There he was, the one who had tried to abduct her. The blurry man that haunted her eyes and shadowed her iris. The man she spent minutes of her days imagining wrapping her fingers around his neck and smashing his head to the wall. Now that she was before him, staring at his trimmed half-mature beard to the parts of his almond-brown face that held no hair, she couldn't speak nor move. His looks rendered her dumb.

Amani's thin eyebrows lowered, narrowing her eyes and dilating her brown iris into the sight of his hooded eyes.

"You almost abducted me."

"You almost crashed my car."

They rasped at once, Amani's heart-shaped lips hanging open while his thin lips pulled at the sides.

"Me crash your car?"

"You wouldn't let me pass. And wait-wha-abduct kuma?"

Again, they intercepted.

"Tsaya," Sabrin clicked off her phone and sat straighter, "I'm lost. First off, Sadiq, Amani crash your car?" She turned to Amani, "With the wide roads of this Abu-"

"It was not a one-way." Amani mumbled, slashing her gape from Sadiq to Sabrin before returning it to find his upturned nose crinkle, following the side lift of his lips.

"Oh," Sabrin nodded, as she placed a hand on Amani's tensed shoulder, "And Sadiq, abduct you? You mean Sheikh? What is happening here?"

"Fisabillah, I am not a sheikh."

"Wait," a still dazzled Hafiz waved, calming the group and gaining eyes except for Sadiq's glued to Amani, "What is going on here? Why are you accusing each other?"

Amani didn't miss the shot, "This man tried to kidnap me and-"

"A month ago, she refused to let me pass and is now claiming-"

"It was three weeks back," Amani said, tilting her head to the side as her eyes slid from Hafiz to Sadiq. Setting her lips into a straight line and thanking the trunk of confidence that hit her as she sought answers.

"Ahh," Hafiz's mouth went agape, "One person should explain please."

"Hafiz." Amani scolded, narrowing her eyes at him before discreetly swiping her eyes over Sadiq. The kaftan, grey and almost sewn to his lean sculpted shoulder made her drop her gaze.

"Sadiq." Hafiz called, glancing at his sister after Sadiq shook his head out of his gaping trance. She had deafened him, tuned out every sound of the murmuring cafe to her voice alone.

"Ya akayi?" Sadiq asked.

"Toh the milkshake is melting. I suggest we clear this up and proceed. Buba, Let's hear you first." Hafiz suggested, turning to face Sadiq while Amani's mouth widened. Her hands went up in disarray.

"I am the victim, he came unto me. I should get the first say."

Sabrin agreed, "Sorry Sadiq, but I'm on her side. Tell us,"

Amani heeded, giving a rundown while rubbing the sweat off her palms on her abaya. The air was hot.

Unto Sadiq and he took his time before he let his silvery voice romance their ears. "My container had been seized and I was trying to get home fast and then this woman in a dodge won't let me overtake. She kept blocking me. So when I got to overtake her, I blocked her so she felt what I felt too."

What? So her kidnapper was not a kidnapper? He was just trying to get home? That made no sense and she made sure they knew. "You were trying to overtake me and it looked personal."

"No offense, but you have the worse image of everyone and think everything is personal." Sabrin shrugged and Amani rolled her eyes.

Was she a pessimist? God no, Sabrin was theorizing lies.

"I am not-"

"Now that it's cleared up. Allow me to introduce you two," Hafiz straightened up and gestured at her and Sadiq. "Amani, meet my friend, Abubakar Sadiq," he turned to Sadiq, "Buba, meet Sabrin's coursemate and friend, Amani, wato yer masu kudi."

The duo ignored Hafiz and Sabrin as they contemplated what to do. Everything had been cleared up, no need to be sucky and grumpy.

Amani placed a hand out to him which he stared at before bringing his hand out. When their skin was about to touch, she pulled back, "We can do that, 'Nice to meet you' thing after you agree that I bruised your ego when I refused to let you overtake me."

Sadiq hesitated, closing his eyes as he internally admitted that she did bruise his ego. He had expected the driver in the Dodge car to be a man and that was why he rolled his windows down but was instead disappointed when he found out it was a woman aged around her twenties.

He took a deep breath before denying it.

