If I Can Hate You, Why Can't You? A Nigerian Story

If i can hate you, why can't you? Chp 40

Devastation, frustration and utter loneliness was what was brewing and burning up in his head and heart but most especially his heart. Pain, an unutterable pain. Shattered, broken and lost, he knew he had failed, not only himself or his wife, but his parent and hers also. He remembered the day he got married to her which he hated so much he even calls it, his doom day but in really he was actually doomed the time he noticed she wasn't there anymore. Fighting the urge to scream out loud, he couldn't cry nor scream because he felt he deserved all what he was feeling right that moment he pulled his phone out to try dialing her number but remember that he didn't have it and out of anger, he threw the phone from across him to the ground and it shattered into pieces tagging along with a broken screen that was beyond repair. He sat there staring at the phone he just broke comparing himself to it. The only difference was that the phone was an android and has no emotion however, he does have so if he was going through such pain now, how did she manage to stay up with him till date? How did she manage to swallow up the insults he kept throwing her way, how was she feeling the night she came back home with tears in her eyes with no one comfort her? How horrible has he painted his image in her eyes? Knew he couldn't handle it if it was him he would have left since day one but it wasn't him it was Kulthum. Lord! He dragged himself to the washroom to pour cold water on his face maybe he would feel a little better but as soon as the water made contact with his skin he whimpered and staggered backwards because the water was just to hot to dense the the pain he was feeling even though it was a cold one. Nothing could quench his pain except one thing or more correctly, one person. So, he dragged himself out of the bathroom to the side of his bed and sat down legs pressed to his chest and his arms sprawled against it then his head was buried deep into it. If anyone should see him like this they would surely runaway because he looked like a homeless wreck who is not in his right senses and damn right he wasn't. He pulled his hair so tight that he could swear he heard it pulling away from his skull however, that didn't hinder him from his assault then he glanced at the mirror but the person looking back at him was absolutely not him but someone else because this person almost looked like a drunk and that Abdullah isn't but he wasn't sure if he was the one or not. The current pain he was feeling now is nothing compared to the pain he caused his wife and only now did he acknowledge the unbearable pain she had to go through just because of him he knew he made her life a living hell starting from the first night of her marriage but that didn't bother him so he continued but now that he was given a little taste of his own medicine he couldn't take it and is begging for relief inwardly.

"Abdullah?" A distant voice called but he couldn't hear it. The only thing he was capable of seeing and hearing was his wife's voice when she cries at night and her eyes full of tears caused by him. "Abdullah?" This time around the voice was sharp enough to pull him out of his reverie and he cocked his head to the side to see the figure of his mother towering above his head. "Are you okay son?" She asked helping him up and seating him down beside her on his bed.

"How can I be mother?" He returned her question with another one. "How can I be okay after all I have pulled her through? What was her fault in all this? Nothing! She did absolutely nothing yet I punished her and blamed her for everything bad that has happened to me even when she proved her innocence to me times without number I still doubted her for no goddamn reason I called her not with her name but with unthinkable names and yet she didn't say a thing about that she still stayed with me like that not once did she complain to me even when I called her a characterless gold digger a shameless liar and all, she still didn't say a word to me. How could I have been so blind not to see how pure she was? How could I have been so ignorant and heartless toward a lady I call my wife mother? How could I? And you asked me if I am okay? I am not mother. I am not, I wish there was a rewind button that I could push and I would go back in time to right my wrongs draw back all the insults I threw her way and seek for her forgiveness but I can't. I can't even go there and tell her how sorry I am because I am so ashamed of myself to meet her not after all I have done I don't even know what to do mother am so clueless" drops of water trailing down his cheek obstructed his vision but he didn't allow it to flow freely. He wasn't authorized to let his pain out so he wouldn't do it he wiped his cheek away and tries facing his mother with a shameful gaze and she smiled at him. 'No don't smile, I don't deserve that sweet kind smile of yours mother' he thought