Zain's choice ✔️

38: Benazir 2

Mira's POV

"You can't speak to him Mira. Do you hear me?!" He warns.

I nod in agreement. I feel really bad about lying to Momsie. I really would prefer for Momsie to try talking to me and finding out what is really going on as she used to. But it seems she is under a lot of pressure.

She notices my crestfallen expression and sighs. Momsie comes into the room and suddenly, her nose is picking up his perfume in the air!

Ya Allah! Why does he have to smell so strongly!

I avoid her eyes and look down in painful shame. I feel like I am caught doing something really nasty. It's not a good feeling. And all because I lied!

Oh this lie of a thing! Wallahi it doesn't become me! Allah has decreed it already. Yet I refuse to heed! Nothing comes out from lying except grief!

Momsie pats the place next to her and asks me to sit just like she usually does.

I am feeling so embarrassed that I couldn't go to her. I feel as if she will smell him all over me!

She notices the way I am blinking my eyes and squeezing my mouth as if in severe discomfort and she says "Mira, I ask you to sit here"

I am still standing where I am and Momsie shakes her head at me. I can see it too because I am stealing glances through the corner of my eyes to see if she is going to leave my room!

"Alright. Since you don't want to come let me leave your room for you. You should dress up though. I am taking you to my friend's place so you can talk to Benazir while I quickly make a small trip! The girl is missing you something fierce!" She laments.

Benazir!

Missing me! What a joke!

I forgot all about my embarrassment and I began to think of this house Momsie is taking me!

Actually, Benazir is around my age. She is also my second cousin. Her father and my father are cousins.

Alhaji Lamin married a Sudanese and they lived most of their lives abroad. When Benazir, their youngest daughter, is eleven, they returned to Nigeria. He bought a big house in Kano and they began to live there.

So we often exchange compulsory visits as family. Yakumbo likes to impose these kinds of things.

But each time Benazir comes to our house, she is always mocking me. She and her teenage sister at the time.

Benazir is also dark in complexion but she is nothing like me still since her dark complexion is a gift from her Sudanese mother and it's really quite pretty. She considers me a bad fruit. Like I am a curse for being the black one in the family.

I used to feel really bad about it and Yakumbo will always chastise her for it.

"Subhanallah shams, you are such a bad elder! You should be correcting your younger sister not inciting her!" Yakumbo will berate Benazir's sister.

But each time we go to their house, they will prank me and disgrace me and they never fail to make it seem as if I am the ugly duckling just because I am black.You see, as I grow up, I realize that she is just jealous of me. She hated that people are always complimenting my different colored eyes and that most people-strangers mostly- think I am cute. She didn't even get that they call me cute because I can't be called exactly beautiful. Not like they call her.