KING POV
"You're welcome to go now, sir." The officer told me after I had finished giving a statement that was completely made up of lies and wrong information. Yeah, my 'mates' might have left me there with the cops, but I wasn't going to throw them under the bus. I nodded my head and turned to leave, before sighing and stopping for reasons unknown to me.
"How's the guy doing in there?" I asked, not even knowing why the bell I cared. I guess I just felt like I wouldn't be able to sleep if I left not knowing his condition, at the least knowing whether or not he'd survive.
"You're going to have to wait for the nurse." The officer said as they put paper into the suitcase they brought with them from the car, preparing to leave. Clearly they had already gotten the guy's statement as well since they were leaving. I guess that also means the guy was fine. 'The guy.``
"W-what's his name?' I stuttered after a pause, not even knowing why, my voice stopping the officers who were just about to leave through the door. "Ahmad." He replied simply and I nodded in thanks, watching them leave and walking in the same direction soon after.
'Anyone here for Ahmad?" The nurse called from behind me, looking around at the people in the waiting room. I stopped walking towards the exit the policemen had just left through and turned around as she repeated the name, yet no one moved. Should I have left? Didn't the guy ... didn't Ahmad have any family here?
"Yeah, here." I said, cursing myself internally as the nurse turned back around to look at me, just as she was leaving. She smiled at me and gestured me into the ICU. What the hell is wrong with me?
"He's fine. The knife has not punctured any organs and we've stitched him up. You'll be able to take him home once he's awake. There's no use of him staying here." She explained to me as she led me down the hall, passing countless patients on beds, most of whom were sleeping and probably just newly out of surgery. The smell of sterilized equipment flooded my nostrils and the room was completely cold. She put her arm out, stopping at a room and pulling open the curtain. I nodded simply and walked in, staring at Ahmad who looked pale, bags under his eyes. His chest was bare, a bandage over where the stab wound was on his lower abdomen. I exhaled and sat down on the big leather, taking out my phone and calling one of my dad's drivers to bring a car for me. There were no calls or texts from any of the guys. Wow.
"What time is it?' A voice groaned after about an hour of me scrolling through Facebook. I straightened up and looked at him, his eyes opening wider and wider as he glanced at me.
"Four thirty a.m." I answered him simply after looking at the time on my phone. Wow. Four a.m. There was no way I was going to school tomorrow. Plus, I could go a day without seeing the guys just to get rid of my anger towards them.
"Why are you here?" He asked me the question that I paused to find an answer to; however , not knowing the answer myself, I couldn't find anything to say for a while. I watched as he contorted his features in pain, slowly sitting up in the bed, looking around the room until he saw a bottle of water that he reached over to grab.
"I don't even know." I chose to mutter as I exhaled and stood up, taking the bottle of the small table and handing it to him, shoving hands into my pockets as I watched him gulp the water down and then whisper a foreign word afterwards.
'Look, I don't have all night. If you're gonna go home, I can take you." I said, narrowing my eyes slightly as I watched him screw the lid back on the bottle and put it beside him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Leave the room so I can change then?" He said in a questioning tone with a slight smile on his face and I cleared my throat, exhaling as I walked out, closing the curtain once again to let him change as I tapped my foot on the floor.
God better give me a good night out next week for doing this shit.
"Where are your friends?" He asked me, filling the deafening silence in the car as I drove straight ahead in the direction he told me to drive in. I was drunk a couple of hours ago, but I felt all that had gone with the wind once Jackson had stabbed Ahmad.
"No idea. Home. Sleeping probably." I muttered after not for a while. I didn't want to make conversation with the dude. I just felt bad that he had no one there and decided the least I could do for him not ratting out me and my mates was take him home. Then to hell with him. I'd never see him again anyway.
"What happened to your leg?" He asked, clearly he had already assumed and figured out that I wasn't able to run away like the rest of the group because I was injured.
"Sprained it." I answered simply as he told me to turn left from the lights. I changed lanes, hoping his house wasn't any further than five minutes away. All I needed right now was sleep. A lot of it. Thankfully he told me to stop down the road and once pulling over to the side I realized we were at a temple.
"You don't have a house?" I spoke, looking at the few cars parked in the parking lot, a couple of men who were dressed in the same dress Ahmad was wearing standing and talking in the front. So he didn't have a family and he lived at their temple? Fair enough.
"I do." He answered simply, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning down my assumptions. "It's Almost morning prayers. I'll pray and catch a lift home with someone." He answered simply and I scoffed, shaking my head as I felt him look at me, a questioning look in his eyes.
"Your God makes you pray even after you've been stabbed, huh? Rough." I muttered simply and I heard him chuckle, not degradingly, but as if what I had said hadn't offended him in the slightest.
"I can pray on a chair. There's no hardship in my religion. Plus, I get rewarded extra and my sins are expiated. Why would I miss the chance to worship if I can?" He said simply as another car pulled into the temple.
'Don't these people have jobs?" I muttered. "Who wakes up at four a.m to pray?"
"People who have found the beauty of Islam and who have tasted the sweetness of faith." He said, the whole sentence sounding like a puzzle to me that I was supposed to figure out. He opened the door and struggled to stand up, but managed to get out.
"What if all this ends up being a waste and there's actually no afterlife?" I spoke, stopping his movements of shutting the door. He didn't answer for a bit, staying silent before he spoke, a sentence escaping his mouth I spoke for a bit, stopping his silent movements before he spoke, shutting the door. He didn't answer his answer mouth that made my insides churn.
"Then I'd be dead and that'd be it. I wouldn't know I wasted my life. But if there is? Then I'll be good and everyone else will realize that they were the ones who had truly wasted their lives, not me." He spoke.
I stayed silent, letting his words register in my mind. I swallowed the lump in my throat, not even knowing where the bloody lump had come from.
"Goodnight, mate.' He said after he realized I wasn't going to say anything else. "Let your ... friends know that I forgive them. Thanks for all you've done." He said before shutting the door. I watched him limp slowly to the gate alone before two people who were inside the mosque saw him and ran out, both of them grabbing either of his arms as they helped him inside, their faces filled with concern that could be seen even in the dark night that was only illuminated by the street lights surrounding the place.
If they were his friends, what were mine?