Before You Leave Me ✔️

Chapter 2: Falling

Immediately, Sania's eyes fell on her little boy who rushed to her side then stopped dead still, staring at her uncertainly. The relief washed over Sania like an over-filled dam being forced back for too long. Sania offered him her uninjured arm and he walked over to her, cautiously avoiding any part where she could have been hurt. One arm hanging limply in a sling, a neck brace and her ribs tied up underneath her shirt, she was a mess. Her leg was in a brace, almost unmovable. Sania was certain that she looked pathetic.

"I'm glad you're okay, mummy," Haaris cried to his mother, wetting her shirt with his little salty tears.

Sania hugged her son as tightly as she could, feeling the overwhelming rush of gratitude to her Creator for keeping her son safe. Her little Haaris was all that mattered to her in this world. "Alhamdulilah is what we should be saying, baby boy," she told him as she swallowed down the tears that threatened to flow down.

"Okay, mummy," he said as he picked up her handbag and carried it on his shoulder.

"Are you okay, baby? Are you in pain?" Sania asked, her attention solely focused on Haaris. She forced his small hand into hers. All Sania needed was the physical reassurance that her baby boy was okay, alive, unharmed. "Do you want to go and get something to eat baby?"

He nodded. "No, jazakallah mummy, this uncle, he is my new friend, and he gave me a burger. And then we had milkshakes. I had a blue milkshake and we spoke about Batman and Iron Man." Haaris trailed off when he realised that his mother was not responding. He looked up and found her frowning at him.

Sania raised an eyebrow at her son, letting him know that she was not pleased with his actions. Haaris should have known better than to accept anything from a strange man. She had warned him multiple times. Sania didn't want her son's naivete to bite him. She did not want him to suffer the way that she had...

"I'm sorry, mummy," he whined with an adorable pout as he made his eyes water and appear bigger than they are. "I was really, really hungry!"

Sania wanted to argue further, to remind her son about the dangers of accepting anything from a stranger, but she couldn't bear to hurt him more. They had had a tiring day.

"And the burger was looking really yummy! Like you know in Madagascar when Alex is stuck out of New York with no food and then he sees Marty and Marty is looking like steak to him?" Haaris waits for his mother to nod. "Well, the burger was looking good to me like Marty was looking good to Alex, mummy. It wasn't my fault," he pouted.

"Okay, Haaris, but just this once, okay?" She surmised that he must have been frightened out of his mind for everything that he had to endure. He was all alone – for the first time in his short life. "I know, baby boy, we had a different kind of day today, didn't we?" she smiled at him.

He nodded.

"Let us go get mummy's medication, and then I will call us a cab to go home." She ruffled his hair a little. "Does that sound good to you?"

"Yes! I want to sleep, mummy," he said in an almost half-whine.

"Excuse me, sorry," a deep, rough masculine voice interrupted Sania and Haaris. Haaris, much to Sania's surprise, looked up and smiled at the stranger. "My name is – "

"Izaad!" Haaris cried out happily. "Izaad meet my mummy!"

Sania blushed under the tall stranger's intense eyes. It was the first time in her life that she felt so uneasy under a man's gaze. She felt self-conscious. She was in a messed and bloody shirt and her pants was bunched up untidily over her leg brace. Sania didn't even want to think about how her scarf must have looked. To her defence, she only had one hand. It was difficult to do much with a leg brace and an arm in a sling.