Chapter 44 : A Glimpse Of Red

"Afternoon, Captain. I got a bit startled seeing your call, because the way you left that day made me think you d never contact me again. I hope everything is fine with you?" He tasted the despair dripping from each word she had uttered but Na im wasn t ready to feel sympathy for yet, another woman in his life.
"I'm fine, but she s not. Is there a way you can help, please? I can easily take her to the hospital." The panic in his voice made Nafisa tame down all the words she wished to say to him and her professional self kicked in.
"Subhanallah, what's wrong with her? Can she speak?"
"Her maid she s has been suffering from lower abdominal pain, it has been going on for hours now, what do you suppose we do?" The sigh of relief that had escaped her mouth made it seem to him that it wasn t a so serious illness for him to be worried about, but still, he was the one that was seeing the way Maryam was groaning in an excruciating pain and she was no longer on his laps now, over there rolling between the ends of the room.
"Give her the phone please, it s nothing serious though." She said and Na im had to cajole Maryam before she agreed to let him place the phone on her ear and Nafisa smiled while she spoke, "Hey, Maryo, how are you feeling?" Despite Maryam being in an excruciating pain, she wondered why it was so hard for people here to call her with her name. What s with Maryo now? Was it so hard to call her Maryam or what?
"My lower abdomen is paining me, and it has been going on since yesterday." She cried and when it moved painfully, Maryam couldn t suppress her cry of pain. Nafisa kept asking her questions that Maryam found so hard to answer amidst the pain she was going through until she told her to give him the phone and she did.
"Captain, she s starting her period. It has even started yesterday at night, so it s natural for her to feel this way. I'll send in a few pain killers and a recommended pad you ll buy for her. I don t know whether she knows how to wear it, because this is obviously her first time, so I'll send you a video, watch it or give her to watch it, anyway will do so long as she'll understand."
The curiosity that pounded at him wouldn t let him to just thank her and end the call, hence he asked her, "But is it okay? She s 17 years old today and how can this be her first time?"
Nafisa chuckled at his obvious na?vety. "All our bodies move at their own paces, Captain. Especially with what we eat and the environment we re in. It wasn t her time then and I'm sure the change of food she has and environment now has helped a lot." She ended her words with a soft smile, "I ll send everything to you at once."
"Okay, Dr. Thank you, you ve been so helpful."
Nafisa hesitated before she said the words that have been itching her mind, "If you re truly thankful, then I have a favor to ask, please don t turn me down this time." Na im sighed and closed his eyes before he nodded his head first, as though she sat opposite him.
"I want us to meet so we can talk things out between us. I'll send you the location and time, please don t stand on me."
"Sure, I'll be awaiting for everything then. Thank you." He ended the call before she got the chance to say something, he knew he had gotten himself involved in something he shouldn t have, but that was the only thing he believed he could. Because if for anything, Nafisa had been so helpful with Maryam s matter and he knew she had his secret on her palm, so he wouldn t risk mistreating her.
He looked down at Maryam that kept rolling from one side to the other and could remember, once, he had heard his step sisters talking about how a hot water in a bottle could help ease this pain. He didn t know whether it actually worked or not, but he was going to try it on her. He called Bilkisu and she came rushing into the room, still agitated. He ordered her to put hot water in a bottle and either give it to her to massage her lower abdomen or she can help massage it herself.
He was about to leave the room when Maryam took a hold of his wrist and he sat back, "I m just going to buy some medicines that will ease the pain, Mairam, okay? I'll be back in no time."
"No injection?" She had painfully asked and he smiled before he nodded his head at her, all the time he had spent in the room, Na im had avoided looking at her lips because the last thing he wanted was to get a reminder of what had transpired between them yesterday.
"No injection. Just pills and some other things. Keep being strong, okay?" She nodded her head and released her hold on him. Na im stared at her for some minutes before he walked out of the room.