Laughter echoed and he so wanted to convince himself that her laughter sounded like melodious tunes perfected into lines of poems, but he was going to go with the sound of a cat being choked. Her laugh wasn't that brutal but he lacked a better way of explaining why it still sounded appealing to him.

Amani wouldn't agree to his denial, she waved her hand down as she continued to laugh. "Admit it, I bruised your ego before you overtook me."

This could go great for them-he concluded as he set his palm towards her, "I will only admit that if you answer my question."

"Admit it. Then I'll answer your question." Amani said, knowing she'd leave his question pending.

"Okay. You wounded me a bit. But i'm happy to see ladies drive like that and still be fine." His smile disguised as a smirk grew wider afore his question, "Now for my question."

Amani glanced at Hafiz and Sabrin to find them taking their milkshake as they stared at them. She shook her head and turned to Sadiq, nodding.

"What's your genotype?"

Normal questions like, 'Can I have your number?' Or any cliché question asked by guys was what she had forecast and not this...She sought help from Sabrin and the girl only winked at her, confusing her further. Hafiz only shrugged when she sought him.

"Do you ask everyone you meet for the first time their genotypes?"

"No."

She hummed, at a loss for words.

Still, a class that she was going to use walking down the aisle and throwing herself at Sadiq in a dreamy gown in her head was almost an hour in and she was starting to get self-conscious. It was best to cut things short even if all she wanted to do was stay glued to that chair. She dipped her hand into his warm, fleshy ones, ignoring the spark of emotions that rattled her body and she imagined him feeling the same as he glanced between their hands and her face. "I am AA, Buba."

Although it was what he hoped to hear, he frowned at the tag name. "Don't listen to Hafiz and please don't call me Buba, it's my grandfather's name."

"Oops," Amani did the needful, standing and leaving the warmth of his palm. She picked up the untouched milkshake and adjusted her back pack. "Sabrin, you and me still have to graduate. Let's go."

"Uhm..." Sabrin glanced at Sadiq for confirmation and he nodded. "Sadiq is actually in Baze, a second-year student."

"You look too old for that." Realizing what she had said after she had said it, she hoped he didn't find it offensive. "Sorry-you just look so..." she paused in search of the words, "Mature and...graduate-ish?"

Sadiq waved it, pushing the seat back to stand and shaking his head at the realization that Hafiz and Sabrin had finished the milkshake. "We can drop you guys at your theatre." He offered, hesitantly raising the car key in his hand.

Amani saw no harm in that so she ran it through Sabrin with her eyes. They walked to the car at which Hafiz unlatched the door to the back seat.

"What are you doing?" Amani asked.

"Entering the back seat." He shrugged and slid in.

Amani's eyes narrowed at Sabrin who wordlessly begged her to go with the flow. She could see through them. See what they were aiming at. It was close to impossible, she'd ruin their plans.

Occupying the passenger seat in sync with Sadiq, their scents hit each other. Amani's soft and mature, a touch of pineapples like her mother. While Sadiq went fresh and aromatic with a top note of what she named grapes and wood.

Their proximity had them glancing to check out the next one, grasping each other in another stare that shared things that were harboring too soon.

In fabricated nonchalance, she took a long drag of the half-melted milkshake before turning away and placing her head on the window. The murmurs from the back seat tuned out once the car roared to life.

The mischievous siblings had a weak excuse as to why they needed to step out. Leaving Amani and Sadiq in the air-conditioned but still hot car. Her consciousness built at the nakedness of the windows, no tint to hide her from the world outside.

Tension built in the silent car and she could swear he could hear her heartbeat. It sounded through her ears, every energy of hers ignoring the sudden stare he had on her.

"Is the Ac too low?" He placed his fingers over the Ac, adding, "So sorry, I don't like too much Ac."

"That's creepy. In this hot Abuja?"

For a seemingly reserved person, she didn't expect an answer from him.

"I am sensitized to too much of it."

She hummed, intensifying the tension after catching eyes with him.

Amani wasn't dumb, one of the many reasons her father forced her to join Law school. The route Sadiq took was clear and he was stupid. You don't take that route immediately you meet someone. The world would be a better place if everyone understood that.

