Chapter 43

At first, it was to console her and make sure she had stopped crying, and to tell her words of affirmation, letting her in of how much he had loved her. He had never felt as light headed as he did today and it was all thanks to the lifetime secret he had laid bare to her eyes. He was smiling from ear to ear, and he knew even if she weren"t his wife today, he would"ve felt relieved that a soul, apart from his, knew of this secret of his and it happened to be her.
Everything was so clear in his mind, how she had look so happy and at peace the first time he saw her. How he couldn"t take his eyes off her because she was the first woman that had ever gotten that much of his attention and to him, it was the first time a woman looked so beautiful in his eyes. She was serenity with a pinch of happiness fused into the body of a woman. And when he flew them back to Nigeria, he found a way, thinking of how to speak to her but only ended up greeting her father just like a passenger and he walked away, leaving his heart in the wake of a woman with a smile so contagious that she didn"t even ask for his heart but he had left it to her mercy.
He was so happy when he went back home, told Hassan that he had met the woman he loved and would find a way of reaching out to her. It was an era of social media, and he had done a little research and found just only her name, which would done a lot good to him; Nadia Bukar. He had never got to share the name with Hassan, because he felt it was his little secret and unless she knew about his existence, she wouldn"t be a real person in his life, yet.
He found her on twitter, because he wasn"t much of an instagram person and got stuck. He may never have liked a tweet she posted nor had he ever interacted with her random pictures of ice cream or her playful rants about cakes and so, but he was the first to see, had even turned the post notification on her profile. And then it happened, he was needed at the company he applied for and got the job and he got busy for over a year, flying from one country to another that he kept telling himself, when he got at least a month to himself and got back home, he"d definitely have the woman he wanted.
But destiny didn"t work that way, you see. It worked the way it had been planned, and he wouldn"t have had it differently. When he finally got that month he had ben anticipating and straight got back home, he met his twin the happiest he had ever been. Hassan glowed with happiness and the only thing he could talk about was his Singleton. It was so satisfying watching him talk day and night of the woman he loved and all he spoke about was his plans to marry her.
When Hassan got so serious about the marriage issue, Hajia asked him about the lady he had once told her about, told everyone about but had stopped even talking about her anymore and he told her that he still hadn"t reached out to her but he will, and hopefully, they would get married together. He escorted Hassan to Abuja at the time, so excited to finally meet the Singleton that had turned his brother"s head upside down and when he did, sitting in their living room as Hassan went out to receive a call and she came in with the brightest smile ever; reminding him of how much he had loved and missed that smile, his heart shattered into tiny bits.
But he held onto the hope of maybe, it was her sister that was the Singleton of his brother, and he may have her, if he were lucky, that was. She grinned at him, obviously happy to see him and walked towards the sofa he sat. "Twin!" She called out, staring at his face with the most comforting smile in the world, and right there, he knew she was never his. Hassan had told him that she called him Twin.
He tried to smile, but his heart was so broken to paint an expression that wouldn"t give away the secret he now wanted to keep locked away with his entire life. And then Hassan, his life rescue, came and rescued him with an even brighter smile. "Singleton!" He called out and she looked up at him with a confused expression, a bit frightened, actually.
"Who..." She stood up, pointing between the two men with her eyes bulged out as though they were a saucer. "So, you really are the same person!" She couldn"t believe it, had to rub her fingers over her eyes and when she opened them again, she still got a double version of her twin and Hussain chose the only way as his coping mechanism, he chose to be the cold Twin, to help her differentiate between the two of them.
He were cold not because he hated her as his brother"s wife. Not because she wasn"t fit for the position, but because she fit so perfectly and he had spent nights after nights of wishing she were a Twin too, he would have had the other version of her, just like she did his. He was cold to her because he couldn"t afford the damage being nice would cause in his soul, especially when all he wanted was to forget that he had ever loved her and each night, he painfully got reminded that he was still in love with her. Just that, he loved his brother a wholesome more and could sacrifice to him, not just the woman he loved, but his life in its entirety. He was cold to her because he didn"t know how to safely be anything to her but that.
And right now, it felt as though he were floating into the clouds and not actually having the woman of his dreams in his arms. He didn't know how consoling her had turned into such a heated romance between them, but all he found himself doing at the moment, was shedding tears of sheer happiness as he tried to recall the du"a assigned for when consummating one"s marriage and it became even more clear to him, that she really was his now, to love and to make love to.
