Nabeel's POV
I laughed. A genuine, deep laugh escaped my lips when she told me her story. Did she really think that was bad? Speaking to a boy was her idea of betrayel? I was amused by her innocence, because the girls I met during my clubbing and partying days were wild and insanely eager to commit all forms of wrong. They would happily oblige if we asked them to smoke, drink, dance or go home with us, and I felt so honoured that she thought her sin was equal to mine. Yet, I needed to make her understand.
"Husna, if you could call my story WW2, yours would be a fight with your siblings in comparison. You did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Don't ever put yourself down for needing to grow up. We all go through times like that. I just need you to realise that I was a wild boy, in clubs and on the streets. Don't think we are equal. You deserve way better."
She ignored my lecture and jutted out her lower lip while telling me that it was rude to laugh at people.
Husna's POV
He had done plenty of wrong in his life, I knew, but he had changed. There was barely a trace of the person he was before, besides the fashion sense. He had repented and cleansed his heart, which had allowed him to move on. For me, however, my love for Zaid and my longing to know how Luke and my friend, Ismaeel, were doing had not faded. I still thought about them regularly. And as for Zaid, I still loved him with the same intensity that had overtaken me at the very beginning, and it scared me to do this to Nabeel.
All my doubts had to be swept under the carpet for the time being, because Nabeel then began to talk to me again, this time about a completely different topic.
"Husna, do you ever wonder why we can't accept our pasts and move on? I'm not speaking about just this, but so many people dwell on their mistakes and let their guilt become the basis of their lives. It dictates everything they do. They can't build themselves up as people because of the memories that haunt their minds," Nabeel said to me, and he looked at the ceiling, lost in thought
"Regret is something that haunts everyone, and I guess it's necessary at times. If we don't have regrets then how would we be able to build ourselves up? We'd go on being the people we were and never learn from our mistakes. In our age, technology contributes to our guilty conscience. If we put something we were proud of online and then realised it was a sin, it has already been publicised. It takes a lot for a person to move on and go into Niqab, for example, if pictures of her in shorts are stored online. It's a scary reality that..." I responded. Nabeel and I spoke for a long time, about the mysteries of the universe and whatever we felt we wanted to speak about, oblivious to the laws of nature that had to prevail.
It was only when his father came to call Nabeel for Isha Salaah that we broke out of our spellbound state.
"We came to check on you two half an hour ago, but you were too deep in conversation to notice. It's been an hour. I see you were enjoying yourself," he laughed, with the same deep yet sweetly layered laugh as Nabeel.
I smiled and said nothing, because I was now lost in thought.
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Author's Note:
Thought of the Chapter:
"Avoidance of sin is lighter than the pain of remorse," Umar ibn Khattab