Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Songs for this chapter are:

Shame - Andy Mineo ft Josh Garrels

Vanity - Gawvi

Drown - Lecrae, John Legend

Celebrate More - Lecrae, Andy Mineo, Hulvey

Mustafa

I'd frozen mid-air. I knew I was very close to plunging into the vast space of water below me since I barely had any hold on the bridge above me. I had almost lost a grip on my lifeline because that was exactly what I wanted in the first place but right now, even with only three of my fingers wrapped around a really small part of the bridge, why could I not move? Why was I still dangling in the air and not sodden with water? The worse part was, why was it so difficult for me to let go of my lifeline and just stumble into the river? I knew it wasn't fear or second thoughts as to the nature of my actions that was holding me back because I'd already made up my mind.

This particular impediment is not physical and it is very strong because I have been trying vehemently to let go of that obstacle holding me back for minutes now but the barrier is really bent on holding me back. I tried hard to figure out what it was. I'd even made use of my left hand so I could slide off and jump into the river but it was of no use. Then, I felt fingernails digging into the skin of my wrists.

I opened my eyes quickly since they'd been tightly screwed shut all along to see feminine hands keeping a stronghold on mine. The wind was whirling so violently that if it went for the wooly, rigid outlook of her hair, it would have been blown across her face and I would have been unable to see her. But I could see her clearly and I could hear her bass voice struggling to overpower the swishing and the roaring of the wind. Her chocolate brown skin, her black wooly hair, and oh! Those generous kettledrums she had used to seduce me. How long had she been here?

"Mustafa, Are you crazy? Oh my God! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY? WHY DO YOU WANT TO JUMP INTO THE RIVER AND TAKE YOUR OWN LIFE?!" the deepness in her voice is strangely slashed with a moist, shaky crack to it like she is about to cry. She also sounds like she is struggling because I can hear her taking sharp breaths of exhaustion as though she could barely stop me from jumping into the river anymore since it was draining all of her strength very hastily.

"And since you can see that I'm bent on taking my life, why won't you let me do it? Why are you even here trying to save me? I rejected you so I could stick with my commitment to Cassie so why—"

"It doesn't mean that I still do not love you enough to want you to at least be alive. Please, Mustafa. Stop struggling to pull out of my hold. Please let me help you out of here. Don't do this, " her voice is completely diluted with tears.

The sun was shining brightly now, rising above the slow movement of the dark clouds as it reached its zenith, seemingly besides Zoe's figure from above me that began to look more and more like a silhouette, as it shone on her back. I squinted my eyes, in an attempt to avoid the scorching sun. Sweat was starting to drip around her fingers, making it hard for her to keep a grip on my wrists, the friction between her palm on my wrists loosening gradually due to the slippery nature of the sweat.

"And why should I stay alive? When did you get here? How did you know that I will be here?" the lump in my throat rose, making it harder for me to speak, or even shout, tears come as a substitute.

I just wanted to die already.

"Mustafa, I love you so much. I don't know if the love I have for you will be sufficient enough to make you want to stay alive but I must tell you that I truly do love you. I have always loved you. I have been villainous in my ways and jealous to an unhealthy extent as a way of my reaction to the fact that you loved Cassandra instead of me and I have been quite the intruder, the green slimy snake beneath the green grass but my love for you is true and it is fierce. I know you feel foolish, useless, and detested right now.

I know you have realized that Cassandra doesn't—heck! I even know you two are divorced and you might think I'm a devious snake for knowing that but I waited and wished for you to find out on your own because I felt bad for being the one who destroyed Cassie's relationship with Dan simply because I wanted to be with you but that's just how much I truly do love and want you. If no one wants you around, I do and I'm willing to love you in a way that you deserve to be loved. Please, don't let go."

"Do not play on the fact that I feel unloved and rejected. That I want to feel loved doesn't mean that I want to be loved by just anybody. Your greediness is really glinting in your eyes."

The sun burned harder, her palms got more sweaty, her hold on my hand became flimsier and I could hear the subtle tide of the river below me, whispering my name that it was time.

