The Memory Of Us

Chapter 4

"So-" Mina sung in an effort to make conversation as she walked alongside Sahil who was stiffly pushing a grocery cart beside her, his eyes roaming over her grandmother's list of demands in his hands. His lips moved silently in conjunction with his reading.

"-what's Noah up to?" She asked, dragging a hand along the uniform gray shelves on her other side.

"What do you mean?" Sahil inquired, his brows moving down on his face, though his eyes remained trained to the paper in his hand.

"Sahil-" Mina scoffed as she dropped her hand from the grocery store shelves. "-I'm not stupid." She said, her eyes squinted, her mouth upturned. "I didn't forget what today is." She stated blandly. "I'm just blatantly ignoring the fact. Besides, I'm not exactly in a celebratory mood."

Sahil paused mid-step, stopping in the middle of the frozen food aisle, and he finally glanced up from his reading to meet Mina's eyes. He was silent for a moment, as if searching, but for what Mina had no idea.

Finally, he spoke, "I told Noah that too, but she insisted that this would-" He paused, searching for the right world. "-help." He finished.

Mina rolled her eyes, resting her forearms on the side of the gray bars of the grocery cart. "I can assure you it won't." She said firmly.

"Do you want me to call her?" Sahil offered automatically in an effort to please her, an effort he had been engaged in since they had left her grandmother's house. Mina assumed it was his indiscreet way of trying to make up for their awkward conversation earlier and the fact that he had accidentally called her Mina.

It wasn't working, and the way he seemed to tiptoe as if on eggshells around her was making her nauseous and irritated.

Mina shook her head. "No." She said, surprising even herself but, just like this morning, she was still in no mood to pick a fight and she was sure that's exactly what Sahil calling Noah would lead to. "No." She repeated once more in confirmation, reassuring Sahil for a second time. "I'm assuming my grandma is in on whatever it is she has planned?"

Sahil nodded silently.

"I thought so. That's why she sent me on these errands, and that's why you're here."

"Part of the reason." Sahil corrected. "I meant what I said Mi-"

Mina suddenly became distinctly aware of the metal bars digging through the fabric of her winter coat.

"MJ!" Sahil quickly corrected with an apologetic smile and Mina attempted to return it, though she was sure she had failed terribly, especially when Sahil's gaze fell from hers and returned to the shopping cart that he immediately began pushing lazily down the aisle once more.

Mina returned upright again and fell into step beside him

"I do care about you." Sahil continued on in spite of his evident mistake, oblivious to Mina gnashing her teeth beside him in growing discomfort once more not just at the fact that Sahil had almost referred to her as the name Khalil always had, but because she was once again having the same conversation with the same boy.

As if it hadn't been unbearable enough the first time.

"-and I really did want to make sure you were ok, especially after yesterday at school."

Mina immediately snapped from her reverie as if she had been pulled by the collar of her jacket. "What-" She laughed humorlessly, "-you mean when Noah told me to basically 'get over' everything." She said, remembering the conversation vividly within the confines of her mind.

"She's trying." Sahil argued in Noah's favor and Mina couldn't suppress yet another laugh.

"Yeah-" She sung sarcastically. "-because throwing me a birthday party is going to make everything better."

"MJ-" Sahil called out to her, but she cut him off in an instant with a shake of her head.

"We're done here, right?" She asked, taking a thousand steps away from both Sahil and the grocery cart he was pushing.

"MJ-" He tried again, softer this time, but he was met with the same response.

"Are we done are not?" Mina asked more loudly this time, garnering a few glances of disapproval from passerby.

"Yeah." Sahil said after a few beats of silence had passed. "Yeah, we're done."

"Great." Mina pursed her lips tightly together. "Let's go home."