If you give your secrets to the wind,

You should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees

{Khalil Gibran}

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I had just ended the call with my family a couple of minutes ago. They were unaware of what happened, due to obvious reasons, but a small part of me wanted to inform them of my life thus far.

But then again, their ignorance was my bliss, as it meant they were unaware to my problems. Tears wetted my eyes and soon after they fell along my cheeks. What had my life come to oh Allah?

I tried to hold back a sob, leaning against the sink. During my time fighting off the wetness in my eyes, I hadn't realised I'd stumbled into the female bathrooms. It could have been the male bathrooms and I wouldn't have cared right now.

Everything in my life was going downhill and I was letting that happen. The demon at my tale for this stupid marriage. Being involved with the Mafia. Antoinette's life in danger because of me. The constant lies that I'd been feeding to the Mukhtars. And not mention my own family.

When would it all stop? I kept asking myself, hoping my mind would give me an answer, but all I'd been met with was a blank wall. An empty shallow shell.

The bathrooms door opened, immediately causing me to wash my face. Only then did I have the confidence to meet the person when my tears mingled with the water. Thankfully it was a visitor, judging by the lack of uniform and pristine looking hair, who'd offered me a short glance before disappearing behind one of the stalls.

No doctor, including me, looked that put together, even if it was on a calm day at the hospital.

Drying my face with the inside of my hijab, I exited the bathroom, feeling fatigued all of a sudden. Thankfully there was only a couple more hours left of my duty.

Having checked all my patients beforehand, it wouldn't hurt to visit Antoinette. Informing the doctor of my absence, I walked to her room, giving the door a quick knock before making my presence known.

Antoinette's visage radiated joy as her eyes set upon me. I returned a grin. Although, that soon faded with the consequences of my actions plaguing my mind.

She seemed to have picked up on my mood as she urged me forward with her arm. I walked towards the chair, sitting down. Without so much as a second thought, I took her pale freckled hand in my own and sobbed. Nothing I said would be understood by her, but I still had to get this guilt off of my chest.

"I'm so sorry Antoinette. You're not going to understand any of what I'm blabbering but I'm so sorry. I put you in danger and and your hurt because of me. If I ever meet your family, I don't know what I'd say to them. I'm so disappointed in mys-" she cut me off.

"Laila, child, quiet down por favor. None of this is your fault" I looked up suddenly, with a wet face and snotty nose.

W-was Antoinette speaking English? And that too fluently? Was I dreaming? Were my emotions this haywire that they'd affected my mental reasoning capacity?

Antoinette seemed to have caught the confusion on my face, as a grim look appeared on her own. She didn't suit it. She looked better when she'd smile, or give me her motherly look.

"H-how?" was all I could muster.

She sighed in defeat, her chest heaving up in a long intake of air, as if she was pacing herself. Was there something I didn't know? Well there actually is a lot you don't know. My smarter half told me.

"Laila. Im not who you think I am" clearly, otherwise you wouldn't be speaking fluently in a language I thought you had no idea of, for the past two and a half months! But I didn't say that. I kept quiet and waited for the meaning behind her cryptic words.

She looked out to the window, her eyes glancing about rapidly. She seemed distressed, but I was equally as anxious as to what double life she was living.

She's been through tougher situations sweetheart. A bullet to the chest is but child play.

Was this what Rafael was hinting to hours before? I thought he was speaking gibberish, just to convince me Antoinette was doing fine.

With her head still turned away from me towards the gloomy weather outside, her lips moved heavily. Like she was forcing her own body to react to her simple command.

"I'm not here as a receptionist, Laila, I'm here on behalf of the Mafia" she said lowly. My world stopped before me. It seemed like the normal task of just breathing became difficult.

"Wha-what do you mean Antoinette?" I hope after my question she'd turn around with a big grin on her face, exclaiming she was just kidding. But this was reality. Something I wasn't able to face.

"You heard me correctly, Laila. I'm sure you've seen Rafael around the building. I'm here on his command. There's something sinister going on in the hosp-" she stopped herself from saying anything else, her gaze suddenly meeting mine in fear. She eyed the room again, like she had done prior to telling me anything.

Was there someone here with us? I turned around only to see nothing.

"Antoinette, what's going on?" I questioned slowly with furrowed eyebrows. All of a sudden, goosebumps erupted across my body as a shiver made it's way down my spine. Something didn't feel right, and I think Antoinette felt that too.

She suddenly got up into a sitting position.

"Antoinette" I began, planning to stop her from moving so rapidly. "That's not good for you, please stay low-" she silenced me with her gaze. Her eyes holding mine in an intense staring match.

"Laila, dear, why didn't you tell me about that before, no wonder I was so worried" she exclaimed all of a sudden, laughing. I watched her expressions morph into joy. She rested her head against the wall, her gaze on me. But then it shifted to behind me.

I did the same, only to see a shadow of a silhouette through the glass door, stood stationary. After a few seconds of Antoinette's speech, the door knob twisted, and so did I, gulping. I looked at Antoinette, who seemed to be already staring back at me. Her eyes told me to go along.

"I'm s-s sorry Antoinette, It was supposed to be a-a surprise but I guess y-you don't like them that much" I attempted to say.

A deep voice interrupted us. It was a doctor, who smiled down at me and Antoinette. He looked normal to me, so what was Antoinette so hesitant about.

The doctor proceeded to do some checkups on Antoinette. Once he was done, he smiled down at the both of us before exiting the room. Only then did I breath out normally.

Anroinette seemed stiff, and I wanted to confront her about everything, but judging by her previous antics I'd rather do that somewhere safe. Somewhere where she seemed fine to do so.

I needed to get back to my patients, as I'd realised a good half an hour went past. I took out my notebook and wrote down whether she wasn't to continue this conversation somewhere else.

She nodded a yes. I then proceeded to write where and when, to which she replied back in letters. She wanted to meet up in her house. I was a bit hesitant at first, since she worked in the Mafia, but then again, I slept in the Mafia leaders house. So I don't think this could be that bad, compared to that.

Hopefully it wasn't. Because whenever I said something like this, the opposite always happened. And it usually didn't end well for me, because that was just my luck.

I bid my farewell, silently shutting the door behind me. The doctor whom checked up on Antoinette stood on the opposite side of her room, inspecting something on a file. Strange.

Why'd he need to stand next to the door, rather than the desk which was a few steps away. Hmmm. But the rational side of my brain told me that I was overthinking the tiniest of things.

I needed to take a chill pill. Seriously. I was in a hospital, so that wouldn't be a problem.

Only problem is, why did I have such a bad feeling about something?

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