Afraid To Fall In Love

The Employee

I held my phone to my chest, smiling to myself thinking of how fast news can travel, I just got off the phone with aunty Jamila, she has heard about the introduction and had called to wish me luck, though she scolded for not calling her so often or even visiting frequently.

It's been a week since papi broke the good news, everyone has been so excited making arrangements for the wedding, Nasreen and Amani had gone as far as picking out the Asheobi.

Everything was going on smoothly, the day we have all been waiting for had arrived, Mamie had travelled to Abuja to help with the arrangements, leaving me with my cousins, ever since the news of the engagement Mamie had taken the responsibility upon herself to give me a wedding to remember , she engaged herself in every activity, she even pampered me more these days.

The night before the introduction I had a pretty bad dream about the engagement being called off, it was a dream but it sure scared the hell out of me, it was almost fagr so I went into the bathroom to perform wudhu , I couldn't go back to sleep, because I didn't want to go back to the nightmare.

The girls had noticed how uneasy I was, pacing and biting my nails. They tried to calm me down but I think they ended up making it worse, my mind wouldn't let me be, with all the 'what ifs', it almost drove me crazy.

Amani came up with a brilliant idea, for us to eat ourselves to death, it was a good idea, maybe going out to have fun will take my mind off the engagement. So she went to ya Mahmud to ask if he would agree to take us out, we all had our fingers crossed back in the room and surprisingly he agreed to come along after a great deal of persuasion .

We ordered home made lasagna from Nasreen's classmate before we got out of the house, so we wouldn't have to wait for long when we got to the place . In no time my mind was at rest, we shopped for stuff we might likely not even use and ate till we couldn't breathe. I had a lot of fun with the girls, even grumpy Mahmud wasn't so bad, they were all there for me.

We got home very late in the evening, we prayed first then went through all the stuff we bought, it was at the moment I remembered I haven't touched my phone all day, I pulled it out from my bag looking at the content of the screen,

"Subhanallah" I muttered, looking at the number of missed calls and messages , some were from Nazeer and the rest were from Mamie and Amrah. I began to panic, my heart was beating faster and my palms were sweating, I reluctantly opened the message from Nazeer.

I was a bit confused when I read it the first time.

(my Minal, my darling Minal, three months and then you are all mine)

I quickly picked up the phone to call Ya Amrah, all of a sudden I was ashamed to call Ammi or Mamie.

"There goes our little bride" she squealed making me cover my face as if she was standing right in front of me,

"I hope it went well" I managed to ask,

"oh yeah, papi kept praising his family, they seemed very religious and rich to me" she giggled, " and apparently Nazeer's family cannot wait to have you as a daughter in law, they requested for the wedding to be held in three months time" right now she was sounding like a child in a candy store,

"oh wow" I mumbled, I really haven't met any of Nazeer's family members, we only talked on the phone, so it was a bit surprising that they would make such a demand, but then it had to be Nazeer's idea,  oh God he never seize to amaze me.

Ya Amrah's babbling brought me back from my reverie,

"the wedding is in three months not in three days, chill woman" I chirped feeling almost annoyed,