Four Months Later

"Amina of Zazzau is out on Netflix." I wheeled myself to the living room to meet Huda turning on the television and getting ready to connect the laptop to the television. She made a pillow fort near the huge one hundred and thirty inch television and just as the first opening sequence came on, she leapt up, paused the movie and helped me out of the wheel chair.

"I wonder why you didn't let us go watch it at the cinema. It was so successful at the cinemas. It stayed in the box office for six weeks. Six weeks!" She lamented as she helped me to the floor and put the  largest pillow behind my back.

I held her just as she got up to get the remote. I swallowed before saying; "Huda." She turned to me with soft eyes and pushed the pillow a little more. I smiled, she's been so caring. I really didn't know anyone could be so genuine, so pure at heart and so beautifully made.

"Thank you for these past few months. You've put more light in my life than I've had in my twenty four years. I'm just so grateful for all you've done for me. I pray for you everyday that may Allah S.W.T bless you beyond measure, beyond your thoughts and beyond everything you've ever thought." Huda didn't let me finish before wiping a tear and hugging me tight. I rocked her back and forth till she giggled.

"You've gotten strength back in your arms ba? No wonder you can hug me so fiercely." I laughed lowly. I waved her away and she turned to the television. Turning it back on.

I saw the picture I took a the day Abdul pushed me and it evoked mixed feelings in me. Flashes of the event went through my head and a slight pain came after it.

"I didn't know you could ever do something like this." I turned to my cousin, I didn't understand what she was talking about so I put a questioning look on my face.

"Well, look at you! Shouting back when pressed down." I laughed. The scene were I shouted at my film elder brother who was king was a powerful one. He tried to sell his sister out for more power, but she caught him at his own game.

I watched Huda focus all her attention on the movie before asking her, "When did you find out we're cousins?" She paused the movie again and turned to me, turning completely to me.

"Why do you ask?" She countered and I smiled, not replying her question. Her own smile bloomed at the corner of her lips before she sobered and said,

"Grandma told me. Sometime just after Ramadan." I counted in my head and something occured to me.

"So, when you came to snap me, you knew I was your cousin?" I watched her nod and I leaned back on the pillow.

"Did you move into the complex knowing you're my cousin?" She nods again, but this time she's in deep thought. "When I found out, I was watching one of your YouTube videos on the television in Grandma's house. Remember that one where you told us your Ramadan planner. Grandma sat down beside me and said slowly 'Do you know you're relatives?'

I don't think I've ever been been more surprised in my life." She contemplated something and then giggled out loud. "I think the only other time I was that surprised was when Hashim asked me to marry him after a promotion." She put her hand under her chin in more contemplation.

"Then I returned to Abuja and all I wanted to do was talk to you. Remember how we many times we nodded at each other in the elevator, or the times we'd just say the Salam at the car park. I really wanted to be close." I reached out and patted her face.

" Fate and Destiny has its own way of pulling us together. It might not have been the accident, it could have been something else. Don't stress it." She nodded and put her head on my knees.

"I even met aunty Hannatu and I had to do as though I was not her older sister's daughter. It was heartbreaking, I promise." I removed her scarf and began to massage her forehead. We'd become so close over the past few months since we spent time only talking, watching movies, gaming, praying, sleeping and eating good food.

She'd quickly become an important part of my life and I cannot replace her. At such a time where everything seemed to lose its meaning, she's probably the only one with clarity and I've learned to embrace her.

Embrace her and her truths wholely.

****

"How's she?"

The woman saluted him before sitting, crossing her legs at the ankles before replying. "She's getting better, at the moment she can sit up now. What we're gunning for is getting up. Not walking for now because that needs a lot of strength and she surely doesn't have that right now."

The man nodded and looked away from the woman in front of him, his side profile dazed the woman but she shook her head. It would be suicidal to think of him in that manner, however good looking he could be.

"What about that boy, what has your colleague said? I hope you told them I don't want him to ever walk again?" She nodded very firmly. Her orders had been clear and she had followed them to the latter.

He nodded and thought a bit more before asking her. "Is she safe there in your opinion?" She nodded but saw that there he wanted to hear more.

"Her cousin has not done anything to undermine her safety, they're always indoors, or outside in the middle of the night chatting on the terrace facing the sea. They have not gone anywhere, I'm sure of that. And only major family members come to check on her." He nodded, visibly relieved.

"Take care of her. With your life." He ordered harshly. She nodded, saluted him and left the room quietly. They'd been trained by a Chinese master in the art of masking footsteps, seeing through several things that normal bodyguards would think was normal, they were all martial arts masters themselves. Even the maid who served juice in Labeebah's house  knew martial art and could make a person faint with one press of acupuncture point.

Bakura stopped musing and got up, walked to a corner of the room where a calligraphy of suratul baqarah was standing affixed to the wall and right on verse three, there was a kick that opened to his secret study. He went in and sighed when he got in, picking up the picture of Bushratou Dambazzau-Sambo that sat atop the table and hugged it to his chest. He sighed.

He missed this woman more than anything in the world. 

December, 1996.
Maiduguri, Nigeria.

"You think this is a wise thing to do?" Bashir asked Bushratou as she flapped the hem of her hijab and did that thing that she usually did when she wanted nothing to do with whatever he was saying. She usually made her decisions and stood by it, making him feel like the woman in the relationship. But he didn't care, he loved her too much to care.

"My father thinks he can throw his daughters around like goods. Marry here, go there. I'll throw his plans off balance when I send our marriage certificate to him by post. What nonsense." Bashir sighed.

It was pure luck that brought he and the love of his life together. She had been posted to Maiduguri to serve in her service year and instead of 'bribing' her way back to Lagos, she forced her parents to agree to her staying. They did when they saw how determined she was.

Bashir had met her one evening where she was moaning and groaning as a result of intense menstrual cramps and he found out that the paracetamol given at the clinic stand was doing nothing to help. He'd gone to his box and found a strong analgesic and brought it to her, damning the consequences and they'd become fast friends and then lovers when they were posted to the same local government to serve.

"How are you going to convince the imam?" He asked her as they walked the path that took them to the corper's lodge.

"I'll tell him I have no parents. I'll be sorry to say that to my mama, but I cannot let my father keep me under his thumb forever and marry me off to one of his friends children. Over my dead body!" She swore and took her hand over her head three times to show her seriousness.

"Bushra, I can't do any of these things you're saying. You have two alive parents and I know you really do not wish ill upon them. I know." Bushratou hissed and turned to him, her hand on her hip, "Stop taking this matter back to the very beginning. I've made up my mind. I'll do that and I'll tell you when I'm ready. Okay?" Bashir had nodded with a sigh. He could never win with her, never get a word in.

When the flashback ended, Bashir Bakura cursed himself for being so unsuccessful at the time, for taking the money Bushratou's father had offered and gone abroad to make a name for himself in architecture. It was one of his worst decisions. His second most regretted decision was never checking up on the child Bushratou had and his worst ever decision, was marrying Yaana. He regretted it bitterly.

*******
Hi guyssssss👋🏽👋🏽

Long time no update😂. I'm so sorry, I've been so busy, and today I finally got around to updating this chapter. So please tell me that you like it😌

So, I've got news. My friend, her_pen_speaks wrote and exquisite collection of poems and published it here on Wattpad. I promise you that it's everything you need to read right now. So please, go to her page, find the book, it's titled 'SHE'  and read it. You know I don't hype rubbish! So please read it.

See y'all soon. Love all of you!

TheOmoope 💙💛