She better leave but not without making a mark. Hence, she pushed the half milkshake against him, nodding in urge for him to take it, "Go home," she said after he grabbed it and unlatched the door.

"Can I please have your number?"

That paralyzed any energy sensing her to leave, "Go home, Buba."

If he wasn't going home, she had a class to pass through-brainstorming ways to avoid him. Her next task was her library permit, she took a bolt home and hoped to slip out unnoticed by her father.

At one point or another in life, we're taught things do not always go as planned and we must always embrace it. This was why she wandered upstairs in search of Mommy after she found her younger brother- Walid playing Fifa. Walid-useless Walid barely answered her query about Mommy's whereabouts. Inciting her vex search.

In time with the deafening sound of skin colliding against skin, she faced her biggest fear. Sifting through the glass slide doors into the lounge was a tanned man, tall with grey hair grazing his head and of course-squeezing the oxygen out of Mommy. The woman fruitlessly tried to claw at the man's hands around her throat. Both oblivious to their frozen daughter whose eyes had turned glassy.

Amani sobbed at the sight, shielding her mouth with her palm as she shook her head when her father yelled something at her mother, grasping her upper arms.

Rage fed him strength when the shaky woman shook her head. The same head was flying with a beastly sound of a slap and crack the next second, knocking oxygen and balance off her as she fell to the side with an ugly wail.

Compared to Amani's inner turmoil, she let out an average wail as well, reaching for the locked door. The bastard she was forever doomed to carry his last name must've locked it. The last choice popped into Amani's mind; bang the glass until it hopefully breaks and she picks a shard to sink it straight to the man's chest. Her persistent bangs gained the beast's attention.

"Stop!" Amani trembled. He ignored and kicked her mother's abdomen, earning another screech from Amani. Her desperation had her alternating between banging the door and pacing from end to end, seeking Allah's help but also begging her demons to take over so she could put an end to the brute on the other end. Torn between choosing her iman and letting Allah bring an end to their misery or abandoning her iman and doing something for the betterment of her family.

The fact that Mommy crying on the floor endured everything for Amani, Nadeen, and Walid's sake had fire spreading across Amani's chest, roasting her and the clothes above her skin.

All for them and all her cowardly self could do was bounce and scream behind transparent doors while all the pain rained on Mommy. The same, if not an even deeper amount of pain was carved into Amani's heart. Her hatred for the man who spat beside Mommy before disappearing proliferated by second into something lethal.

"Mommy," Amani cried, sliding to her knees as she shook her defeated head.

She had failed her mother by not saving her again. She could do something. Why was she always paralyzed every time an assault on the woman she claimed to be the love of her life occurred? She was useless and stupid and unworthy to be called a daughter. "Please, open the door. Let's go. Let's leave his house for him..."

Amani placed a palm against the glass, snorting and sucking a breath before another sob rattled her. Weakness enveloped her as she collapsed her forehead to the glass, the spasm hitting her forehead but the only place she could feel pain was in her chest. Her heart ached and yearned to be free from this thing her mother fruitlessly hoped to change one day. He wasn't going to, she needed to believe it and believe Amani.

The era of Abuse had to end, chapters close, memories burn, and some men painfully bleed and slip to an excruciating death. Straight to a special place in hell designed for them. "He is never going to change Maa...please leave him, let's go. We're bett-better without him. Think of Nadeen, she is sic..."

Mommy neither looked at Amani nor move from the spot her husband left her in. In substitute, she curled into a ball, shaking and clamping her arm into her armpits as she cried and convinced herself that whatever hold her co-wife had on him would fade and it'd return to how it was before. The opposite of what Amani believed in.

Men were dogs. Irate dogs who wouldn't blink an eye before bringing feminism to the table, then stab and cut through it with a patriarchy knife and misogyny fork, disrespectfully. Apart from the imaginary scenarios she built of them, those were facts Amani would take to her grave. Or her father's grave. Anyone more feasible.

She watched the oxygen slowly dissipate from her mother's body along with any hope of redemption for her father from her own body.

Replaced by that tiny, barren hope was a lifelong starvation of making sure the man she was foredoomed to call her father got what he deserved and that her life or her sibling's lives never turn out to be like that of their mother.