Chapter 17

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  I am stretched in bed, with my eyes closed, refusing to admit that the day has begun. I don’t want to go back to reality, because my dream last night was much more peaceful, however there are matters I need to deal with today. I turn around, my eyes searching for the lady who makes me smile every morning, but she’s not by my side.

   I climb down the stairs, and hear the sound of a plate being placed on a flat surface, and drinks poured into a cup. I follow the sound, and find myself in our large dining room, and in that room I find the one who makes me smile standing behind the long table.I’m surprised to find her here with breakfast ready on the table, because we haven’t used this dining room in about five months; we only use it for special occasions or when we have guests coming over.

  My eyes look over all the food, and juices she has prepared, then move up to meet her glittering eyes, “What’s the special occasion?” I ask. 

    “Can’t I express my love for my husband by making him a special breakfast?” She asks playfully.

    “And I love you for that.” I play along. I give her a gentle kiss on the cheek, take a seat next to her, and place food for the both of us. I am surprised to see her in such a great mood this morning, despite what I have told her last night. I expected her to be more worried, and scared, because I don’t think she herself believed me when I told her everything is going to be all right. She knows that I have no idea how to solve this problem; she’s not an idiot. This man assisted in taking the life of her brother, so by just hearing the news that he got out of jail should anger her. So how is she in such a delightful mood?

    After a couple of bites,I can’t help but ask her, “When are you going to tell me the good news?”

    “Finally! Well, you know how you said that Faris has people after me? I think I know who they are.”

    I was confused, “How did you find out who they are, in just one night?”

    “Haman, we’re in the twenty first century, just a few clicks on the Internet and I found them. Come,I’ll show you.” She said proudly.

    We leave the delicious breakfast, and head to the living room, where she shows me what she found. “How can you be sure it’s them?”

    “I’m actually not sure, but they are the only people I managed to link with him, and they are the only ones who are capable of doing such things.”

    “And how do you know any of them would be willing to commet any sort of crime?” I challenge.

    She goes onto another page and shows me what some of the men have done. There is a thirty-eight year old who has a long record of robbery. A group of others were fined for causing panic and disturbance in a public park a few years ago. She scrawls down and wecome across a picture of a teenager drinking from a bottle of alcohol in an abandoned house, “Wait, this place looks familiar.” I stop her before she movesto other sources. I trace every detail in the picture, and flashbacks start to storm in my head.

    My mind goes back to when I was at home, waiting to get a call from Abdullah to tell me how it went when he confronted Firas and the rest. See, Abdullah knew that they were the ones who damaged my memory, because Abdullah was friends with Firas. The night when Noor's uncle scratched his car, Abdullah was actually on his way to Firas because they had to finish some "business", but because of the accident, Abdullah was forced to cancel on Firas. Abdullah no longer stayed close with Firas, but he still talked to him from time to time, so they still got news from each other. Firas trusted Abdullah, which is why Abdullah never told anyone about what happened to me, until he talked about it with Noor's uncle.

    Anyway, after waiting for two hours without getting a call, I decided to go into the house and check what was wrong. I grabbed my phone, told Dalia where I was going just to let someone know and left the house. I hopped on my bike and paddled away towards the opposite side of the sunset. When I was almost there, I was surprised to find Dalia waiting for me, “What are you doing here?” I asked.

   “He’s my brother, you can’t expect me to just wait, do you?”

   I couldn’t believe her, how is she expecting the whole thing to go? Does she think she’ll just enter the abandoned house, find her brother and leave safe and untouched? “Dalia, go back home, it’s dangerous!” I ordered.

   “How is it not dangerous for you, remember the last time you faced these guys?” She insisted and marched towards the house.

   I pulled her from the wrist, so she’d see how serious I am, “Dalia, you are going to stay here and wait, or none of us is going in.”

   She stared into my eyes for a moment and then finally gave up.

  I hopped back on my bike, making my way through the empty space. When I got to the house two minutes later, I took a glance from outside at the bottom floor, inspecting every detail of it. As my eyes were tracing the empty floor,I saw something on the ground, but it was too dark to see exactly what it was.I tiptoed my way towards what I saw earlier, keeping my mind alert and my eyes awake. I was worried of finding them and then not know what do, and make things worse. But I was even more worried that none of them was in the house, because if nobody were here, it would probably mean that they grabbed Abdullah with them, but where?

   When I got close to my target, I used my phone for a source of light, and couldn’t believe my eyes.

   “NO!” I heard somebody cry from behind, but my brain was too busy trying to make sense of what my eyes were seeing to care about whoever was behind me.       

    I dropped to my knees,and whispered in disbelief, “Abdullah.”

    “No, no, no!” Daliacontinued crying, and she raced towards her brothers’ body. She kept shaking him, shouting and begging him to wake up, but we got no response.

    “Abdulrahman, what areyou thinking about?” Dalia asks when she finds my eyes paused on the screen.

    “Remember when you told me how much you hated that your brother died so young?” I ask, my eyes still settled on the screen.

    “Yeah?”

    “He’s lucky.” I say,“Everything happens for a reason, maybe him dying or getting killed at such ayoung age was a blessing to him. He was a great guy and fears Allah, so he’shopefully in a much better place than this messed up world we’re living in. You can look at anything from at least two views, and excuse me, but I choose to look at his death in a more optimistic way.” Images of Abdullah start to flow in my mind, but then I shake them away and look at the person dearest to me.

    She looks softly into my eyes, lays back, rest her head on my my lap, allowing me to stroke her hair gently and she whispers, “I miss you.”