed his glasses. "In this certain situation, the victim, Laila, seems to have amnesia. To be precise, she has retrograde amnesia. The usual scenario has the victim forgetting the last few minutes or hours before the accident. Sometimes, it goes up to a year. In this case, though, it seems to have been much more than that. We're going with the approximate of 3 years. Whether the brain retrieves the memory or not is out of our hands. That depends on Laila."

Hamza needed to prove the doctor wrong. It was what he so desperately wanted, that he barely heard what Laila said back to her father.

"Who? Isn't he the friend you see at the Masjid?"