Her Boyfriend, My Husband

CHAPTER 44

Abdallah's POV

The lights were still on in the corridor despite it being past 12 a.m. I had stepped out of my room for a late night meal. I was incredibly hungry seeing I had spent the whole day in preparations of leaving the country and I barely had time to eat.

When I shoved in a plastic dish that contained my dinner into the microwave, I started to hear a faint sound through the dead silence of the night. I thought I was imagining it at first but when I walked out the kitchen, I heard the sound grow louder and I traced it to Maryam's room door. I was worried because it sounded like muffled sobs coming through the other side of the door so I knocked once and twice but there was no answer.

Instead, the sound ceased so I ruled out that perhaps I was imagining it or perhaps she wasn't crying, maybe she was just watching a movie and got emotional over it. I have seen her crying over movies more times than I can count after all. So I went back to the kitchen just in time for the microwave timer to tick and I brought my food out to eat. But again, as I settled on a stool by the kitchen counter and I was about to dig in, I heard that same sound.

I got up and left my meal despite my protesting stomach and I went back to Maryam's room door. As I stood there, I heard that this time Maryam was undoubtedly sobbing and this sounded like a deep and heart wrenching cry, not the silent tears she cried when watching an emotional movie.

I knocked once, twice, thrice and no answer. I was too worried to walk away so I cleared my throat and knocked a fourth time, "Maryam? Hey what's going on in there? Are you alright? Maryam?"

When she didn't answer, I decided I couldn't wait outside anymore. "I'm going to come in OK? I'm coming in now."

I warned before turning the door knob, relieved that it was open. I came into the room to find Maryam's back turned away from me and facing the headboard of her bed. Though the sound of her crying had grown fainter and I couldn't see her face, it was obvious that she was weeping from the way her shoulders sagged and her head hanged low.

"Hey, what's going?" I asked softly. "What's wrong Maryam? What happened?" I crouched to my knees beside her bed and the dim light of her bedside lamp only allowed me to see faintly the side of her grieved face.

Maryam turned her face completely away from me and wiped her tears, pretending not to be crying. She was only seventeen years old, but she was already making a habit of always trying to hide it when she was sad.

"Should I go call Aunty Hajaru?" I asked, sensing maybe she might be more comfortable in talking to her and my conscience was telling me that it wasn't right to be alone with Maryam in her room at this late hour as well but as I was about to leave, Maryam abruptly shook her head in a no and stopped me.

"Alright I won't go, just tell me what happened? You can tell me, what's wrong." I asked again, my gaze on the open door.

I was thankful that I had left it ajar when I came in. In case she happened to walk by right this moment, I didn't want Aunty Hajaru's overactive imagination to create obscene scenereous of what I was doing in a girl's room in the middle of the night.

Maryam remained quiet and I grew more anxiou but when she saw I wasn't leaving until she talked, she finally started to stutter, "It's just that... that I miss them all of a sudden. Very very very much. Earlier, when you announced that you were leaving tomorrow, I just felt like you were going to leave me just like Mama and Baba did."

I knew that Maryam had been battling abandonment issues ever since her parents died and she moved back here to live with her uncle and my aunty who happen to be married to each other. We weren't blood related but Maryam was as much as my cousin and family as any of Aunty Hajaru's kids were.