Hello sweet people 🌝😍

Who missed Y'all's faves? I did so I wrote today. 

This chapter is for @Sudaisa_b and @AmirahVirgo. Can't tag y'all since I use the web browser 💓💓

If you forget to vote and comment, I might just forget to update the other chapter I've started writing. It's not a threat 🐱

Happy Reading ☺️

"What do you mean by that?"

She watched him stop, pull the brush lock of his fanny pack back and forth to tighten it before responding to her.

"I want to get to know you more, if you don't want to though, I will understand." She stared at him for a good minute, turning away at the last second and walking away down the hill. She so wanted to get away from him as what she'd worried about that most had arrived.

She skipped the water break and ran, not jogged, back to her brother's house, she left the gate unlatched for her siblings and went to her part of the house, still wondering how and what could have prompted AbdulRahman to ask her that question.

She stripped her clothes immediately she got into her room, stepped into the already warm shower and began to wash her body. Once she finished, she'd stepped out of the shower for a few seconds before remembering she was supposed to wash her hair, she stepped back in and took a glob of shampoo, rubbed into her hair to make a good lather and with soap suds in her hair, dripping down her face and shoulders, she burst into tears.

The shower turned off and Amina came out with her hair dripping water over the tiled floor, she picked a hair towel and wrapped it around her hair. Her hair was supposed to have a full routine but all she wanted on this particular day was to feel water in her hair. Maybe it would help her make practical decisions.

She stepped gingerly out of her bathroom and jumped slightly when she met Munayah in her bedroom waiting for her. She'd shed her ivy park gym wear and the rechargeable fan was blowing.

"Why did you run away?" Amina sighed and continued to dry her hair as though Munayah had not just spoken. She wanted more than anything, not to say anything. She just wanted to think.

"I want to think, put things in perspective before I table it before myself fully." Munayah heaved a sigh, she knew it would take some time. So she got up, zipped up her gym wear and left Amina's apartment glumly.

Amina went back to the bathroom and turned on the hair dryer and put it in the direction of her damp hair, wishing that she didn't wash it, but the school taught at wanted to see all the online staff that day and she needed to appear as skillful and confident as possible, that was almost impossible with the question AbdulRahman had dropped on her during her morning run.

"Ugh!" The heat from the hair dryer jerked her back to consciousness and she began to comb through her now dry hair, she packed it into a low bun and entered her room to wear the wine calf length gown she'd picked out the previous night.

"Where are you off to?" Her brother asked at the car port, he'd already freshened up and was ready for the day to begin as well. He absentmindedly pulled out a new mask from his pocket and handed it to his sister, who pinched the elastic ropes until her brother sat back in his car.

"I have a meeting at Tosetwon today, they want teachers to come in for an in-person training." He nodded as he wound the steering wheel out of the compound and into the street.

"That could not have this meeting on Zoom? Wear your mask please, keep it on at all times, joor. They're putting the lot of you at risk to this virus with this stupid meeting." Amina pursed her lips and looked at her older brother until he squirmed.

"You're going to work too, your employees are coming to work. Don't even try to be superficial about it." Her brother didn't speak anymore until he reached the gate of Tosetwon international kiddies school. She alighted from the car after using her face mask with an extension hook so it didn't hook to her ears.

She waved him off and entered the colorful environment where the school was located. She breathed in and out and walked into the reception where she signed her name and time of arrival before going to the room designated for the meeting.

She sat at the left corner where she could see the projector clearly. The two women she'd greeted when she came in were engrossed in their phones and paid no heed to her, so she took out her own phone too and began to flick through WhatsApp statuses of her contacts.

"Mummy, e kaaro." She typed on the message box and hit send, almost immediately, her mother began to type.

"I heard that person you said had nothing to do with you proposed marriage to you this morning." Amina hissed lowly, her family members could never mind their own business.

"Well, who asks a woman to marry them while on a jog?" She asked her mother in a fit of petty.

"Oh so, you're not against the proposal, you're more against where it was offered?" She began to type a scathing response but stopped halfway, deleting every word she'd typed in anger.

She had to be honest, she had absolutely nothing to say, she wanted to ask why the man decided it was she he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, she wanted to know many things and getting angry at her mother would d nothing to address those concerns.

So, instead she calmly typed "Maami, I have no idea really. I just feel some way about it." Her mother's response came almost immediately and it was what Amina could swear she could hear her mother's voice as she read the text.

"Pray, Pray Istikhara and you'll see. Okay? By the way, no one is forcing you to marry him, left to me, I'd rather see this person before you both begin to talk at all, bit your brother says he's honorable and from a good family and I guess I raised my own son well enough to know those who are honorable or not. Pray, Onikede, pray. May Allah shed His guiding light on everything. Ameen."

Amina sighed and put her phone away after reading the long text. She could swear she feel the agitation she'd been battling since running off that morning start to reduce to almost nothing, leaving her room to concentrate on the training she'd come to attend.

****

***

"They brought us food and apparently because I'm a Yoruba woman living in Abuja, they brought me Amala. It smells nice, I hope it tastes even better." She smiled up at Munayah as she walked into the main house, instead of going straight to her own side, she wanted to apologize for her earlier behavior so she knocked at her sister-in-law's door.

"Let's help you eat your food." Munayah answered with a smile turning around to go into the house. They walked to the kitchen together, talking about how people Munayah knew had caught the Virus.

"I've warned my mom sternly, she's old now, she better stop going to people's weddings for now." Amina laughed as she set a ceramic plate on the marble kitchen table to put the packed food in.

"They won't listen to you, Maami still said she drove to Oshogbo, about an hour away from Ibadan to attend some molebi's daughter's wedding. I just exasperatedly asked if she wore a mask." She gasped as she took out the containers that had ewedu, hot steaming Amala and a plate of stew with beef and offals.

"This looks so well thought out." Amina turned and washed her hands before dipping her index finger in the oil stew straight to her mouth for a taste.

"Do you think you can marry AbdulRahman Barkindo?" Amina choked on the stew and suddenly began to cough very loudly, with her eyes watering from the spicy stew going th wrong way.

"Munayah, let's be honest here, should I be getting married anytime so soon?" Munayah shrugged with a questioning look.

"I swear, you should not care about what anyone says. If you think you'll like him more after marriage, go for it, I'll say." Amina nodded and dug into her food.

The next morning, she zipped up a pink icy park running gear that Munayah had handed her that was previously sitting in her wardrobe without use.

"You wore a new gear. Mad oo." Munayah didn't comment any further as they opened the gate and left the house in the frigid early morning air.

Ten minutes later, they jogged to the top of the hill that overlooked sun valley estate and as they took a water break, AbdulRahman approached her.

"Can we talk? No running off this time, okay?" Amina stared at him and the water bottle he was holding. She nodded and scooted for him to flop down a few inches away from her.

"I- I spent the whole of yesterday figuring out what to say to you and I really, don't want to be that person that wastes your time in anything that isn't halal." He finished speaking and waited for her to take it in before adding some more.

"If you can give me a timeline, I'd like to send my people over to yours." Amina stared at him unseeingly until a bird flew past, screeching so loudly until she stopped being so deep in thought.

"Can I sleep on it, pray first?" He waved his hands and nodded with a smile.

"Take as long as you want. Can I get your number then?" She nodded and mentioned the digits of her phone number for him and he called the number, waiting till it buzzed in her fanny pack before he left her side. 

GLOSSARY:

Molebi - extended family. 

🥰🥰🥰I have nothing to say. We'll just have to wait to hear from Amina as soon as possible abi?🕊️

TheOmoope 💙