By his third day at the hospital, Riyad no longer required his blood pressure lowered by medications or his consciousness drunken on intravenously infused drugs. He was fully awake as he lay his head back against the pillow, watching the girl who sat on the couch tearing chicken into smaller bites above the white rice. In his monitored recovery time, Riyad and Harakat had spent more time together than they had in their entire marriage. He'd grown accustomed to having her at his side, knowing she would be there if he looked for her whether asleep or awake.
She poured the broth over the rice in silence, using the silver spoon to mix everything together for easy consumption. Riyad's eyes skimmed over the slight dimple between her eyebrows as she took extra care not to allow any bit to spill over the edge of the bowl.
The couch creaked when she rose, making her way over to sit beside him on the hospital bed like she always did. Every afternoon since he'd woke, Harakat would assemble the food when it was brought and feed it to him herself, careful not to allow anything to drip onto his chin.
"I can feed myself now," he whispered. Though enough of his strength had returned, Riyad found no reason to raise his voice past a faint murmur in the silence of the room. Harakat's gaze shifted between his in question before she pushed the bowl closer to him and slid the spoon to him.
With a breath, Riyad lifted his hand to grip the cool handle of the spoon, tugging it out from beneath the rice. Harakat watched the silverware slide beneath the mixed meal, trembling as he lifted half a spoon full up then realized that his posture was inconvenient for feeding himself. She rolled her eyes and took it from his hand before he had the opportunity to drop anything on the freshly washed sheets covering his body.
"I just... need another day," he mumbled unhappily.
Harakat leaned forward to shake her head so that he might see her silent response. She placed the bowl on the table beside her and wrapped her fingers around Riyad's wrist, tugging his left hand until his knuckles rested against hers. Their rings shimmering side by side. He met her gaze as she motioned between them then interlocked her pinky finger with his.
Together.
He ran his tongue over his canines. "You shouldn't have to-."
His words drifted apart when she reached forward with one hand to gently grip the front of his jaw, putting a stop to his complaint. Riyad's breathing hitched in surprise as the girl lifted his head to connect their eyes. She pointed to herself then pressed her finger into his chest one last, lingering time before pointing above both of them.
Her, him, and God.
Riyad narrowed his eyes at her for a moment before one corner of his lips began to betray his amusement. When she saw his softening expression, Harakat's smile grew over her lips until he saw her straight teeth. Riyad tried not to linger for too long on the fact that his may the first time he'd seen her smile so widely. "We almost seem like we're really married, don't we?"
Her grin sat on her features for another moment before she lifted a spoonful of food to his lips, carefully sliding it past his teeth. Riyad had eaten a little more than half the bowl when he raised his hand, unable to swallow any more broth-flavored rice. Harakat hummed at his rejection then ate the remaining bites, oblivious to the way Riyad's eyes caught on her as she placed the spoon between her lips that he'd just eaten from. A gesture that had been unnoticeable to her but hypnotized him. Riyad could do nothing except watch her finish the food from his spoon.
"You're awake," the doctor entered the room with a chaste knock. Harakat quickly swallowed the last bite and hurried off the bed, leaving the sheets beside Riyad's legs cold. "I came by earlier but you both were still sleeping. How do you feel, ami?"
Riyad nodded. "Alhamdullilah."
The man hummed, scribbling down numbers from the monitor that stood a few inches from Riyad's head. "What do you think? Do you feel like you're ready to go home?" He asked but did not wait for a response. "The bleeding has stopped so all the pressure that was on your brain has eased and all your lacerations are closing up nicely. If you are able to get up and move around without raising your blood pressure too high, I could discharge you as early as this evening."
The thought of finally leaving the cool air and plain-colored walls of the hospital room he'd been stuck in for nearly four days made Riyad sit up as the doctor stepped back to allow him room. "I can," he agreed swiftly. He lifted the covers off his legs, pushing himself to the edge of the bed.
Behind the doctor, Harakat watched him anxiously, her eyes shifting between the sight of his trembling arms to the machine that beeped with every drum of his heart. After co-existing with it, the girl only seemed to notice its repeated clicks in moments like these.
