Her Boyfriend, My Husband

CHAPTER 24

Abdallah's POV

I broke out two tablets of advil from their packet and gulped them down with a glass of  water. This persistent headache I've been dealing with was racking my brain today with a vengeance and it didn't help that I've been overflooding myself with work and handling multiple cases all at the same time.

They were tens of files on my desk and I stare at them blankly before randomly letting myself pick the one I would face next and prepare to solve. I had found out that handling a private practice was much harder than I remembered it. Barrister Abdallah Sahabi was certainly starting to lose his professional attorney touch.

Though part of the the reason might be because these days, though I have buried myself in work and tried to distract myself with it, I've still been doing everything half heartedly. I couldn't concentrate fully on work and no matter how much I tried to block it out, all that was on my mind was Maryam.

I have been restless, reckless, mindless, impatient, inattentive, nervous and anxious all because of her. All because I can't seem to control myself from imagining what my life will be like less than a year from now. How everything will turn out to be when her marriage to that Yusuf is annulled and I finally get to enter the picture.

I will confess all my feelings to her and I will show her how I have truly and deeply always loved her. I was a fool for too long for not realising it sooner. I have loved her since we were kids but I was so stupid that I only figured it out now, when I was 30 years old and she was 25 and already married. The only saving grace was that she too wanted to end that sham of a marriage a year from now, that she hasn't been truly living like a married woman and she is still that pure and innocent Maryam and she is preserved just for me.

I know that she must have always felt the same way about me too but just like I haven't recognized my feelings until now, she too must need some help in recognizing hers and it would only take my confession to awaken her own love for me. And then, she'll accept me and I will give her the real wedding she deserved. I'll be her husband in the truest sense and I will protect her and provide for her and love her with every single thing I've got until the day I die.

Definitely the chance to do that in reality was worth me declining to renew my contract at the Hague and I would do it over and over again a thousand times. If I had went on to the Netherlands, in a few years, I would have been able to join the league of the worlds top humanitarian lawyers working for the UN but all that now seemed insignificant when compared to the concept of one day waking up and finding myself to be Maryam's husband.

Just like everytime, now too I got lost in my thoughts thinking of this dream coming true and I only revived back to reality when Kobin's voice finally reached me.

"Yes, yes?" I answered hurriedly, realising that my colleague had entered my office and been calling out to me for a while now.

"Where were you Abdallah? Are you sure you're fine these days?" Kobin said with a genuinely worried look before dragging out a chair on the opposite side of my desk and sitting down.

"Yeah man, sorry 'bout that." I shut my eyes tightly and massaged my eyelids before opening them again. "It's just that I forgot how it was working down here, the work loads definitely heavier than I remembered it and I know that's only because you've been doing an excellent job these past few years. I mean, we've got clients flooding through those doors every single day."

"Yes," Kobin smiled prudly as he adjusted his navy blue tie "Sahabi & Adams has certainly come a long way. Sometimes it's overwhelming but we've just got to keep on going. You know, if all the practices in Lagos were ranked, I won't be surprised if we come in as number 1."