The Memory Of Us

Chapter 7

It wasn't that Mina was refusing to speak, it was simply that she couldn't. The words kept getting caught in her throat and they protested anytime she tried to force them out. All she was capable of was indistinguishable squeaks, that was what Khalil's sudden and unannounced presence had reduced her to.

She hated that she still allowed him so much control over her.

She hated that she hadn't taken the knife she had been cradling between her fingers and shoved it deep inside the cavity of his chest at the first chance that she had gotten.

"Everyone's gone." Noah said with a heavy breath, her hands placed firmly against her hips.

Mina couldn't muster any reaction, she simply continued to stare at herself in the vanity mirror attached to her dresser. She was sat with her legs beneath her on her bed, Sahil sat so close next to her that every breath he took had his shoulders pressing firmly against hers.

She swallowed the urge to push him away.

Noah moved across the room now, before squatting at the foot of the bed, her hands inching across the comforter to touch Mina's thigh.

Mina scooted away.

Noah retracted her hand.

"How are you?" Noah asked, her voice dropping to a volume barely above a whisper, but Mina was spared the responsibility of answering, Sahil jumping in almost instantaneously.

"How do you think she is, Noah!" He exclaimed incredulously at Noah's question. "The guy who killed her dad and her boyfriend just showed up to her birthday party!"

Mina flinched at Sahil's words.

Not at the reminder of what Khalil had done, she didn't need a reminder of that, but at the fact that despite the undeniably terrible things he had done Mina found her entire body coming alive, as if struck by lightning, any time her thoughts returned to the brief kiss she and Khalil had shared before Noah and Sahil had come barging in.

He was a terrible person.

She had kissed a terrible person.

She was pretty sure that made her a terrible person.

"So, what are we going to do then?" Noah continued on, oblivious to the internal struggle Mina was currently grappling with.

"What do you mean what are we going to do?" Sahil echoed. "We're going to turn him in!" He exclaimed obviously.

"And how exactly do you plan to turn him in, Sahil?" Noah questioned sarcastically. "He's already been to court. He's already been acquitted of all charges. He's clean."

Sahil sucked in a breath through his teeth. The noise reverberated through the room. "We all know that's a lie." He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah." Noah nodded before enunciating, "We. No one else knows the truth. If we want to send Khalil away for good this time, we're going to need proof. I just don't know how we're supposed to get it."

It was as if a lightbulb had suddenly suspended itself over Sahil's head.

He was staring directly at the mirror across from Mina's bed now, right at her.

"I do." He said with a sinister smirk and Noah, feeling left out, looked up at the pair of the expectantly.

"What?" She asked frustratedly. "What?"

"MJ." He revealed.

Noah frowned.

"He wants me to get close to Khalil again." Mina said to the mirror, before turning to face Sahil beside her. It seemed as if, in the few breaths of conversation, he had moved closer and Mina's eyes darted down warily to where his lips parted.

"Right?" She asked, her eyes flickering back up to his eyes once more and she found herself flinching once more as his lips stretched wider. He had caught her staring.

Sahil nodded, darting his tongue out to wet his bottom lip, and Mina quickly turned away, her eyes falling to her trembling hands in her lap.

"No." Noah protested with a shake of her head. "Absolutely not!" She exclaimed, firm in a decision that wasn't hers. "Khalil is dangerous." She said. "You can't possibly want to put MJ in a position where she could get hurt." She finished before adding, "Again!"

"It would be a one time only ordeal." Sahil promised, his hands raised, palms facing forward, as he spoke to both Mina and Noah simultaneously, before focusing his attention on Mina once more.

"Just -" He dropped a hand to caress her thigh. "-just offer to meet him for coffee or something." He suggested with a nonchalant shrug, as if he were requesting something so trivial.

"There's a cafe not too far from here." He continued. "And Noah and I won't be far, probably just a few tables over. If anything happens, we'll be there. Don't you want your revenge?"

Truth be told, after seeing Khalil, she wasn't sure what she wanted anymore.

She couldn't ignore the fact that, before him, she had been nothing more than a product of her environment. But during him. During him, she had felt seen and heard. She had felt like more.

She desperately desired to feel that again and, despite her better judgment, she desperately yearned to see him once more

Suddenly her thoughts were plagued with the sensation of his soft, dark lips dancing tantalizingly over hers. She could practically feel him smiling against her.

"MJ?'' Sahil called aloud.

Mina's head snapped in his direction, her eyes wide. She wasn't sure when her fingers had reached her lips, but she quickly yanked her hand away from her mouth in embarrassment.

Sahil frowned in confusion.

"You're right." She said, attempting not to sound too eager. "He needs to be held accountable for what he did." She pulled her phone from the side pocket of her sweatpants as she spoke, navigating to find Khalil's contact.

Noah rose from her squatted position on the floor and moved to occupy the space on the bed. She sat on Mina's other side.

"You didn't delete his number?" She asked, scooting closer to Mina's figure, the bed squeaking with her movements. Mina could practically feel the weight of her glare over her shoulder.

"I-" Mina cleared her throat. "I forgot." She lied and her face grew progressively hotter as she opened her chain of messages with Khalil.

She tried her best not to dwell on the fact that both Noah and Sahil were heavily breathing over her shoulder, re-reading some of her most intimate conversations as she quickly typed out her message, and she exhaled in relief as her thumb brushed the send button and then the power button before she tossed her phone behind her.

"There." She said definitively.

"What if he doesn't respond?" Noah asked hesitantly. "What if he doesn't want to meet? What if he suspects something's up?"

Sahil scoffed at her question. "Oh, he'll respond." He said. "He wants to meet, trust me. As for him being suspicious, I'd be surprised if he wasn't. You guys don't know him like I know him, but he's always been suspicious. He can't help himself. "

"So then, why would he still agree?" Noah asked confusedly, and Mina realized that she knew the answer before Sahil even opened his mouth to speak.

"Because he's in love with MJ." Sahil said simpy.

That, she had never doubted.