Riyad's jaw tensed as he tried to lift himself off of the mattress, using all of the strength he'd regained to find his footing. He let his body weight slowly settle onto both foot and released the bed slowly until he stood on his own a foot from the bed's side. His legs ached and, for a moment, the world's lighting dimmed to a shadowed darkness that rocked back and forth. But Riyad kept his feet grounded until the colors returned.
The doctor had already been speaking when the ringing in his ears fell away. "...improve from here, but your blood pressure looks good," he murmured as he took more notes. "Any dizziness or muscle weakness?"
Lifting his gaze to meet the doctor's, Riyad shook his head. "No."
He avoided the watchful eyes narrowing at him over the man's shoulders, silently calling out his bluff. Her pointed gaze spoke words he understood without having to see the girl. The doctor was the one who responded. "That's good. Any dizziness or weakness you may experience will be normal as your body is getting used to the effort of moving around and returning to your usual activity level. If you have any more bleeding or experience another seizure, call me right away. This is my number," he handed a card to the girl standing behind him. "You can stay until tonight if you wish or leave before then, but your body is recovering well."
Riyad nodded, thanking the man quietly on his way out the door. Harakat hurried over to his side and nudged him with all the words she would have exposed his lies with had she been able to speak. "You heard what he said, those things are normal," Riyad took careful steps to turn back around, directing his conversation to the girl on his way back.
She pressed her hand into his chest to stop him, stepping closer so he would have to meet her gaze. It felt unusual to peer down at her again. "There's no reason to worry, Harakat. Even the doctor said I was recovering fine. I just need to get out of this-."
The world rocked again when he took another step but Riyad stumbled this time. He cursed at the ache in his muscles that weighed his legs down, keeping him from catching himself before he fell. Were it not for the girl who stood in front of him, Riyad would have crumbled.
"Harakat...," he groaned, his voice shuddering.
She gasped, reaching forward to catch his arms just as Riyad's weight crashed into her. Harakat stumbled back but kept her grip on his forearms firm to hold him up. He wrapped his fingers around the material of her dress, using the weakened hold to level himself to keep them both from falling to the floor. When she regained firm ground, Harakat's body pressed against his to straighten the Riyad who'd fallen against her, his chin resting on her shoulder. He stiffened his knees beneath him and caught his breath slowly, closing his eyes in relief as his wife stabilized him.
Then he felt her heartbeat against his chest.
Riyad opened his eyes, realizing the proximity they'd been pushed into. He tried to pull himself away but recognized the pulsing weakness still resonating between the joints of his legs. Harakat lifted herself back to peer over his face, her expression wide-eyed and worried. Riyad flinched when she released one of his arms to push his hair back from his forehead, looking over the healing wounds on his head to make sure they remained clean.
"Can you... help me to the bed?" He asked. Riyad kept half of his weight on the girl who carefully led him to the bed, her steps short between his parted legs until he slowly settled back onto the mattress. Even then, she remained in her place between his legs and placed both of her hands on either side of his jaw, turning his head to examine his wounds.
In his uneasiness, Riyad allowed the girl to move his head with no complaints. She turned him back to her and leaned his head closer, lifting one hand to run her fingers along his hairline, tugging it back to carefully inspect each of his healed and stitched cuts.
Riyad lifted his hand to catch hers and put an end to her panicked search for blood that she wouldn't find. "I'm OK," he whispered, squinting through the shadows slowly disappearing from his vision. "Just a little dizziness, bas. Don't worry."
But the subtle frown that tugged at the corners of her lips and drew a pout onto her features could only come from her worry as she peered down at the pale boy sitting in front of her. Her chest aching.
She tried to convince him to stay, but Riyad refused. Within a few hours, Farhan and Kader had arrived in a car to drive them back to the camp. It took a little over fifteen minutes to walk Riyad down and help him into the vehicle. Once he'd settled into the back alongside Harakat, he did not let his gaze leave the window beside him. Farhan announced that they would drive through a checkpoint but that, at that time, it would be empty. Still, Riyad's entire body remained on high alert.
