Holding on and Letting go [Complete]

22) Meant To Be.

"Only because you brought it up otherwise I don't keep unimportant things in my memory you know."

"Obviously, we have to stash things according to storage, no?"

She haw-ed with flared nose and squeezed eyes.

"You're not funny, you know that, right?"

"Well that's a white lie and even you know that."

For a few seconds, she struggled to come up with a comeback while he waited for it with his brows raised, both breaking into jolts of guffaw afterwards.

"Alright! I have a question now." She asked with serious expressions set on her face and he knew better than to joke about that.

"Shoot then!"

"Why didn't you tell me the truth when I came to meet you that day in the jail?" As if being hit by a rock or truncated of the possible words, his mouth went all dry and parched but you know how they say "Saved by the bell" and so the bell did ring.

He promptly picked up the call. It was from Zeliha and the way his eyes shone with horror told how scared he was to hear what was coming next.

But Masooma had finally come to consciousness.

******

As the call for Fajar prayer poured in the dimly lit room, his eyes clicked open. He wanted to go meet his mother right after the prayer. Shoving the duvet off himself, he retired from the couch he slept in since it was visible from Ayat's expressions she wasn't comfortable enough to share the bed and knowing she was too kind to say that, he himself volunteered to sleep in the couch and even though she protested, asking to let her instead, he still didn't budge saying "what kind of a king lets her queen sleep in the couch while he himself takes the bed?"

"The fake kind," she had replied. But no matter what she said, he didn't listen.

Finally standing up, he was making his way towards washroom to make wudu but the figure of Ayat curled up innocently in the bed halted him and he perched on his knee by the edge of the bed.

The locks of her hair fell over her face and he fought the urge to push them to the side, grazing her with his eyes. She was so pure, like a flower that has just grown, the last drop of the rain. He could stare at her like that forever and praise her like a miraculous oeuvre. It would be exhausting, deliciously surreal.

"Are you gonna keep staring at me like a creep or actually swipe the stray hair away from my face like a real soap hero?" Her speaking out of nowhere literally choked the bejesus out of him as he fell back.

"God! Ayat, you want to kill me?"

Giggling and devouring the sight in front of her, she shot up straight in bed. "Is that it? Man up you, scared little tyke," she teased him with cat-like eyes.

He stood up on his feet as he patted at his arms trying to flicker whatever little dust that might have just etched on his T-shirt. "Okay, first of all that was sexist, and secondly, you can't just expect to catch people off-guard and not give any response in return, and thirdly, what are you doing up so late?"

"To pray, you genius. I'm Muslim, remember?"

He looked at her with his head tilted to the side, arms wounded on chest. "I mean you didn't sleep all night and don't tell me you did because I know you didn't."

That was true, she couldn't sleep all night, tossing and turning the entire time and the vagary in her expressions told her he was right.

Yesterday, in the hospital, on her way to cafeteria, her attention was caught by the whispering squeaks coming from the adjacent room which stopped her in her tracks. Apparently, the patient inside was raped and now her mother was asking her to keep her mouth shut in order to protect "her dignity."