The Memory Of Us

Chapter 30

It wasn't until Mina was outside, under the blazing winter sun that she realized the identity of her attacker and, though she stopped struggling against him, Khalil refused to loosen his grip around her even as he brought her to stand in front of Noah and Sahil, their faces worry stricken.

"Calm down." He bid her, spinning her to hold her firmly against his chest. She pushed against him, but he held her steadfast. "Mina. Mina. Mina." He called out to her over and over again, reaching for the scissors she still held so tightly in her hand that her knuckles were beginning to turn white.

She pulled her hand swiftly away.

"Calm down." He repeated, but Mina wasn't sure she could 'calm down.'

"What happened?" Sahil asked, his eyes darting from Mina to Khalil and back again a thousand times. "What did she say? Was it her? Is she the one-"

"Shut up, Sahil!" Khalil exclaimed without even looking in her direction, his eyes trained to Mina's as he reached for the scissors in her hand for a second time.

"Mina. Mina. Mina. You have to calm down. You have to calm down." He placed a hand over her rapidly beating heart. This too she swatted away, eliciting a guttural groan from the depths of Khalil's throat. "We'll figure it out together, ok?" He said in reassurance. "We'll figure it out together. I promise, Mina. I promise."

"Yeah." Sahil chimed in once more. "We still have a few days until your mom's trial, we can reconfigure with Chris-"

"Shut up, Sahil!" Khalil repeated.

At this, Mina seemed to snap out of the perpetual stupor she had been stuck in. "That's easy for you to say when your life isn't on the line!" She exclaimed, this time succeeding in pushing Khalil away. Stumbling backwards, she continued on, "I could quite literally have days to live! Day!" She emphasized and then, as if truly realizing the scope of what had just happened, she grasped her head firmly between her hands, spinning in circles.

"And now that I've attacked her she's really going to come after me now!" Mina said, her erratic heartbeat only growing more and more erratic by the second. "I mean, she says she has no idea about the checks from my grandma or my dad but she has to be lying. I mean she has to be lying, right? The checks had her name on them and it Chris-" She gulped, swallowing audibly and momentarily choking on her spittle. "-Chris's moms checked-"

"Listen. Listen. Listen." Khalil sputtered out, rushing over to her once more with outstretched hands. Covering her hands, still glued to the sides of her head, with his, he said, "First of all, no one's going to hurt you."

She looked up at him through thick eyelashes. "Because you're not going to let them?" She asked sarcastically. "Because you're going to protect me? You've done a pretty horrid job so far." She spat at him, but if her words had hurt him, if they had had any effect on him, he didn't show it.

"Mina-"

"I've told you to stop calling me that!" Mina yelled, breaking free of Khalil's hands to snap in Sahil's direction. Khalil immediately grabbed her once more.

"Mina." He called out. "Deep breaths." He said, bending his knees tightly so that they were both eye-level now. "Deep breaths." He repeated, breathing in deeply before letting it out slowly, urging her with soft nods to mimic him.

Reluctantly, she did, forcing herself to breathe rhythmically in and out as Khalil stared into her eyes, and massaged small circles into the small of her back. She let her eyes flutter closed, her entire body relaxing wholly and, when she opened them, the scissors she had been gripping had miraculously been transferred to Khalil's hand.

Reflexively, she leaned in closer to Khalil, until her chest was firmly pressed against his, but she was pulling back once more at a comment from Sahil who still refused to heed Khalil's advice and shut up.