He kept thinking of what he had done in the car, why in the world had he accepted Nafisa s invitation to speak to him? He knew it certainly wouldn t end well and might not even be surprised if Sadeeq had squeezed his way into her mind and got her to spill a secret or two, he would be damned if she did that even though he knew she didn t know where Maryam was at the moment.
He dialed Hafiz s number when it kept showing that it would be a hard thought if he wanted to do it alone and Hafiz picked the phone before he groaned softly, "I was sleeping, Captain. Make it worthy of my precious sleep or I'll reveal out your precious little secret."
That made him chuckled softly, Hafiz loved threatening him. "Lieutenant, are you threatening me right now?" He asked with a voice that was supposed to come off as hard but he was laughing within and it seemed his laughter had been heard by Hafiz that softly groaned at him.
"What is it? Please make it quick, I need to go back to sleep, Na im." Well, Na im it was and he would act like Na im now.
"Nafisa fixed a hangout for us and I've already accepted it. But I'm nervous, I don't know what she has got to speak about even though we all know, but a part of me feels she s planning on something." He didn't know why there was this feeling that kept gnawing at him even though he couldn t point a finger at what it was.
"Why did you accept if you know you d end up acting this way? You can call her to cancel it, right? And what do you think she might be plotting against you? The worst is to get you killed and apart from the fact that she couldn t do that, you re a soldier Na im, you can always save yourself. Besides, she loves you a lot to do that."
Na im shook his head at that, "She begged me not to, and I feel I can't provoke her to have her spill everything we re trying so hard to hide, Hafiz."
"Then the only option you have is to go, be soft with you words that way even if she plans to do something, her love for you with soften her. If that s all you called to say, I'm sorry but I'll have to end the call now." He didn t even give him a chance to say a word when he ended the call and Na im stared at the phone in his hand. He hissed just when her messages got into his phone and put it back into his breast pocket and drove ahead.
?
He walked into the room with tentative steps and hoped that she wasn t in so much pain as he left her before. He found her seated on the floor but she was no longer rolling over, just there as she placed the bottle on her lower abdomen and thought, even though he had no idea what it was she was thinking about. The sound that came when he had closed the door behind him made Maryam looked up and when she saw that it was him, something changed in her eyes and she quickly looked down.
He could only smile, because he realize that to be shyness and she didn t even have to tell him what she was thinking about now. He sat leg crossed into yoga position in front of her and cleared his throat but Maryam acted as if he wasn t there. "Should I leave then?" He asked and she shook her head, still not looking up at him.
"Then why is it that you re no longer looking at my face." He stopped a bit, "Don t tell me that my face is that ugly to look, Mairam." She immediately shook her head and lifted her eyes, having their orbs met and she took them down, making him smiled softly. "Because while I was sick, I'm sure I heard one girl telling me how handsome she thought I look and that my laughter does what to her?" He looked ruminative for a moment and she shot at him the pillow she was holding, Na im laughed and placed the pillow down.
"How are you feeling, Mairo?" She grimaced at the slight shot of pain before she looked back him before she spoke.
"It s still paining me, but not like before. And..." She was stopped mid sentence and her eyes bulged out while she looked so shocked to even move. It was as though she had been frozen and Na im nearly panicked.
"What is it? The pain? Here, I came with some..." She shook her head slowly as him, as if if she made a sound move she would have a bullet or an arrow right into the core of her heart.
Tears came down, but from what he had noticed about her these were no tears of pain, rather, tears of fear and she was panicking within. "Something, the blood I think...it s rushing out. I could feel it..." She was stammering while she spoke as if if a whole word made the mistake of coming out of her lips she might even die. "Am I going to bleed to death? It s rushing out, Captain!" She shrieked when she felt the blood rolling down to her feet and stretched it out in front of him, bursting into tears.
Na im watched her as calmly as he could while she cried and after a few minutes, she would scream in fear again. She was crying so bad while she kept pointing at the blood on both her feet now. He knew it looked funny to him, but to her it was real and so he suppressed his laughter. "I'm going to bleed to death. That s what Mama did, she kept bleeding until she died."