Chapter 15 10: B

"And also, you pout like a baby without knowing you do. I want a grown up woman, not a baby I'll be taking care of." He added, which made her stomped her feet and her pout became even more prominent. "I'm not a baby, how can you say I'm one? I'm 23 years old, I m done with my masters degree earlier this year, how can you refer to me as a baby?" She was rolling her eyes at him, but her words and facial expression were saying the otherwise. He chuckled softly and with an exquisite smile, pointed at her and said, "What you just did, that's only what babies do, Fareeda. You can be 60 years old if you want, but I'll always see you as the baby you are in your soul." Annoyed at him too even though she was wondering while deep in her heart she wasn t angry at him, she began to walk back into the house. "They ve started calling the Maghreb prayer, I'll fulfill my promise, make sure you fulfill yours." "I will, Fareeda Kamal Sardauna." From where she stood, a few feet away from him, she turned and asked him too. "What your full name? It has never crossed my mind that no one knows your full name. Or I don t care to ask." "Why do you ask of it now, am I being interviewed for a job?" "Come on, you just called my name, and it s only fair if I know yours too." "It s a treasure, not everyone deserves to know my full name, you know that I'm called Mujaheed, you should be thankful about that as well." She rolled her eyes at him, "Always so full of yourself, and I really pray you will stop deceiving yourself. You re not as important as you think you are." And she turned to her heels without looking back. Mujaheed stared at her retreating back and softly exhaled when she was finally out of his sight before he walked out of the gate to perform his ablution and pray. ? Fareeda kept pacing to and fro in her room, rehearsing what she was going to say to Alhaji in form of an apology. She knew it would be of no use even if she apologized to him or not, because he clearly knew that she was never going to apologize to him at her now will. She had never done something wrong to him after all, had she? 'I came here to apologize to you, Alhaji. I realize what I did was wrong and I want to ask for your forgiveness, please forgive me. Will that serve well? No, it sounded so cheesy and he might think that she really meant it. 'I m sorry, Alhaji, for the things I said to you in the hospital, it was so wrong of me to say those things to my father- she couldn t even continue at this rate, it sounded so fake and was irritating her the further she thought about it. She wasn't going to wrack her mind about this, she knew the right words would come to her when she was in front of him. She heard as her phone beep, a message from Asma u that simply read, 'You re good to go, I've had her hooked here with me. Shortly after that, Nana came knocking on her door. "I m going to take the tea to Abba, Ya Fareeda, you said you wanted to join." When she stared at the door for a few seconds without answering, Nana spoke again, "Are you asleep already, Ya Fareeda?" "I m not, Nana. Can you go there first and do what I've told you? I'll be there shortly." She heard as Nana responded and walked off. Fareeda kept pacing to and fro and after cajoling herself and telling herself that she could do this, she walked out of her room and on her way to Alhaji s living room, she kept thinking about what she would say to him but hadn't come to the conclusion yet. She knocked on the door and heard the sound of his laughter as Nana told him of a story in their village. Everyone loved Nana, except for Ummah and her daughters, Fareeda thought for a moment and when she heard him utter 'come in, she walked in with her cold feet. She couldn't remember the last time she came to his living room herself. It was either she had done something to Ummah and she was summoned there by him, or he called her there to give her the beating of her life. But mostly, she only saw him in the parking lot when they have their unlucky clashes and he will chase her back home. Or in the downstairs living room as he waited for her to come back home after midnight, that had always been it. She was aware of the way he was staring at her but didn t look up at him until she was seated on a sofa that was far away from him and she cleared her throat while she fidgeted with her fingers. She couldn t believe the word of apology was going to be passed across them, and not from him, from her. Mujaheed should better fulfill his promise because if not, even she herself didn't know what she was going to do. "What is it now, Fareeda? What more trouble have you caused?" She heard his voice and cringed with the hatred she had for him. Taming down her anger, she looked up a bit, "I came here to apologize to you..." She let her words trailed off and gulped down her anger and the bitterness she felt that was threatening to bring an end to her life. "For the things I said to you in the hospital. I'm sorry." She wanted to puke, if there was someone that didn t deserve an apology in the entire universe, it was the monster living in the body of Kamal Sardauna. If anything, he should be the one apologizing to her, not this way. Alhaji stared at her longer than he had ever stared at her in years, he couldn t believe what he had heard from Fareeda today. He had seen them from his balcony this evening and thought of the possibility of what they were talking about, he had never imagined it was this, Fareeda apologizing to him? It must've been something huge. "I hope you can forgive me." She said and immediately stood up before she walked out of the living room. He stared at her retreating back before he turned and