His Scandalous Bride

22: Then

Growing up, her family was always on the move. She didn't understand why but whenever things were starting to look good, her father would make them move. She'd quickly learned that the 'good' her father was desperately trying to avoid was her mother's laughter.

Those days, her mother rarely laughs. She would smile but she didn't laugh. And on those rare moments when she finally does, like clockwork, her father makes them move. It were as if he couldn't trust her happiness. Perhaps knowing he couldn't be responsible. Perhaps fearing it just because.  Whatever the reason, when she was seven, they had already moved five times.

Bilaal was the boy on the roadside who didn't move despite the irritating and alarming loud honk of her father's car. Her father had been forced to step out and say something to the lanky, brown skinned boy with rather huge raven eyes which had looked quite startled at her father's car meeting her eyes briefly before he had fled like someone was hot in his chase. They met later in school. The quiet boy everyone notices yet no one really sees.

"What's his deal?" She had once asked,"I get he is smart but he is snobby." She had complained bitterly. He never says anything to her even though they share the same seat and she is always finding ways to talk to him.

"Leave him alone." Everyone had said. "He has always been like that."

She wanted to leave him alone. She wanted to believe he has always been a loner. But what does she make of those moments when she would find chocolate in her locker after a rather long day? Moments when she would be absent from school and somehow find her notes updated—Seatmates share the same locker. Moments when  she would catch him staring at her whenever he thinks she wasn't watching. He was paradoxical and she was impatient. And those days, many hours of hers had been spent on trying to decipher his kind of monsters. She couldn't. And in the end, she had pushed him away.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME! YOU HEAR ME! I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY!" She had screamed at him the last time she had seen him and fling his chocolate at him before running out of the class. She was ten & had just learned her friends were just using her. How can she trust him? He might just be like them. Deceitful. And she was tired of hope.

And the next day, he disappeared.

She had blamed herself. What if he had disappeared because of her? What if something had happened to him? Days, however, had quickly passed with no news and since no news was better than bad news, she had kept praying and hoping it was for the best. A year later, they had graduated and honestly, in the hustle and bustle of living her life, she had forgotten about him, at least on most days; there were the rare blue moon days when she would find herself thinking about the boy with the saddest yet beautiful eyes she has ever seen. Junaid had always reminded her of him. It had been strange those days she would stare at him when he isn't looking searching for a person he didn't even know existed. She now know why.

And now years later, she had met him when her life had hit rock bottom and he had slammed the door in her face.

She had tried meeting him after that day but she had always lost her nerve. She would hear him pacing back and forth and she would sit with her ears  on the door, listening, like it were some sort of healing, and on those days he would paint, she would sit there inhaling chemicals and writing stories in her head of what kind of drawing he was painting and what could possibly be the story behind it.

Was he as anxious as she was? She would find herself wondering on those days he would pace and on those days he would paint, she would wonder what it was he was trying to tell her because for some strange reason, the paintings had felt like it was made especially for her;

The lonely road had reminded her of the road they had met for the first time. Red. Dusty. Potholed. Empty. On some days, the road would have sunshine, birds & trees, and on others, it would wear the night sky, wind & gravity. Her favorite is the aching sky. She had never thought much about the sky and its many skins, but between its orangeness when the sun sets, its blackness when the rain comes and blueness when it just is, she'd learned a new color exist. Pain.

The second time is today. Now. In this very instant. He is standing in front of her.

How? Why? What is happening? She was yet to understand. She had a knock and thinking it was Junaid, she had opened the door. Only it wasn't him. It was Bilaal. He was standing in front of her, staring at her with those melancholic raven eyes of his and not saying anything.

"Is there something you need?" She hear herself say in quickly fading brevity. She could hear her heartbeat in her mouth.

He doesn't say anything. He just stares. She shifts uncomfortably. There was nothing on her face, is it? There couldn't be. She just prayed asr. Her face is clean.

In the ensuing silence, they hear the gates open and a car zooms into the compound. They hear footsteps after they heard a careless slam of door and seconds later, the front door opens. One. . .two. . .

"Ah! There you are," The intruder laughs and she looks his way. It was Junaid. She smiles.

"Were you looking for me?" She asks and at the same time she moves her gaze to Bilaal. He wasn't there. There was nothing that shows he was even there a moment ago and instinctively, she stares at his door only to hear the turn of a key. He had disappeared, again.