CHAPTER FOURTEEN

OR MAYBE NOT!

However there was something about his eyes that gripped me. They shone with a light that strangely evoked a picture of a certain place and a certain somebody. It was a far off memory of a time which had been both blindingly beautiful and scarily ugly. It was the second difficult time of my life; I had gained all and loss all in one fatal blow. No wonder I hadn't recognised him earlier.

It was true, I gasped softly as the whip of remembrance hits me. He was...

"FAKE MARRIAGE!" I shrieked and he nodded as he smiled brightly revealing a beautiful set of dimples which I hadn't even realised he possessed. How was it even possible that he never fails to amaze me no matter how angry I was with him?

"How? Why?...," I was dumbfounded however. This was one hell of a coincidence.

We met seven years ago in Katsina. I was under the care of my uncle then. I had mistook him for one of the thousand homeless people littering the city and he had let me. Who does that? He could have, no, he should have told me who he was-not that it would have mattered, I had been desperate and paining, but still, he should have said something when I'd all but dragged him into my mess and practically forced him to marry me.

He, however, just kept on staring at me as if it were the first time he had ever seen me. I looked away first. I don't know but his eyes made me feel... naked, somewhat bare like it had the night we had spent together. Not together, together, but we had shared a bed in one of his boss's buildings in Katsina.

He wasn't suppose to be a billionaire heir. The man I had begged to marry me was a poor man I had found sitting by the roadside under the scorching heat of an unforgiving March afternoon close to the Central mosque in Katsina a few hours before my Uncle forced me to marry Abdullah, his bestfriend's eldest son.

Abdullah is an alcoholic, a womaniser, a taut and my uncle's final and desperate attempt to get his hands on my inheritance. This was barely a month after my kidnapping and Irrfan's death. I was supposedly tainted and no man would have me. I was to thank God Abdullah would have me. His words.

No one had believed me even though I swore my kidnappers didn't rape me even though I spent six months with them; which was mostly my choice. No one, except my ma and for my dad's family, she didn't count.

They were right of course, about being tainted. I was tainted, but not in the way they had all assumed. I had however fell...

"So how have you been, Wifey?" His voice swam across my consciousness jolting me back from my reverie. It was however his stress on the word wife that had me facing him head on.

What does he mean by that? We were divorced, weren't we? He promised and that was the deal anyway. He wasn't looking at me. He was facing the sky again.

"Wife..." I mouthed the word softly. I am not his wife. I glowed at him

"Yes, you are," he replied facing me once again. I hadn't realised I had said the words out loud. I glared at him nevertheless. I hated that he was joking about something this serious.

"Why else do you think your mom allowed me to take you with me?" He went on. He seemed genuinely surprised as if he couldn't understand why I didn't. I was flustered. How much craziness was supposed to litter my life? I couldn't help but wonder.

"My mom knew all along?" It was suppose to be a question but even to my ears it sounded like a statement.

He nodded slowly

"I don't understand. How? I -, " I stopped realising that I didn't know what to ask.

What in God's name was really happening with me? My mom knew? How? She had never met the man I had married and how was it possible that the man was him, Aman? I knew I had been distracted then and hurt and annoyed and angry and a truckload of other dark emotions but I was fairly certain I could remember the face of my angel; he had saved my life after all.

Apparently not! I thought as our eyes held each other in their entirety. But who could blame me? I had barely met his gaze the three days we had spent together. We had both led our separate lives. It was a sham to show Uncle Audu that I was really married.

"But -, " I tried again but nothing, it was as if my head had suddenly been factory reset. Nothing was continuously making sense.

Everything was, well, senseless.

"How have you been?" He asked again his eyes not leaving mine.

"Uhm...," I cleared my throat. "Fine, I guess. Glory be to Allah."

He smiled and looked away staring at the slackened pace of the luminous orb in the evening sky. At a loss for words as my brain tried to make sense of this jumbled mess which currently swamp my life, I maintained silence. Thankfully, he did the same. But moments later, his voice slithered through my unfinished quest at sanity.

"I've always wondered how you were doing and had always wanted to meet you, even if it was simply to ask you that," he took a deep breath, " I never thought it would take me six years, 5 months and eleven days to fulfill that particular yearning." He chuckled softly.

I looked shockingly at him. What was he saying? Why would he? We were nothing but strangers then whose paths, by the will of God, met temporarily. There was nothing special about the meeting however. At least none I remembered. I frowned recalling his word earlier. "What do you mean by wife? I remembered you promising to keep your end of the bargain."

"You broke it first!" It was almost like a whisper. I almost didn’t hear it.

"WHAT?"

"Six days and seven nights. You left first." He was looking at me in that way again, that how-can-you-not-know way. I looked away.

"That was-," I stopped realising something important suddenly.
"Why am I here, Aman?"

He maintained silence and for a moment there I thought he wouldn't answer but then he did, confirming my worst fear.

"You owe me three days,"

Fear gripped me. It wasn't what he said, it was how he said it. There was undoubtedly a manic possessiveness afloat the words.

"We are still married, Rei. But you don't need to fear. I just needed to confirm something and then I'll really be gone, for good. I promise. "

"And what is that if I may ask?"

He smiled sadly at me. This I've come to realise was his signature look for when he doesn't want to say anymore than he’d already have. His signal of ending a conversation. It didn't stop me however from asking-

"Was it all a plan?" He raised his brow questioningly. "You meeting me and everything after, is it planned or was it coincidence?" And at his silence, I insisted with my voice slowly bordering on hysteria, "Your wound...was it planned?"

He seemed genuinely shocked at my question however he shook his head nevertheless.

"The car ride?" I asked again

He shook his head.

"My mom," I began slowly, "-when did you talk to her?"

"A few weeks ago,"

"WHAT?" I shrieked. "When?"

"I arrived in Nigeria three days ahead of my parents. That was when I spoke to her first. "

"How? Why? You knew my mom?"

He nodded. "We've been corresponding in the last six years. I guess she never mentioned me.

No, she didn't. I mused sadly. I don't understand,  if she knew about him, why then was she always pestering me to get married?

"Did she know of our relationship?"

He nodded slowly.

"She knew who you were when she treated you then?"

He nodded again.

If she did why did she pretend not to? Why was she glad he had left? What does he mean by she let him take me?

"Aman," I called his name softly. He looked at me. I held his gaze."What the hell is real about the past two days?"

He stared at me for a long time before he shook his head slowly his face masked by an inscrutable expression.

"NOTHING."

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