their eyes met with Nana that was grinning at him. "Are you sure we don t need to take that girl to the hospital? No, I'm sure there are jinns in this house, Nana." He said and they laughed at the same time. "I don t know who s more stubborn between Ya Fareeda and Ya Mujaheed, but they re a perfect match for each other." She said dreamily while she served Alhaji his tea. He nodded his head in agreement, because he needn't to ask, he knew it was certainly Mujaheed that made her apologize to him. And even though they acted with Nana as if it was nothing, he felt as his heart moved. If this was what being together with Mujaheed will bring out of Fareeda, then he wouldn t rest until the day he made sure they finally got married. The day she finally became Married To The Gateman. ? It had been two weeks since she had apologized to Alhaji and Fareeda still cringed and cursed herself whenever she remembered how she had apologized to him. She couldn t believe what she just did, how could she have apologized to someone like him? She had in mind that Mujaheed should better keep up his promise because there was no way she was going to take a no as an answer from. She had confirmed from Nana that she had told him about the apology, she needn t to worry about anything else. Even though with each passing day, her anxiety grew even bigger because the day kept approaching, it only left two weeks before the said day of their marriage. She hardly met Alhaji, which she was thankful for and also he hadn t said anything to her. She figured out he might ve been angry at her because Mujaheed had called off the wedding. Her phone rang beside her and when she saw the caller ID her phone nearly fell down, she kept staring at the phone until the call ended without her knowing, and she was about to call him back when he called again. Wait, was he dying? She knew it would only be a matter of death or life for Adam to call her twice in his life. She cleared her voice and put up a stoic expression before she picked the call, "Hello?" She said weakly, she missed him. She felt as her heart moved, it had been nearly three months and Adam didn t think it was right for him to call her, right? She thought it was over between them, even tough she wasn't sure about the reason why he called her. "Fareeda, I've missed you." That was the first thing he said, and she felt all her guards breaking down. She had never imagined that Adam would call her ever again after the message he sent to her, and for him to said that he had missed her was what she would have denied if someone came to tell her about. Tears brewed from her eyes but she quickly flicked them, she was done crying for Adam and that was certain. She silently prayed that her heart wouldn't betray her. "I've missed you to, Adam. It hasn t been easy not having contact with each other for months now. How have you been?" She softly asked, because she wasn't going to lie to herself by saying she didn't miss him, she did. She missed him really bad and she prayed they would be back together after all these hassles were over. "I've realized something for the past few months, Fareeda, I love you. I've always been in love with you but it hadn t occurred to me that I loved you this much, it s really not easy. I'm so sorry for all the things I've said and how I've reacted, will you please forgive your beloved? I promise I'm not doing it again, I'll treat you the way you deserve. And also, we should get married when your father finally accepts me. Will you please marry me, Fareeda?" This thing called a heart, which was the beholder of feelings and emotions, it can be beguiling at times. She thought she had promised herself not to ever cry because of Adam? Then why was she crying now? Her chest squeezed painfully as she cried and felt as if this was a dream come true for her. "I can t believe this is happening, Adam. You ve finally come back to me and..." She let her words trailed off as she cleared her tears, "As a changed person? Can it get any better?" She could hear his smile from the phone and right now she wished she be nowhere but in is arms, "I m sorry it took long for me to make you feel the love you deserve, but I promise to be the best man you can ever have." She cleared her tears and a wide grin painted itself on her cheeks, she loved this man. No matter how Adam was going to treat her or what he was going to say to her, she would always love him nevertheless. "I love you, Adam, please don t hurt me as you did before. It s really not easy on me, I'm finding it so hard to cope these days." She felt like running to the clouds to dance just so she could show the whole world that she was happy and in love with the best of men. And she was thankful, for the first time that she had finally apologized to Alhaji, which had hopefully revoked the alliance he was trying to make with Mujaheed. "Alhamdulilah. Thank you for forgiving me, Fareeda. And I want to see you, can I do that? Can I come? I want to make things official between us, I'll come to tell Alhaji about my intentions with you, whenever you feel its okay for me to, I will come." Was this really the Adam she knew? He was already talking about coming to see Alhaji about his intentions of marrying her? The only person she wanted to get married to was Adam, and that was as clear as the morning sky was. She grinned while nodding her head as though he could see her. "I'll let you know, Adam. But right now I don t want to do anything to get on his bad list, I ve been planning on how to get away from getting married to the gateman and the plan is working perfectly, so I have to be on my best behavior. We can only be together on the phone now, okay?"