Chapter 41 26: A Promise Of Death

She stole a glance at Alhaji and was surprised to see a pleased and relaxed look on his face. She might have not known him as ever daughter knew her father, but at least she knew enough about him. And the look he had on his face wasn t a displeased one. He was relieved that Mujaheed wanted to stay with her as a wife and Fareeda knew his reason would only be because she was disgrace to him now. "I'd have to thank you again, Mujaheed. Because there are only a few people that will still choose to stay with a bad wife when a very good one is presented to them. Thank you." That went unanswered, as Mujaheed only nodded his head and Alhaji turned his gaze to Fareeda with all the softness gone, the kindness and what was only left was fury and his disgust of her. "I'd have to make this clear to you, Fareeda. You have to know what you re doing now, I don't know what had happened in Katsina but I can say it has touched you badly, which I'm grateful for. I don t want you to do anything bad or troublesome to Mujaheed as you can see, he rejected a good offer and chose to stay with something as rotting as you are, you should forever be indebted to him. No man could chose you over any girl, even the baddest of girls out there. Be respectful to him and obey his every rule. I might ve not punished you for what you did now because I feel that s left for your husband to punish you the way he likes, but if you dare make another mistake again, I won t let it slide easily. And we both know how my punishments are." She didn't look up at him, because the word 'rotting had been stacked painfully into her heart and it broke even the flimsiest piece left in her heart. She wanted to be out of here, but she knew even if she stood up now, she might fall down as how she was feeling dizzy and also her glass had already been blurred by her tears. She watched as Alhaji left together with Ummah that had a displeased expression on her face. But Fareeda knew if not for Alhaji s presence in the living room, she would ve pestered Mujaheed t divorce her, thinking that she might chance his words. To hurt her, of course, not because she really wanted to have Mujaheed as her son-in-law. Everyone was after her to hurt her, after all. They left only the two of them in the living room and Fareeda couldn t breathe loudly not to talk of lifting her eyes to stare at him. She wanted to leave his presence but she was afraid of making yet another wrong move in is presence. Her feet still hurt, but it was nothing compared to what she was feeling in her heart. Everything was choked up for her, she wished she could run away from everyone and everything to a place where no one knew that she was a worthless human being, a rotting piece of dirt that only deserved to be discarded, but never to be loved. He looked at her with a hard expression that almost made her peed on herself and she looked away from him. "You should come back tonight." She didn t know what she was supposed to feel at the utterance of those words. Relieved that after accepting her as his wife, he asked her come and start living with him again? Despite knowing that the hell would be more soothing to her aching soul than living with Mujaheed would ever be. Or she should be frightened, because she didn t know what he had in store for her. "Okay." Her lips quivered and she stood up to go back to her room. She felt suffocated in his presence and she knew spending few more minutes with him would mean a lot of hell to her. She would rather leave to her room, cry to her satisfaction and finally muster up the courage to go back to his chamber. She was aware of his deadly glare on her body until she disappeared into the stairs before she heaved a sigh and limped toward her chamber. Seeing Asma u on her bed was what made Fareeda wanting to scream her lungs out, but she didn't have that energy left. "What are you doing here?" She managed to ask, limping as she sat on the sofa while she lifted her foot and examined it. She knew it might need to be cleaned again, but she didn t have the energy to take care of a part that didn t hurt as much as her heart did. If only the balm will be applied to her heart as well, she would have appreciated it more. "I came here to tell you that just because he chose to stay married with you doesn t mean you re anything close to being worthy or desirable to stay with. You re as disgusting as you look, Fareeda. And I want to tell you that a war has just begun, I won t fall back until the day I'm sure you ve gotten intimate with him, and from the way I see things, that will take so long, if not forever. And you know forever is too long to stay with a wife as despicable as you are. And even if by chance you finally get to be intimate with him..." Asma u slowly shook her head and made a sad face as she shrugged off her shoulders nonchalantly, "Then I'd be left with no choice, Fareeda. I'll have to kill you, because that will be the only way for me to get him. So you have a choice, make him divorce you or stay married to him for as long as you want with with the exception of being intimate with him, or make that mistake and lose your filthy life forever." Fareeda s eyes grew large like a saucers as her heart thumped against her ribcage, she couldn t believe what she had just heard. Was her sister really telling her that she was going to kill her? This proved to Fareeda that even though they used to fight a lot before, she knew deep down she loved them all. But from what happened now, she knew none of her family loved her except for Nana. "Asma u?" She slurred, unsure about herself as to whether to believe what she had said or not. Asma u lifted a brow and nodded her head, "Yes, I mean what I've said and I dare you to cross any of my lines, and Wallahi Fareeda you re going to lose your life." She stomped out of the room and banged the door so hard that Fareeda flinched before new set of tears washed down her face. She didn't know what this was supposed to mean, was she really all they said? But if she wasn t, why will everyone tell her that? She felt dirty of herself, she hated herself for what she d done and the past she had lived. She knew no one loved her but yet what she was feeling for all of them hadn't wavered a bit. Adam included. She knew she should know her worth and forget about him, hate him even but she didn t have any self worth to start with. How could someone as despicable as she was have any self worth to know what was right to do and not? Asma u wanted to kill her, and that too because of Mujaheed. Fareeda had never imagined a day would come when one of her family members will utterly inform her that he or she would kill her. Yes, she knew of the moments they all wanted her dead, and that was because of anger and nothing else, or so she thought. But seeing nothing but sheer hatred for her in Asma u s eyes, it made her wondered that if she really got intimate with Mujaheed, which she was sure would never happen now as Asma u predicted, will she really kill her? Her heart squirmed painfully and she wished she could run away and hide away from everyone and everything. She wished there was a way she could shed off this skin of hers and grow a new one. The skin no one knew about but herself and the new people she was going to associate herself with. Life could never be the same for her, it hadn t been fair to her before, but since she got married to Mujaheed she could say it had been fair enough, if not good. As for Adam and all that he did and said, she kept avoiding those thoughts. She knew if she let everything consumed her at once, nothing could stop one of her family members from finding her dead body in this room of hers. She might avoid it for all she wanted, but she was certain a day would come when they would come to her in a speed as though a thunderstorm striking through the sky. ? She walked slowly, limped even, with Nana by her side as they walked back to Mujaheed s chamber. Nana met her crying and refused to leave her until now. She knew she couldn t say she wouldn t have lived through what she had lived through without Nana being in her life, but at least her presence made a lot of things bearable for her. They were a few feet away from the chamber when Fareeda stopped in track and she turned to look at her. "Have you forgotten something in your room, Ya Fareeda? Should I get it for you?" She asked, and immediately Fareeda shook her head. "I'm afraid, Nana, I don't want to go inside." She said with a weak voice. Nana smiled and held her hand, "You ve never shown your weakness about something even if you have any. I might not understand everything now because I'm just a small girl but this isn t the person that you are, Ya Fareeda. I know what you did was wrong, I'm always in support of Ya Mujaheed on this, but that doesn't mean you should let your self esteem down. That doesn t mean you aren t the sophisticated Fareeda Kamal Sardauna anymore. Once in our lives we all make mistakes we wish to take the hands of time back and change them, but we don t have that ability. The only thing we can do is change how it affect us, Ya Fareeda. If you keep on doing this, you might have to live through your past for the rest of yourself, forsaking a future that might have been so bright for you." Fareeda couldn t stop her tears, but when Nana shook her head at her, she immediately cleared them and hugged her lightly. "I don t have a friend to tell me what you ve just told me now, or a mother that will show me that there are more beautiful sides to this cruel world and also tell me I'm not all I think I am, but you re here for me, Nana. I don t know how to thank you."