He was far gone into the fantasy of her body, showering light kisses around her neck as he readied himself to fully make her his, because he couldn"t afford anything else but to make her that when he heard him. A soft whisper that he would have excused as a moan if he weren"t so sensitive to anything that came from her. She spoke only three words, but those three words were like a shooting arrow directly to his heart.
I'm sorry, Hassan." She called out in a voice filled with desire, her eyes closed as she relished on the heated movements his hands were doing around her body.
He gulped down a lump in his throat, he wanted to make sure what he heard was correct, and so he dipped his finger into the place he knew would force any reaction out of her mouth, be it the truth, what she had just said again or her undiluted want of him at the moment. Or anything, just that, a huge part of him wished what he heard was just his mind playing tricks on him.
And she did moaned, as heavily and intimately as he had never heard a moan from her and if he weren"t so heartbroken by the words she had uttered, he would have been claiming his possession in her right now, having their bodies fused into one, but that wasn"t what he wanted anymore. He moved his fingers sensually, badly wanting a reaction from her even though he"d kill to have those words removed from his mind. He watched as she moaned again, her head falling back, her eyelids fluttered open for sometime and she stared at him with nothing but desire in her eyes.
"Now, please, Twin..." He wished she didn't call him that, because he knew, he mightn't be the one she was referring to. And just when he was about to give her the one thing he had been dreaming for years, she whimpered again, "Oh, Hassan, please...Now!"
He broke down completely on top of her, breathing heavily as he tried so hard to get a hold of these overwhelming feelings of his. He didn"t know what caused it, but he instantly broke into silent tears. His body acting up to the avalanche of emotions trying to rip him open. It may be the anger he felt, or the guilt ripping at his soul, or just...the thought of him being the worst brother on earth.
Quickly, he got off her and rushed to the bathroom, because he couldn"t afford to have her know that she was crying and what he was thinking. Or the flash of thought that had crossed his mind for that split seconds she had called out to his brother. He was careful not to close the door as hard as he did, because he sincerely wished that when he opened the door again, she"d not be in the room anymore.
And he slid on the floor, crying, not because he was angry anymore. Not because he was sad because all he wanted from her was to be recognized by her as a human too, not just a copy of the husband she had loved and missed, given freely to her by god. He was already welcome to the idea of fully knowing that she would never regard to him as the normal person he was. She"d always attached Hassan to whatever he did, say or didn"t even do. To her, he"d always be like a clone she had gotten and not a human himself, and up until today, he was okay with that. Sometimes, a bit happy, because it wasn"t like she was attaching him with some random man, it was his brother, the person he loved the most in his life. And he was so certain that there never would be a moment of him like being jealous because of that.
But what was that had he felt? He pondered and palmed his face, breaking into tears as he felt the guilt of it trying to break down the walls of his soul. What sort of human was he? Jealous and angry because she had called out another man"s name while he was intimately together with her, and not just a man, his deceased brother. Didn"t that make him, like, the worst person on earth? That he"d still wish to go back to that moment and have her change those words? And have her call out to him and not the brother that was no more? He could swear, for a moment, his heart was like... He isn"t alive anymore! I'm the one that"s here with you and I loved you even before he did!" Weren"t words like that so terrible to be harbored by his heart? And towards...his twin? His other half?
He broke down completely into a pits of tears, wishing he could change the way he was feeling, erase the fact that those thoughts had ever surfaced in his heart. He thought he was ready to give his life in exchange for Hassan to be resurrected, had it been it were possible? And then, now, because of a woman, he thought that way? He felt so disgusted and dirty of himself as he thought, cried and wished there was a turning point to all of this.
If he knew that marrying Nadia would lead to this, he never would have agreed to get married to her, no matter how much he loved her. No matter how hard it would be to know that instead him, she got married to another man, once again. No matter how he would crumble, once again, to know that she was in the arms of another and not him. Knowing so well that it wouldn"t be the arms of a man he was willing to sacrifice not just a woman to, but his life. But a man that he could kill to have her, if chances were given. But then, all that aside, if he knew he"d think about Hassan this way, he never would have agreed to marry her. Because, as much as he loved her and she meant the world to him, Hassan was his life, a reflection of his own self, and he loved him even much more than life itself.
And right now, he hated himself. And maybe, hated her a bit for doing what she did.