Let Me Redeem [Completed]

Life was harsh

She was standing by the edge of the aisle, keeping an eye on the rush of the people as they trudged past her; women with their children and husbands and fathers, men along with their daughters and wives to get them what they wished to have. Families, that's what surrounded her making her long for her own. If only she could go back, free herself from this duty she was tethered to for life now. A heart twisting sense of missing out clawed her, tears pricked her eyes. She swallowed them down her throat afraid they'd ruin her make-up she was required to do.

"Excuse me?" At the voice she turned around to a girl who looked no more than seventeen, wearing a scarlet overcoat.

"Yeah?" Mirha said with a forced smile.

The girl held up the boxes of wax strips in her hands of different companies and said, "Which one's better?"

Pointing to the one in her left hand, she said, "That one."

"Thanks." The girl nodded and sauntered away.

Mirha sighed and turned to stroll down the aisle when she felt something brush her derrière and immediately whipped around, her heart beginning to race furiously. She stared at every face but no one looked suspicious enough. In a futile attempt of trying to calm her panicked heart, beads of sweat shining on her makeup clad forehead she went back to stand by her place.

In no more than a minute while talking to a colleague she felt another brush down her bottom but before she could have turned around, her head pounding, she felt a squish and gasped, whipping around. There were so many people, so many women and so many men, Mirha couldn't tell who it was. Her colleague was repeatedly asking what happened but she couldn't focus, couldn't say, couldn't breathe. Her heart could almost at any moment jump out of her throat. Terrified to her wits, she ran to get to the bathroom, wedging her way through the throngs of people, everything becoming blurry from the tears that threatened to gush out. Mirha grasped a sob.

Life was harsh.

Unfair? No.

Not yet.

---

"Remember I told you in the first class about optimization?"

What must she do? Quit? How's she going to get the money then? Her aunt's not getting any better. What better option does she have?

"Mirha?"

"Yeah?" She looked up bewildered. Hadi was staring at her with his eyebrows raised.

"There?"

"Mhm." Mirha said with a slight shake of her head.

He tapped the table with his knuckles, gazing at her inquiringly. "I don't think so."

She tried to smile, but the curl of her lips came out as a grimace. "I'm not lying, in case you were wondering." A failed attempt to be her usual cheery self.

"Something wrong?"

"No." She drawled. "I'm fine sir."

"Mirha, I need you to speak up already."

Mirha tried to look into his eyes but couldn't hold his stern gaze for longer, feeling uncomfortable. She instead stared at the book infront of her, the stupid letters enlarged in her blurred vison swimming past the eachothers.

She shrugged. "It's nothing really . . . Nothing that you can help me with anyway."

"Perhaps." He said leaning forward on the table, bangs of his brown hair falling down on his forehead. "But you can tell me."

Hadi saw that she looked at him with doubt, contemplating as her lower lip wobbled and she ran a hand along her forehead wiping off the invisible sweat. Wondering what could have happened to scare her like that, he felt, coming from a small part of him,  a sudden need to take her hand, only if it could calm her down, make her feel safe. Surprised at himself and claiming it to be ridiculous he tried to jerk his mind off the idea, but it kept nagging the back of his mind for the rest of the day.

"Mirha?"

"Someone touched me." She blurted out, not quite meeting his eye, as if ashamed. "At the mall. I don't know who it was." Her voice shook. "Twice. I was so scared, I didn't know - I-I I don't want to go back there, but if I don't, I'd fail them. If my brothers get to know about this, they'd-they'd make me sit home and find work for themselves to earn. I don't want them to, I want them to go to school. I want them to complete their education. But I also don't want to go back."

Hadi didn't know why he felt angry. Or maybe it wasn't anger, it was simply . . . sympathy?
No fuck, it wasn't sympathy, he was angry. But why, and on whom? At the person who touched her. But why would he even care? Or at Mirha for crying in front of him and making him go through whatever the fuck that he was going through. Or at himself for - why would he be angry at himself … for not being there?

"Get up." He found himself saying.

"Huh?"  Mirha blinked, taking down the tears. She didn't want to cry in front of someone.

"Get up, c'mon." He said as he stood up himself and pushed the chair back down the table. "C'mon."

Confused and bewildered, Mirha rose to her feet and followed Hadi down to the cafeteria. Once there, he walked to the glass display and asked for a cookie.

Handing it to her he said with a lazy smile. "Have a biscuit Qadeer."

It was so unexpected and so coincidental, that Mirha tipped her head back and laughed.

Hadi watched in mute amazement as relief rushed into his heart, seeping into the veins. Frustration took over for the rest of the day, for merely having felt that way, and he took it out at everyone he ran into. Sasha said that he was acting strangely bitchy, but he didn't mind. He minded nothing and kept questioning himself for that.

"I told you I've been watching English films right? And I saw that part of Harry Potter just four days ago." She was saying.

---

" 'Sup with you?" Bilal asked as he sat down across from him on the lunch table, tossing his bag on the seat.

Hadi shrugged pausing in the middle of taking a bite from his sandwich and said, "Same old same old."

"Well, then why have I heard that you've been acting strange the last couple of days." Bilal asked through arched eyebrows as he took a swig from Hadi's decaf.

"That must be Sasha."

"Her, and a few here and there." Bilal drawled.

"You better ask them then." 

Bilal leaned forward on the table and peered in his eyes. "Come on man, tell me is something wrong? Everyone alright at home?" 

"Affirmative." 

"Great. I'll swing by on Saturday then, let's have some fun, yeah?"

"Sure." Hadi said with a shake of his head.

---