He saw the lone booth in the distance, not surrounded by any of the soldiers wearing green uniforms that had appeared suddenly last time. His chest felt tight with every kilometer nearer they drove. Riyad's hand reached toward the girl sitting beside him. She glanced toward him when she felt his fingers wrap around her wrist, but Riyad's focus remained outside as they passed the checkpoint booth, ready to tug her down or out of the car at any moment. This wasn't the same place he'd last seen Hamza... right?
Harakat placed her hand over his in silent support as they passed.
Riyad's exhaustion had caught up to him by the time they arrived home, fighting for the couch even as Harakat pushed him toward the comfort of her bed. In the end, it is always the wife who wins over the husband. The moment his head rested against the fluffed pillow, Riyad fell asleep.
"You...," Riyad's eyes opened to find the girl he'd been searching for along with his brother since he'd been imprisoned within the Occupational Jail. Only he did not find her injured or afraid, he found her dressed in the same green camouflaged uniform of the same men who'd shot him and chased his brother down. "You're... one of them?" He breathed, his entire existence crumbling into sand and pouring through each crack in the ground until it melted into the earth, becoming nothing.
She stood unafraid of him. Her expression devoid of malice. Perhaps if he saw malice, he would not feel as if the universe had been pulled from beneath his feet and thrown him lost into a never-ending blackness. No, she watched him with lowered eyes and tight lips. Riyad knew the look of pity when he saw it.
He despised it.
"Where's Radi?" He asked, his question trembling as that of a young boy searching for his lost brother would. Riyad was the eldest. Riyad bore the responsibility of protecting his baby brother. Now, he had lost him.
The girl took a deep breath. "I would never hurt you. Riyad-."
"Don't say my name!" He snapped, turning his body fully to face the girl. His confusion, the worry he'd felt for her absence, everything he'd ever felt for the girl was quickly fleeting from his mind. Becoming replaced with a burning rage that none of the world's greatest oceans could put out. His feet quickly took him across the cell until he gripped the metal separating them, confident in his ability to shatter it from the fury pumping through his body. "Where's Radi?" He repeated, his entire body growing hot as he reached through the bars and gripped her collar. The girl cried out as he yanked her against the metal, not bothering to control of his strength. "Where's my brother, you traitor?!"
"Stop!" Someone shouted.
A rifle pointed toward Riyad. "Release her!"
He didn't listen as he brought the girl's face to his, tightening his grip around her uniform until he felt her frantic heartbeat against his knuckles. "If you hurt him, if you even touch him, I swear by the greatness of God that you won't live another happy day on this earth. I'll rip your heart from your chest just as you've done to me, do you understand? Where is he?!" He shouted into her face.
"He's free," she croaked in a desperate attempt to get free. But the racing men around her quickly tugged the woman away, throwing Riyad back into his cell. She caught her breath and continued. "He crossed the border... before- before we could get him. Your brother is free," she gasped.
Riyad listened to her words. The first time he'd heard them they had filled his body with such relief he felt as if his soul had lifted from within him. This time, they filled him with dread. He knew where her words would take them. "Liar," he whispered. "You're lying to me as if I don't know?"
She raised her face to peer at him in sadness, her tormented eyes filled with heartbreak at his refusal to trust her after all they'd shared before. The love that had lived between them until this moment. No, until she betrayed them. But her sorrow disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced with a wicked smirk that tugged unnaturally at her features when she watched him. "Smart one, you are," she snickered, her voice filling with a vileness only an nonhuman creature could carry.
"...Riyad," a voice croaked from behind him.
The cell crumbled around him as Riyad spun at the familiarity of his brother's voice until he stood in the same rainy courtyard he'd been in that fateful afternoon. Across a pool of standing prisoners, his brother's face had been uncovered as the third person standing on the wooden platform in front of him. Standing with stiff ropes placed around their necks were two older men and a young thirteen-year-old boy whose fearful eyes could only watch his brother's, pleading for help.
Riyad tried to move but his feet had melted into the ground, rooting him to his spot. "No, Radi...," he breathed, recognizing the dread that overtook him as he turned to all the people now watching him with empty eyes. "He's just a child, please let him go," he tried, knowing they would not. Riyad knew the sight that would come. It filled him with terror.
