He Loves You Not (Loves You Not, #1) | ✓

Scene 6

I craned my neck and tried to breathe in the faint cinnamon scent of my room of the day my sisters went too far and sprayed every corner with the newly bought fragrant. I hated cinnamon for some peculiar reasons. My detestation for it kind of contradicts my love for forests and nature. Well, we all love nature, not going to fight on that.

            "You smell that?" I asked, sniffing and recoiling in a scrunched up expression.

            The old me nodded, "Smells like July."

            "July?" I inquired.

            "I'm pretty sure this is one of the nights of July. You can't possibly forget, can you?" Her face crumpled a bit as I stared at her, not replying. Then it knocked me. July, the month of everything happening all at once. I guess three years was enough to create a pattern. A pattern that proved that July is the peak of the year, when suddenly he started talking to us—I mean, me, the old me and me—or he started to give genuine interest in conversations. I guess the patterns come from similar coincidences that happened throughout the years. "Am I going to be like you one day? So I'll eventually forget?"

            It took a while for me to snap out of my daze, "Yeah, it fades. But not really. You don't actually forget, you just forget to remember."

            "So what now?"

            "You tell me," I smirked and jutted my chin out at the phone. "Clue; profie picture."

            She picked up the phone and gave me a ruminating look before dropping her eyes on the phone, nodding, "Ah, I remember that."

            Besides singing, he once persuaded us to change our profile picture to our own pictures. We did not obey because at that time and seriously, until now, my insecurity level overwhelms my want to be confident, virtually at least. I used to refer to myself as camera shy, but then I realized I was also 'camera lazy'. Especially when it comes to group picture taking. All that posturing and minutes spend for just one snap? I would rather not have my face documented and hide under a bush doing something more beneficial, thank you very much.

            Back to the topic, so I did not put my picture in the end.

            I put a picture of me covering my face with a snowy white teddy bear. I remembered it precisely. I was wearing a blue headscarf with toned pentagons on it, not neatly pressed as always and the teddy bear had a stalk of raspberry pink fabric rose sprouting out of its fleecy paws. Back then selfie did not go by the word selfie yet but that was what I did. Then I put it up on Facebook.

            "He said it wasn't enough," the old me continued. I jerked my head up and she shrugged. "We're practically one. You're, like, thinking out loud with me."

             "He should have let you do what you want. He shouldn't force you to make things that make you uncomfortable. Why can't you see that? Love is blind, Ella. Sometimes I'm beginning to think that the term blind has nothing to do with first sight. Maybe it was the aftermath of love. You're blind when you love someone. Well, when you love them not because of God, that is," I said, tilting my head to a side. "And with that, I continue my script. He loves you not."

Author's Notes:

Okay I'm back. And I have a few corrections to make. In mazhab Syafie, the voice isn't awrah unless it causes fitnah, or in simple words, bad rumors. See, Islam is about prevention because we all know, preventing is better than healing. We avoid bad rumors.