Healing

10.

"I've been here for an hour," he says.

"Oh. I'm guessing you're on the men's side?" Why had he called me?

"Nope."

"Then where are you," I ask.

"Turn around."

My movements stop.

Don't make this awkward, just turn around.

So I slowly turn my head and there he was, standing in a black thobe and a black and white keffiyeh wrapped around his head.

Of course he was wearing the thobe air force duo.

I close the door to the car and lock it before fully turning around and walking to him.

"Your outfit is really nice," I comment as lightly as I could.

'Nice' was an understatement. I lower my gaze as I knew what I was looking at would do me no good.

Why exactly are we thinking about him like this girl?

"Jazak Allah Khairan."

I wait for him to say more but he doesn't. "We should get inside. The halaqah should be starting soon."

"We still have time," he assures me.

"Did you want to talk to me about something?"

"Ahhh-no I didn't. Wait, I mean I did," he says as he fumbles around in his bag for something. Why was he acting so nervous?

"Your friends aren't here," I comment to make the silence more bearable. With him, the silence at the cafe was nice. It was peaceful. But the quiet now was filled with awkwardness.

"They're not my friends," he says, immediately looking up at me.

"Then they're...."

"Long story." He goes back to pulling something out of his bag.

"We have time." I wasn't going to back down now that I was this close to finding out the answer.

Maybe we're being a bit too pushy. Everyone has their own boundaries.

He looks up at me for a moment and sighs. "Well, basically my cousin is in the group. I saw him and he just looked like he was in a really dark part of his life so I wanted to help him. I started hanging out with him more but that sort of turned on me because I would also have to hang out with his friends. That sort of started dragging me towards the haram that they were doing. Thank Allah I didn't actually do anything, but I was close. I don't know how I let myself get to that point, but I think it was a lesson from Allah."

He plays with the loose ends of his kuffiyah as he talks. If only I could fix it. He draping looked terrible.

Islam myself mentally. What was it with wanting to do haram things right now.

"So I'm guessing you were able to bring yourself out?"

"Yup. الله sent me someone that helped open my eyes. They gave me the strength to stop hanging out with them. I just felt so bad for them all and I wanted to help them but for some reason I couldn't see how that was affecting me negatively."

"Oh." That's the only thing that I was able to get out of my mouth. Was he talking about me?

Really Cyra? 'Oh.' Give the man a little bit more or this'll be awkward.

"Ya, heavy story I know."

"No, nothing like that. I just thought-never mind. That's all in the past."