THE DEGREE OF HAPPINESS

10

I couldn't sleep. 

Ammaty Aafreen had the entire bed whilst I slept in the mattress underneath her. Apparently, Ammaty's bed was huge, which was why she needed all the space in my bed. 

The mattress wasn't bad. I could sleep anywhere I wished. 

The problem was, I had those nights when sleep just wouldn't come till the sun set the next day. And it was definitely one of those days.

Grabbing my tattered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, my phone and headphones from my desk, I put on a hoodie as the nights were cold and headed to the terrace.

I found my usual corner, which had a lamp-post of sorts hanging on top, which made late night studying and reading very easy. I connected my phone with the headphones and played angry thunderstorm noises for ten hours straight, placing the hood over my head. Then, I opened my book and began to read. 

I was rather proud of my Grimm's Fairy Tales collection. It had more than two hundred tales, was seven hundred pages long and so, I was able to get lost in the world of fantasy till my daily alarm rang for Fajr time. 

I turned off the raindrop sounds and closed my book. I blinked a couple of times, for my eyes had been burning, on account of reading too much.

"Well," said Soroush, "That was fun. Grimm's Fairy Tales really are dark, as they say."

I pushed back, startled, and hit my head on the wall.

"Crap," I yelled, massaging my head as I stared at Soroush. He was sitting next to me, wearing the same getup from the previous day. He had a book strewn across his lap with a pen in his hand and an open notebook on the side. 

"Language," he warned.

"You are a biker boy. I can only guess what kind of words you use."

He shrugged, "A gross stereotyping of my character. You can't just assume things like that. For example."

With that, he took a cigarette packet from his pockets and showed it to me, "I gave these bad boys a try and turns out: I don't like them."

"Smoking causes cancer," I said automatically.

"Hmm. My body must be a cancer activist of sorts. Nevertheless, I will keep trying." He said with a smile and kept it back in his pocket.

"What happened to the religious boy who..." I shook my head, "Never mind that. What are you doing here, Mr. Hakeem? Studying?"

"Roush," he said, "You called me that, didn't you?"

My eyes widened as he shook his head, "To answer your question, yes, I came here to study. I was right here when you decided to come and sit under the light, though you didn't notice. However, you seemed engrossed in the tales of Brother's Grimm and so, I decided to read too. And, I got way too engrossed too."

Not an ounce of sheepishness as he said those words. He was cocky, confident.

"Oh," I said, pressing the book against my chest, "I see."

"The stories are interesting," he said, "You like reading?"

I nodded.

"Hmm, that makes sense. Fantasy, right?"

"No, not really," I said. "I'm more of a......literary fiction girl if that makes sense? Romance too, but things grounded in reality. All the Light We Cannot See, The Kite Runner, Everything I Never Told You, I quite like that one more than I'd like to admit. Peer-e-Kaamil."

"Peer-e-Kaamil?" he asked.

I gave a small, shy smile, "It's a beautiful romance. Well, it's more than a romance. I sometimes wish I was a Pakistani so that I could, you know, understand the story even more. But then I.... Well,  I love my country so that stupid thought gets cast away out of my mind cuz..." I shuddered,  "Patriotism."