"Yes, I admit that I am desirous and lethal even. I already owned up to my toxicity and the fact that I've been really selfish simply because I was dying to have you reciprocate the love I have for you but will you at least give me a chance to show how much I adore you? Because you actually never gave me a chance. The first day you came to our school, you ignored me when I said hi to you. I thought you didn't hear me or something but it happened sequentially. Later on, I discovered that you loved Sandra and she was my friend. I wasn't happy, to be honest, but I let it be till I noticed that she didn't love you in return. Then I found out—"

"Zoe, stop. You are talking too much already and you are interrupting me from doing something that will mean a lot to me right now. I appreciate your love for me but—"

I struggle to get out of her hold one more time and it works. Nearly worked. It was getting hotter and she was growing weaker. My weight was clearly too ample for her grip. Her arms might detach from her body if she didn't let go of me soon.

"W-what about your children?"

"You don't care about them. You are not even their mother."

"Alright Mustafa..." she was taking more sharp breaths now, her body squeezed against the bane the bridge was serving as. "...but please, don't let go of my hand. I'm begging you to live. Just take this as a plea from a random person who takes your existence as something of extreme importance with no earthly benefit attached to it. Please, Mustafa."

Then it dawned on me that...she had a vital, valid point. At that juncture, I realized that maybe Zoe was the person I should have been with all along because she has the same magnitude of the love I was willing to shower on Cassie and even more. This was exactly the same way I'd loved Cassie. I became a complete fool for her love even when I was aware of her emotional attraction to Dan. I was willing to be so foolish that I had even approached Zoe, being insensitive and neglectful of her feelings for me simply because I'd wanted her to help me out in protecting Cassie.

I really should not have expected her to offer help genuinely or from a pure state of mind when it was hurting her to do so and I could not blame her for throwing herself at me whenever she got the chance to whether Cassie had asked her to do so or not because that was exactly what I did when Cassie kissed me that day on the dancing contest.

Initially, I was astounded to realize that she was kissing me when she liked someone else from her childhood but I was madly in love with her and because of that, I let my love for her shine through and I kissed her in return, relishing the bliss. I really should not treat Zoe so harshly for trying to want me because, in all honesty, she was being human. Unashamedly so and we humans are selfish.

Zoe might have taken her actions and amorous gestures a bit too far but I couldn't deny that I did not understand where she was coming from. Likewise, love can be so heated a force, that it could convert into perdition burning with obsession, the most irrational decisions, rage, toxicity, and villainous activities especially if the channels of our love are not rooted in the right grounds.

My Dad taught me the value of passion in love and I groomed myself while growing up to love in the right way and that's why I knew how to love someone properly and learned the dynamics of love. Zoe might not have had the same upbringing and she might not have had the perfect exemplar or human model of love while growing up but she loved me in the way she knew how to love and it was valid.

More so, I had children. How did I get so convinced to the point of leaving them behind? How? Was I on opium? Why should I ever leave them behind simply because of a division in paternity? If I am not there for them as a father, who else would be there for them? Is it that psychopath, Dan?

Just then, the heat of the sun above us intensified by a hundred degrees, piercing into my eyeballs and through Zoe's back like the bow of an archer. She was starting to let go of me unconsciously because her palms were rapidly getting moist and her face, contorted with beads of sweat as she wailed, pained, and feeling wasted to see that her efforts to make me change my mind were futile.

I saw those emotions in her eyes, a duplicate of the same things I felt when Cassie went missing at her company and it took me hours to find her. Each second got tougher for me to bear, knowing that it was very easy for her to slip away forever. I was petrified. The torturous molestation of anxiety mauled at the fibers of my heart, shredding it by the second. Feeling hot yet cold. Feeling a migraine but no migraine.

I shouldn't let Zoe feel that way anymore because I know just how hellish of an experience it is. Even if I don't grow to reciprocate the love she has for me, I should at least stay alive for her sake because that was exactly what I wished for Cassie even when I knew that she belonged to someone else.

Knowing that she was alive was enough for me.

As it became very evident that I was going to plunge into the river in a matter of seconds, I made my decision – I am not going to die and I must see to that. I don't know much about last-minute decisions and I don't know how effective they are but if they come with a magnitude of desperation, then I believe the universe could be observant and considerate enough to provide aid.

***

Zoe took me to her house and for the first time after weeks and weeks of nomadic sojourning in the pursuit of peace and a place to call home, I felt at home.

Allahu Akbar!

The inner walls of her house were painted in dark brown colors to highlight the sheer homey vibe of her dwelling. The curtains, a dull cream color were pulled together leaving only minimal light to shine through the living room but it's sufficient enough to help me locate a couch situated closely to the door and I sit gently on it.

