Flip Side... (The concluding part).

Continued from here.

"Easy ladies" Akunna said with a little chuckle, "calm down."

"Girl talk joor" I said.

"When she woke up, I called her name and told her I was the one talking to her, she asked 'where’s Henry?' I told her he wasn’t in the room but he was around, she started crying". Akunna paused and continued, "As I consoled her I asked if she could recall the last thing that happened and she said she could only remember Henry saying 'how dare you?' and a bang on her face and blackout. I didn't want to push further so I recommended she relaxed a bit more."

"I guess he must have slapped her face with something not just his palm" I said trying to picture the scenario in my head.

"Akunna please let's see her, she’s rested long enough" Furo said with so much anxiety, “she’s been here since 3pm and you just buzzed this evening, she ought to be stable now."

"Well, let's go see her cause I'm not sure I'd like Henry to meet you here. You know it would look somehow" Akunna said and we got up to go see Nnenna in a private room.

We met her watching TV. She had just woken up and I guessed she was trying to relax her mind with something interesting on TV. We all exchanged pleasantries with her and she told us she felt better generally but still had pains on her arms and sides.

"Thanks for coming around" Nnenna said with a weak smile.

"That's ok" Furo said and I chipped in "why are we friends if not for times like this?"

"Nne," Akunna said, " what exactly happened?"

Nnenna broke down in tears. We didn't quite understand why so we all consoled her. Finally she spoke up, "thanks for coming around, I'll simply tell you the truth because you are my best friends. I haven’t been the best wife to my husband".

We exchanged glances but said nothing and she continued, "He’s been a good man to me, he loves and respects me. We have our share of bad times but he handles it better than I do. I'm ashamed to say this. I hit my husband almost every time we’ve had a quarrel."

Now that came as a surprise cause this was Nnenna, the least daring of the four of us! Though our facial expressions spoke of many questions we wanted to ask, no one still said a word, so she kept talking,

“I would hit him most times with any object within my reach but he never for once retaliated, sometimes he would even beg. I injured him quite a number of times, and the last time he cried, not because he couldn’t hit back but he was just disappointed in me. This afternoon he was supposed come home for lunch, I fixed everything just to give him a nice treat but he didn't come. I was so angry, called him, he wasn’t picking up. He came home almost 3hrs later to say he wasn’t hungry, he had a meeting with some big client over lunch and closed from there, he's sorry he couldn’t call, and so on. I was very angry because he was even heading for a nap, so I told him he wasn’t going to have any rest. He told me not to disturb that he's really tired and a bit pissed by the outcome of his meeting but I wasn’t just willing to listen to that. Our voices got high and I picked up his phone and threw it real hard at him." She paused for a while.

 "He warned me that if I hit him one more time, I wouldn’t like what he would do. I dared him and told him he could do absolutely nothing more than a veg. I guess I should have just kept talking but I went on, took off my slippers and slapped him with it."

"Nnenna!" I shouted.

"You did what?" Akunna queried.

"How could you?" asked a shocked Furo.

"Yes, now I know I was just stupid" Nnenna began sobbing, "he couldn’t take it anymore, all I remember was him saying ‘how dare you’ and I felt a very heavy impact like a rock, land on my face and some sharp unbearable pains on my side. I guess I just passed out after that cause I woke up here."

She was now crying. "I'm so sorry; I'm so ashamed of myself"

While we were still trying to digest what our ears just heard there was a light knock on the door and it was opened. Henry walked in with the most beautiful bouquet I’ve ever seen and a cute white teddy holding a red heart-shaped pillow with "I'm sorry My Love" written on it.