The Memory Of Us

Chapter 6

He looked different.

He looked different and yet somehow the same.

His hair was slightly longer now, though it was still cropped close to his head. His face was rounder. His build was larger, the ragged t-shirt he was wearing stretched taunt across his protruding chest.

He looked the same and yet somehow different.

"Hi." He whispered out, a slight smile dancing on the corners of his lips. "Happy Birthday!" He added after a moment of charged silence in which he realized Mina wasn't inclined to speak, but she was simply gathering her thoughts.

Khalil opened his mouth to say more, but his words never met the air, intercepted by Mina, who suddenly declared loudly, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you." He said as if the answer had been an obvious one. Mina wanted desperately to believe the sincerity in his tone, but she wasn't sure "believing" was something she was capable of anymore.

"I missed you." He said, before immediately revising his words, "I miss you." He took a small step forward and Mina instinctively attempted to take a step backwards only to remember that her back was pressed to the only door in the small space.

"You weren't supposed to know." He laughed to himself.

Mina didn't mimic the action.

"I was supposed to slip in and out unnoticed but-" He grasped the silver pendent around his neck and Mina's eyes flickered down at the movement before meeting his eyes once more.

"-once I saw you-" He broke off with a curt laugh. "-I couldn't leave.' He finished, his brows furrowed slightly and Mina suddenly noticed that his eyes weren't trained to her anymore, but her hand.

"Were you planning to use that on me?"

Mina wasn't sure when she had removed the knife from her pocket, but there was no imagining the large silver piece of metal in her hand. It was overwhelmingly real.

"You-" She stuttered. "-you shouldn't have come here."

"I know." He nodded in understanding, those his eyes were still trained to the weapon in her hand. "Believe me-" He said with a scoff. "-I know. I tried to talk myself out of it. Really. But apparently the allure of you makes me suicidal." He finished, meeting her eyes once more, and Mina was surprised to find that his smile had breached the corners of his lips and was now stretched across his face.

"You seem like you really want to use that." He said, nodding his head in the direction of the knife she was still gripping like her life depended on it.

"Should I move closer?" He asked, taking yet another small step forward and Mina could feel the cavity of her chest contracting with the movement.

"Make it easier for you?" Though the features of his face conveyed humorous intent, the seriousness in his tone desperately confused her and she found herself grasping the knife in her hand even tighter, the hilt digging painfully into her palm once more. She could feel the indentation the small screws were making.

"Come on." He encouraged her with yet another small step forward in rhythm with each word he spoke.

Mina's chest contracted, growing smaller and smaller until her breaths were so short and ragged that she could feel herself growing lightheaded.

"I know you want to." He whispered out, his voice so low now that Mina had to strain to hear him over the sound of the rain that was now heavily thudding around them on the panes of the greenhouse roof.

He was standing mere inches in front of her now, so close that she could hear each inhalation of breath he took and Mina succumbed to the overwhelming urge to glance hesitantly down to his parted lips. They were comforting and familiar, exactly as they had appeared in her dreams, but she wondered if they felt the same.