The Cost Of Retribution( Not your usual Hausa love story)

Chapter 16

Hala told me in the board room that she thinks she might be pregnant and she needed to know for sure, I asked her to get a gynecology consult because she seemed worried but she insisted that I do it.
She said she specifically requested me because she needed someone whose confidentiality she was sure of, but I suspected she just needed someone by her side.

"Okay are you ready?" I asked as I snapped on my latex gloves and pulled the stool near the exam table.

Hala looked at me and nodded slowly.

The look in her eyes made me want to hold her hands and tell her that whatever it was, she was going to be okay but I didn't because I knew the anticipation was killing her.

I proceeded to squirt the cold gel on her exposed stomach and began to use the transducer to move around, seeing as Hala was only growing more nervous by the minute, I concentrated on the blurry sonogram image on the monitor and after a few minutes of squinting, I spotted it, a growing fetus embedded within the walls of the uterus.

Excitement filled me and I squealed, "There it is"

Hala looked at me alarm covering her features, "S-so I'm actually p-" she couldn't complete her statement as her voice croaked at the end.

"Hala you're pregnant" I said slowly because judging by the emotions playing on her face at the moment, this wasn't exciting news for her. "I'd say about seven to eight weeks judging by the size"

She nodded facing the ceiling and biting her lip to keep from crying maybe.

"Are you okay?" I asked

She nodded again but this time was unable to stop the tears from rushing down her face,

"Oh Hala" I pulled her to me and hugged her while she cried her eyes out. A few minutes later she sniffled and let me go, relaxing back on the exam chair.

"I don't want to have this baby" she said firmly.

I was shocked at her admission "Hala - Don't say that" I began.

"No I don't, I don't want to bring another child into this world who'll have such a cruel man for a father" she snapped. "He forced me to take a stick test this morning, because he was suspicious that I was pregnant, but I dipped it into the toilet bowl and it came out negative, I wasn't sure I was, but I didn't want to take a chance of him knowing if I actually was pregnant."

"I'm so sorry Hala" were the only words that I could muster, because i was shocked beyond words.

Hala and her husband Rashid were the couple everyone wanted to be, they seemed happy from the eyes of the world but if the idea of having another child with him terrified her like this, then maybe what we saw was a facade.

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After work I'd gone straight home, it was around seven thirty pm, I took off my clothes and got to work preparing a relaxing bath, because I needed it like a fix.

In a tub of warm water, I threw in a strawberry bath bomb, I added several splashes of cucumber melon bath oil and my bathing humra, then I squeezed some lux lavender body wash and got in. I sat in the bath for what felt like hours just thinking and over thinking about what life was.
After Hala's consult today, I hadn't been myself for the rest of the day, she didn't tell me much about what was going on with her marriage but I assured her to that I would be here should she want to talk, it had to be bad for her to loathe the idea of having another child with her husband.

I kept on thinking about how people go into marriage with so much hope and dreams, but these dreams get shattered once you actually know who your life partner is, the worst part is when there is a child involved.