ENSHROUDED

32

"From today onwards, you're not allowed to step your feet out of this house unless I know. And for school, whenever I'm free I'll take you there, on days I'm not. It isn't an obligation, forget about it." He threw her away from his way and stomped to his voice.

Shortly after, Abba walked out of his room holding a medium travelling bag. She was sure she wouldn't see him until next week. He found her in the same position he threw her at and she shuddered in fear and pain when he walked past her and stomped out of the house. Aisha let out a gurgle of tears and laid down on the cold tiles, she curled herself into a fetus position and cried until she couldn't breathe due to the pain. It was so painful that she wanted and wished nothing but for her pain to go away.

She finally got a hold of herself and scavenged for her phone in her bag. She found it and stared blankly at the phone, unable to make the right decision. She thought about what she wanted to do, but it was the only thing she could do. She hit the numbers and stared at them before she deleted them, she can't just call Mommy. She was sure if she did, she was going to embark on an even more painful journey of her life. She hugged the phone to her chest and cried until she was minutes away from suffocating.

Aisha crawled back to her room and had a warm bath before she trudged to the kitchen and warmed the food she cooked before she left. She ate her food with tears painfully dripping down her cheeks and walked back to her room. She took her medicines and added with a pain killer before she laid silently on her bed with tears slowly dripping from her eyes. This had been the worst phase of her life, and she couldn't wait to walk out of it. It was the most painful phase she had ever gone through, not even what Mommy did surpass this. Because in Mommy's doing, that was her life, she was only in pain because it had enshrouded what she never thought about. But this, this was her life entirely crushed by the man that claimed to love her. Well, that thought got cleared and he told her his real motive behind their marriage. He used her.

Aisha heard her phone ringing and she slowly pulled herself up and picked the call, "Good evening," she greeted without knowing who the caller was.

"Aisha," Firdausi uttered when she heard how horror Aisha's voice sounded.

Aisha didn't know when she broke to more tears when she heard Firdausi's voice. "Ya Firdausi, please come and take me away." She cried, she couldn't take the pain anymore and conceal it with her smile and fake laugher whenever Mama called. She couldn't anymore, she had her life slowly strained.

"Aisha, what happened? How are you? What is happening? Why are you crying?" Firdausi asked the question in one breath and stood up from the sofa she was sitting on. She had a bad feeling about Aisha and when Nasir came and asked her to call her to know how she was doing, she did.

"Ya Firdausi. I can't hold it anymore, it's getting too painful, I don't know what to do. I have scars all over my body, my heart is in turmoil, I'm slowly giving up on that. Will you please come and get me out of here? It's killing me." Aisha was crying so hard that she didn't know when she fell from the bed and rested her head on the bed.

"He beats you?! Aisha? Where is he now and...just tell me in details!!!" Firdausi demanded and before she made her next move, Nasir collected the phone from her hand and spoke in an agitated tone.

"Aisha, what's happening? Where are you now?!" His voice was straight and sharp, and for a split second, he sounded much more like Abba than himself.

"Dr..." She slurred and let her words trailed off, she wasn't even crying anymore. It had gotten to the point that Nasir's voice sounded alien to her ears. Her tears now were cascading down as peacefully as they can, with no sound.

"Aisha, you need to calm down and tell me where you are, and where is Abba?" He asked again, and she closed her eyes tightly.

"I'm at home, he has left almost two hours ago." She answered and she heard the shufflings Nasir made before he gave the phone to Firdausi and he uttered. "Just calm yourself down, Aisha. I'll be on my way now."