"Take me! Take me instead, but let him go, for God's sake," he cried, dropping onto his knees in an attempt to crawl out of the ground that engulfed him. Still, he could see his pleading brother as the rope tightened around his neck. "It's my fault. I'm the one who made us go. Let him go, please! Please!"
His little brother's trembling voice carried across. "Riyad, help me."
"Radi-," he tried to move but the ground only squeezed him more tightly. By the racing of his heart, Riyad knew what was going to happen was only moments away. He knew that, just like every other time, he would not be able to save his brother. "Testify, Radi," he cried, his nails breaking as he clawed at the ground beneath him for freedom. "Testify there is only one God and- wait, stop! Stop!"
Then a gunshot. Riyad felt a hammer slam into his back, sending him stumbling forward with its power. His eyes widened at the realization that he'd been shot before lifting to his brother who screamed his name as another bullet buried itself in his spine, sending him falling to the ground.
"Riyad!"
"Radi!" Riyad shouted, his eyes flying open into the darkness of the room. His heart pounded in his chest and the tightness grew from against his ribs to his entire body, drumming against his skull. He leaned over the edge of the bed in a weak attempt to rise, gasping for oxygen that refused him. "It's my fault. I'm sorry- I'm so sorry," he cried.
In his panic, Riyad hardly heard the door that flew open to allow one darkness into the other as the newly awakened girl rushed in. She dropped onto the floor beside him as Riyad gripped his heart, unable to breath and manage his growing headache at once. Harakat placed her hand on his shoulder to shake him from the fears of his mind. Riyad's wide eyes darted to her, faintly making out her outline in the darkness.
She pulled him up to sit on the bed, wiping all the sweat from his forehead as he watched her, breathing heavily. "It's all my fault, Harakat," he breathed, hiccupping painfully. "I couldn't help- he was my brother. My responsibility and they took him from me like... I can't-," he gasped in a dry and desperate attempt to pull in air.
Harakat climbed onto the bed, her panic rising. If Riyad could not breathe then his fear would grow just as hers was. If his fear grew, his blood pressure would rise. But she could not calm him, she could not make him listen to her because she could not speak.
A pained sob broke through his throat, scratching at the delicate tissue within his mouth. Even in the darkness, Harakat saw the despair glistening in his eyes and knew it was that that overpowered his body.
She climbed over his legs and wrapped her arms around his head as he fought her, tugging his ear against her collarbone. His hair scratched her jaw for the brief moment that he fought for freedom from her grasp and she battled for control of both their bodies. If he would just listen for a moment, he would hear the pounding of her heart and it would ground him from the horrors that raged within his mind.
"Haraka-," his voice broke as his arms stopped pushing her away, his body relaxing against her. She took deep breaths that he could hear in her lungs so his breathing would even too.
For a moment, once all the resisting stopped, the only sounds that filled the room were Riyad's inhales and exhales. They gradually softened until each breath out carried just enough to have matched his breath in. Harakat gently ran her hands over his forehead, cheeks, and neck to wipe away the sweat that matted his skin in an attempt to soothe him back to sleep. This time, she silently prayed for his peaceful rest.
Riyad's arms tightened around her, his shuddering breathing coming to a final stop as he fell back to sleep. But his hold on her remained firm, refusing to release the girl so she would not be able to leave him all alone in the darkness of the isolated room.
So, Harakat remained the rest of the night with Riyad. Unable to sleep, she spent the next hour wiping beads of sweat from his temples and measuring his breathing. But the comfort of the bed and warmth of Riyad's arms lay over her a cover so bewitching, Harakat never felt herself drifting off to a rest unlike any she'd ever remembered having.
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Yeah, you can say it... I was late again. I had a protest Sunday and today was my first day off of the week, I didn't even realize it until I sat down to write 💔. But to make it up to you, I joined two chapters into one w this chapter so you can read some more and I'll make SURE (inshallah) to post the next chapter early! Please forgive me.
♥️♥️