ENSHROUDED

04

She shook her head while crying so hard, "Please you should leave. I don't want anything that has to do with you. I beg you in the name of Allah, please you should leave. He's the reason I have my life destroyed now, I know he sent you here so you could kill me right?"

Nasir smiled and shook his head, "I know you're referring to Jaafar, but trust me if I tell you it has been more than two months since I last saw him. Now, I need some answers from you."

Aisha kept staring at him for some minutes, intently that Nasir felt as if she could see through his skin. He wanted to know what happened, she was just a small girl, but how could this happen to her? "Swear to Allah that you're not together with him and you're not going to hurt me." She sounded so innocent and so hurt and whatever Nasir found heartbreaking.

He smiled and sat opposite her on the floor, he liked how innocent she looked. Despite how he could see the pain written on her face, he liked the look on the face. It was radiant and it spoke everything sort of beauty. "I swear to Allah, the lord of you and I, I'm not after you to hurt you and I will never do that."

"I believe you then." She spoke silently and then she went silent, waiting for his questions to come. Despite the roar of pain in her heart, she still found a space in her heart and mind to listen to him.

Nasir cleared his voice, "I want to know your name. What's your name and how old are you?"

She cleared the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She felt she couldn't trust her name again. Is her name even real? Or Mommy faked it too? Thinking about Mommy made a huge churn of bitterness choked her throat.

"My name is Aisha Umar Faruk. I'm 17 years old." She found herself answering, even though she wasn't sure of all she said anymore. Her name, did she even have a father? Who was her father? Was she born 17 years ago? Or Mommy faked it too?

She didn't know she was crying until Nasir handed her his handkerchief, "Here, clear your tears. I'm so sorry if my questions unveil your wounds." She collected the handkerchief and cleared away her tears, but more tears were gushing out in a rush.

"Do you know what those guys did to you is called?" He knew he needed not to ask, but he had to. Because if she didn't, he had to tell her what it was and everything, as the doctor that looked after her.

She closed her eyes and an ocean of tears rolled down her cheeks. She swears she could feel like the hands of pain squeezed her heart, a painful squeeze. She nodded her head vehemently, "Yes, I know. They raped me."

"How many of them raped you, Aisha?" He was afraid that her answer would prove his instincts right, but he knew he had to ask her so he could fill her medical record.

"They were five. The whole five of them!" And she broke into tears. She wished she could wind back the hands of time. She wouldn't have gone to school today. She wouldn't have waited for the time of the exams despite knowing she won't be let in. She wouldn't have stayed after she was chased out of that hall. She wouldn't have waited for Jaafar for all those hours only for him to shatter her world which led to her life being destroyed for eternity.

Nasir stood up and called the nurse, she came in and he asked her to help Aisha back on the bed and she should tell her how to take care of herself so the stitches will heal in a meantime. After she was back on the bed, Nasir looked at her and felt his heartbreaking silently at the way she was crying bitterly. He wished he could take away her pain. Young and innocent girls like her didn't deserve what she got.

"I just need a number of your family, Aisha. So they'll know where you are and they don't have to be looking for you everywhere," he said.

Aisha flashed back all she heard about Mommy today, and all that happened to her as revenge on Mommy today, and the new Mommy she saw; all in a day. She felt that she didn't want to face her again, she wasn't ready. And for a few years to come, Aisha didn't know she would ever be ready. "Last two months, My Mother and father died in a car accident, I'm the only child they had. My uncles did this to me because I didn't give them the keys to where my father's documents are. They threw me at the roadside where the man you said brought me here picked me." She had seen enough movies and read enough books to come up with a perfect convincing lie. She will never disclose her identity to everyone again. She'd rather live her life as an orphan than to live hearing a word like a prostitute being thrown at the face of her mother. She winced at the word. And shuddered at those images in her brain.