Secretly Married to my Professor

17| Things that Lead

Zahrah's POV

A place claimed to fall silent, yet a scream urged to shake me. At this time, something similar to a frost tore me as my sight wandered in fear, and it had only depended as the days followed.

"Zahrah...."

I turned to look at my older brother, Fahad, as he raised an eyebrow when he noticed that I haven't been paying attention to the conversation he seems to be having as he gave me a lift to the university.

"This is the last time I lie for you," He seemed determined this time around as he handed my phone back, "If you want to take the bus, go out with your friends, practice boxing in the gym. Beautiful! Just don't bring me into your mess and make me lie to Mama and tell her that you were with me in the house when you weren't!"

My brother, the lawyer, seemed to connect the dots and find out that the tracking app which leads Mama to know my IP address every second of the day, an app installed in my iPhone, that I abandon at home whenever I depart for the past couple of days.

A discordant glance crept my face as I turned to confront him, "Fahad, if you tell Mama anything, I swear, I will speak out about how you got the first chair in the hearing!"

"Tell her, I don't care!" he replied with a cold, disdainful look, but his hands on the wheel spoke a different tone.

"Just please be quiet and drive." I turn away from him and look at the device in my hand, my secondary phone, as I threw it with an indifferent look at my large khaki vintage Bag.

"Maybe Mama will understand if you explain to her, just try to talk to her." he wondered with a shrug that followed, "You don't know maybe she will finally see you as a grown-up and dismiss the GPS."

I was on the verge of laughing for the first time in a few days, "Fahad, please refrain from saying those words," My voice grew bolder, "Our parents will never change, especially Mama. I see it every time I look into her eyes. The urge to turn back time and hold on to that fifth-grader, who left to attend school and came back a shattered glass,"

I glanced at Fahad, and his grip on the wheel tightened; just like my parents, he doesn't like discussing those bits. Our world following that point turned into before and after the abduction. 

It was never the same, and Fahad knew more than anyone, but he hid it so well that I wonder if it is because of this skill he came across after what happened that he decided to take a job requiring no emotions a lot of conniving. As soon enough, his grip loosened, and what I like to call the trying to be comedian's voice came to show "Seriously? When did you stop being a fifth-grader? I don't remember. Maybe I should ask Baba since he is an expert on your adult actions." He added air-quotes on the last two words.

I bit my lips to hold my tears back. There was an awkward silence in the car; I could feel Fahad's eyes on me, "Zahrah, are you?"

"You are such a Darth Vader," I stated before the car made a stop, and I sprinted out as his powerful words followed, "I love you; I will pick you up at five."