Mona Stories · Read & Watch
When she met Reda there, his affection seemed to promise a different life.
The marriage and the arrest
She married him hoping for the security she had long missed. At first, Reda was attentive and loving.
After two years, she learned that he had been arrested in a prohibited-substances case. His dangerous business activities had been hidden from her.
Shahd followed the proceedings until he received a long prison sentence. Once again, she was alone. She returned to selling vegetables and visited him whenever she could, hoping that the years would pass and he would come home.
A messenger from her husband
One day, a man called Boudi arrived. He introduced himself as Reda’s friend from prison and said her husband had sent him to check on her.
She initially treated him cautiously, as a messenger rather than a companion.
Then he told her that more years had been added to Reda’s sentence. At 33, Shahd felt her hopes of an early reunion disappear.
Boudi began calling at night. His attention gradually moved beyond checking on her needs. He reassured her that Reda would not know and encouraged her to think she deserved affection despite her husband’s imprisonment.
An affair began and continued for two years.
The unexpected return
One morning, Shahd heard a familiar voice at the door. Reda had been released through an unexpected pardon and had returned without warning.
His arrival collided with another discovery: a few days earlier, she had learned that she was pregnant with Boudi’s child.
Afraid of exposure, she asked Boudi about ending the pregnancy. He refused and threatened to reveal the situation rather than lose his child.
A secret with no easy exit
Shahd was caught between her husband’s return, the pregnancy, and Boudi’s demands. She had once looked to Reda for protection, waited for him, and then betrayed him with someone he had sent into her life.
The account leaves her in that crisis. It does not resolve what Reda learns or what happens to the pregnancy.
Its tension comes from the way comfort offered during a long absence becomes a commitment that cannot simply be removed when the absent person comes home.
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Original Mona Stories narration. Playback controls are set to English; available audio and captions depend on the video.