Endless Summer🌞

48: Into the darkness

6th June, 2017.
Abuja, Nigeria.
That night, as Hanan sat alone on the cold floor, staring blankly into the walls with her eyes raining along with the sky, she knew the world would never be the same again. She had killed him, the one person that looked at her as if she was the only woman in the world. He made her see light in places she once saw darkness. He loved her in a way every person deserves to be loved. Despite all the women coming at him, despite all the marriage proposals he got, despite everything and every woman he could have, he chose to remain loyal to their relationship, to her. But what now? She left him, and the enemies got him.

She recalled how Maama literally threw her out of her room earlier. She had never seen her mother diving in both pain and anger. When Ya Sameer managed to help her up to her room, no one came to check on her again, not even him, not even Janan.

She couldn't bring herself to watch the news or touch her phone, she was dying to, but she couldn't watch the broadcasts of her husband's death. She couldn't watch the broadcasts of her sins, the things she did to him. She had cried for 15 hours straight, her heart was bleeding, it felt like her bones were being crushed into bits and pieces. But she couldn't undo what had been done, she broke him, crushed him, clipped his wings and killed him. She did all that. She was a monster.

Her door swung open at exactly the same time she heard the call to prayer. She shifted in her position, her body already weakened to numbness. She didn't look at the direction of the door, she just stared ahead, to the sky outside that had ceased to rain. It was dark, almost invisible to her eyes, yet, she looked anyway, not conscious of what or why she was looking out through the window. Her mind was elsewhere, somewhere in the hollow of her thoughts, somewhere darker than the darkest nights.

And then she smelt the scent of her, one of the few smells she could distinguish among a million others, in every crowd, just like she could tell the smell of Muhsin. Oh Allah, it hit her hard, that smell, his smell was gone for eternity, she killed the owner of it.

Maama interrupted her thoughts when she sat right next to her, their shoulders brushing against each other. She waited for her to hit her, scold her, push her, but nothing came. There was nothing but silence, silence and more silence. They just sat there staring into emptiness. Staring into the world that held no taste for them anymore, until she heard Maama's faint sobs and her heart did a triple somersault. She left her husband, killed him and now her mother is crying because of her, she wanted to vanish and never be seen again. Her sins were too much, too much, they outweigh all the good deeds she could think she ever did.

She felt her body vibrate back to life, a foreign energy overcame the numbness in her body. She knelt in front of her mother, the tears that ceased for a while bouncing back. Her mother was strong, has always been, but look what she did to a strong woman like her.

"Plea..please don't Maama. I am so sorry." She cried, her body trembling, her heart squeezing beneath her ribs. "I can't take all these anymore. I am going to get a heart attack. I am going to die. I can't live with the monster I've become. Please just don't cry, please Maama, please." She blabbered, her heartbeat skyrocketing, her tears intensifying and her head felt like it would blow up at any moment.

Maama pulled her into her arms, holding her tight as if trying to fix her broken pieces. They stayed still for a while before Maama pulled away, holding Hanan's shoulders.

"Don't you ever say that again. You won't get a heart attack, you won't die In Shaa Allah. Not until you give me and your father a grandchild, no, not just one, many of them. You won't ever say that again, not ever." She wiped Hanan's face with index fingers.

"You will cry no more too. You've done enough. That was it, no more." Maama added, shaking her head.

Hanan sniffled. "How can I not cry after I made you cry? And Muhsin.." She paused, pointing into the air. "It's all my fault that he is dead. I did that to him. How can I not cry?" She broke into puddles of tears.