Shortly after, synthetic light consumes the darkness and from the light glowing around the room from the ornate chandelier above, I was able to see the living room in its full design. Its a moderate living room filled in a polychromatic hue of brown and white. The center table was a model of dark brown wood occupied with fashion magazines, law digests, and articles with a fluffy white rug underneath, like the body of a puppy. The upper parts walls were painted in white whilst the lower parts were equally painted in white but with scanty splashes of brown, like milk on coffee.

As homely as a mug of hot, brown chocolate.

Zoe walks into a room before I can get to ask her where she was going to and comes out quickly with a glass cup of chilled water.

"Here, " she hands me the cup without a word but the demure of the impassive expression on her face is enough to make me decipher her current emotional state. She was weary. Sad, worried, a little angry, maybe relieved as well but mostly weary.

I loved the fact that she'd chosen to say nothing about my current physical state or how I was looking because I knew I was a dying mess; a couple of fresh, open sores on my feet, from dangerous journeys, the weariness that all of my excessive sweating at the bridge had caused which was now evident on my face and even the drastic loss of hair.

"Thank you for living, " she plops down on the couch, sitting next to me after I'd accepted the glass cup of cold water from her.

"You wouldn't let me die anyway, " I added, emptying the cold water in one gulp. Something malignant was hitting at the back of my head like an ax on a mission to fell a tree, thanks to all of the swinging and standing mid-air in between the bridge above and the river beneath, grossly violating the laws of gravity. "How did you find me though?"

"Well...I...I must put it mostly on female intuition. I've been keeping an eye on you subtly for a while now especially after you and Cassie got a divorce. I searched all over the place for you and where you could possibly be. I was very worried about your state and your mental health. When word got to me that you were in Nigeria, I decided to look for you myself."

"Thank you. I mean it."

"You really appreciate me for caring for you?" an eyebrow on her face rose, the tiredness in her eyes, as vivid as the wind.

When I made the final decision to live at the bridge, the dark clouds traveled slowly over the sun's zenith, serving as a shield from the heavens from the heat of the sun burning down on us and it stayed like that for a good number of minutes. The clouds as frail as they were, shielded the sun, a mighty star all because of me.

My last-minute decision worked. Allah hearkened to my pleas. The sweat in Zoe's palms dried up. Her grip tightened on my wrists. I lifted myself up too. When she realized that I had changed my mind, the strength she had lost from holding on to me came back in ten folds and I was rescued. The tides from the river quieted. It suddenly wasn't calling on my name anymore. My time had passed by.

"Yes, I do. I realized that I should and I can understand why you made so many impulsive decisions. I can understand why you wanted to be with me in high school. I contemplated everything while I was resolute on jumping down the river and you were holding me back with all of your strength. I thought very lowly of you and deemed you a nobody when you are not. I realized that for your sake, I should live."

She reached for my hand and squeezed it gently when she got a hold on it. I squeezed back with a tired smile on my face. In a short moment, we were staring at each other. Dreaminess and hope behind weariness glimmering through her eyes and in mine, utter, profound gratitude, and nothing more.

The sound of a phone ringing comes through, destroying the peaceful silence lording the air. Zoe detached her palms from mine and reached for her phone on the center table. As soon as she picks it up, she checks the caller ID.

"It's a call from my bodyguard. I have to pick it, " she said with an apologetic look.

"Go ahead, " I nodded.

"Caleb, what's the issue?" she said into the phone, standing akimbo. "Yes, I found Mustafa already...what?– what's the problem now?" her eyebrows come together in a maelstrom of confusion.

She gives me a look and I shrug, perplexed as I mouth the words, "what is it?"

She puts her phone on speaker mode so I can hear the information that her bodyguard has to relay for myself.

"Caleb, speak now. What is the issue?"

My heart thumped loudly, wondering what bad news was left for me to hear.

"Madam, Mr. Mustafa is not safe. There's news spreading all around the city about him right now. The president of Somalia is here in Nigeria and in his interview with the press, he swore that he was going to drag Mustafa, Cassie, and his company into the mud because he is a fraudster. Everyone is looking for him and his ex-wife because the President is going to award anyone who finds him, a robust amount of money. Having him in your custody at this period is beyond dangerous ma'am. The president of Somalia has come for war!"

***

Exodus 14:14 - "The Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace"