A Midsummer Weekend (The Extended Version)

8. Three Years After that Weekend

I hadn't told Farah any of this. As far as she knew I was successful in my work related to computers. She didn't know me well enough to realize that I still struggled with simple spellings sometimes, or that the 1000 word email I had sent to her before her Berlin trip had been checked and double-checked with every free online spelling and grammar checking tool I could find.

And that made me nervous sometimes. Because if she was looking for a man as intelligent as herself, I was not that man.

My phone rang, ending my internal debate on when and how to tell Farah about a part of me that I had deliberately hidden from her, afraid of what she may think of me if she knew the truth.

"Komal? Isn't it past midnight? Why are you calling me now? Is everything ok?", I asked my sister a barrage of questions, surprised that she was calling me that late at night.

"Yes, yes. I am fine. Ami told me that you were not coming back to Pakistan this summer. Is that true?"

"That would be true. If I am going to do a PhD in 3 years like Ahad, I can't afford to take a summer off. Why? Are you worried you'll have to go a year without getting a new designer handbag or shoes?", I smirked.

"No, you dweeb, I can get my own designer wear if I want to. But you need to stop comparing yourself to Ahad"

"Why? Everyone else is always comparing me to him", I retorted, because that was the story of my life, "But why are you calling me at this hour?"

"I thought you may be interested in what the rest of your family is doing this summer"

"What are they doing? Sitting around a campfire talking about how dumb and lazy I am?", I joked, even though inside I knew the wounds of being ignored most of my life were not going to heal that fast.

"Oh, we'll be sitting around a campfire alright. In Swat, with the Asad family, which happens to include Farah"

You've got to be kidding me!

The PhD degree that I was reluctant to do in the first place, was going to cost me a meeting with the woman I couldn't wait to be with.

I slapped my forehead. Perfect...just perfect!

"Who all is going from our family?", I asked Komal, not that it would change anything for me.

"Abu, Ami, me, Akbar bhai and bhabi...and Ahad"

Ahad will be there?

Suddenly, me not being at the summer trip to the mountains while my brother was, put me at whole new level of insecurity. Ahad and I got along ok under most circumstances. But while he probably never gave me a second thought, years of being told that I should be more like my older brother had made me resent him in ways that I wished I didn't.

But now, he was going to spend a weekend with the woman that I was in love with. A beautiful, intelligent woman who could inspire anyone with even half a brain. A woman, who in any romance novel or a matchmaker's book, would be perfect for a man as highly accomplished, articulate and brilliant as Ahad. He may have been my lifelong nemesis, but I had to admit he was one heck of an impressive man. 

Even if by some miracle I managed to complete my PhD, that too in 3 years, I would never be able to achieve what he did. I was well aware of my own limitations. And if she took a liking to him, I wouldn't stand a chance. Especially when she found out about my truth, and despite what she had said last year.

And that spurred something inside me, a deep seated jealousy that I had always suppressed but now made me growl at Komal, "Keep Ahad away from her"