"Shit!" I muttered a curse under my breath as soon as I slightly cut my hand with a knife. I was slicing an onion into the macaroni I was cooking when it happened. If only Rumaisah was around, such wouldn't had happened to me.

I hissed as I gently began washing the hand in the sink, and as soon as the blood stopped coming out I applied a rub and thus continued with what I was doing. I really hated onions!

My mother had sometime ago made it clear to me that if I want my sister and my daughter back then I should come pick them up myself, and I shouldn't come alone but with a woman to present to her. Like, she was trying to force me into bringing out someone for marriage. I thought she was only joking until she refused to let them return nor talk to me on phone.

It pained me yesterday when I tried talking to my daughter only for my mother to chime in and warn me never to try that again. Like seriously? She did not know I was also trying my best to see that I had married again, to see that Amani had someone to call her mother!

Marriage isn't something we should rush into, especially in a situation like mine. What if I ended up marrying a malevolent woman? Someone that would ruin my daughter's life? Someone that might likely treat my daughter differently? Nay, I had to be very meticulous!

Indeed Pharmacist Aisha had proved to me that she was capable of taking care of Amani if I give her the chance to but you know I didn't just feel her in my heart. After all, she was only a friend and a colleague. We had been together for so long, I looked at her like my very sister and not someone I could ever marry in my life.

But when I met Manal, it was love at first sight. I felt like I had found another puzzle piece of mine. My heart fell for her and my conscience told me she was the right woman for me and the one that could take care of my daughter, Amani. I so much wanted to propose to her but not that early, right? After all, things had been happening between us that I didn't really like.

After cooking my half done breakfast, I ate and threw some away. You know, I practically wasn't good at cooking. Even in the university, I was only a supplier while my friends do the cooking. Bashir Santali was a Grade A cook.

Immediately I was done clearing the table and was about laundrying my clothes my phone began ringing. It was strange, I wasn't expecting Manal's call you know. I picked up and she told me she was standing by my gate. Thus, I happily went out and opened the gate for her.

Manal and I walked into my house and she told me Salim sent her to me, it was about the drugs he asked me to get him. So I went inside, packaged the drugs for her with a written message for Salim in a paper and strongly warned her not to open the leather but later during the day, she called demanding to know about the owner of the drugs and so on. I knew she had went through the leather and read the message I wrote for Salim so I asked her why she did that and she told me she was sorry.

Manal insisted in knowing almost every thing about the drugs and its owner thus an idea popped into my head. I decided to make a deal with her. I would tell her what I knew about the drugs but only if she help me bring back my sister and daughter home. She accepted the deal not knowing the fact that what she signed in for was just like introducing her to my family. My mother wanted me to bring a woman out for marriage If I wanted my daughter back and Manal cluelessly signed in for it. I was so happy, but what if she later discovered the verity? Would she end what was between us?

The following day, Manal met me in my house around three in the afternoon and thus I drove us to our family house. She was welcomed warmly and was treated like a bride. Infact, my mother began calling her oya wa which means our wife in English. Happiness was written in everyone's face, even my father's!

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Thank you for reading #InsideArewa

This chapter was the hardest chapter I had written so far in this story. I really suffered!