Beyond The Stars

Almost Kisses and Stereos

Mikhail's pov

My eyes strained to read the time on the dashboard. After a couple blinks I managed to figure out that we still had a six hour drive. My head was clogged more than my nose, thoughts upon thoughts swarm every inch of my head.

Rafa hadn't made any other comments or said anything after I lied about who Mahra was to me. I looked at her for a second, her hijab had come loose and wisps of her multicoloured hair were lying on her cheeks, her head was against the window but I knew she wasn't asleep. My hand badly wanted to reach over and gently brush her hair off her cheeks, watch as she would blush right after  and smile as she would scowl at me.

I loved it when she got mad at me for casually touching her, how she would say it's haram yet know it actually isn't. The way her eyes glistened with determination to find her twin and how capable she thought she was to do it on her own.

I loved everything she did but I could never show it, because if I did everything we have, the friendship, the laughs, the trust would crumble. Nothing would be the same if she knew.

I had felt hesitant at first about telling her who Mahra was, I never kept anything from Rafa, apart from my brother's incident, but I knew it was for the good. Nothing but awkward moments and tense gazes would've came out of me telling her the truth. She would've felt deceived that I knew of this arrangement yet still asked her to marry me. Even though she harbours no feelings towards me I'm sure some part of her would have got hurt.

Just as soon as we find Raif, I'll tell her. Then she'll be free of this marriage, no one but us and her father would know of this ever happening. No one would feel remorse or regret in this marriage. No one but me. But that would be okay because Rafa's happiness is worth more than mine.

My vision started to get hazier by the second so I quickly sat up and tried to rub it out of my eyes. "Let's switch now," Rafa said turning towards me. I shook my head, "no it's okay."

"Stop being stubborn Mikhail," she put her hand on my arm and I stiffened at the contact, she caught it though and mumbled, "are you okay?"

I nodded, "never been better," I rolled over to the side of the road and stopped the car, Rafa had taken her hand off but she had turned towards me and since my jeep had its seats attached up front and in the back, she seemed to be even closer than before. "so do you know how to drive this?" I asked.

She looked over the dashboard, tilted her head to look under the steering heel and then at me with a smile that automatically made my lips move up too, "I think so."

"Think so? Rafa we--"

"I know so." She said and I chuckled as she started rattling off on all the driving rules. Rafa had passed her drivers test after failing it twice, first time because Raif had told her that green means go, yellow means go fast and red means look for police and then go. And being a naive sixteen year old she was, Rafa had done just that on the day with her examiner.

The second time was because she purposely crashed the car into a mailbox, her reasoning being that the instructor was a crusty toad who was very rude and smelly. "Ok ok I get it," I laugh, stopping her rant," but my life's in your hands princess." I say with a small smile.

Rafa grins at me and says, "don't worry, I won't let you die." My insides flutter and I clear my throat to stop myself from saying something cheesy, "ok then, you move over and I'll get out and go around," I move to open the door but she pulls me back and says, "no you're sick and going from a warm car out into the cold will get you even more sick, here scooch over-" I raised an eyebrow and moved away from the steering wheel, "wait so how are you gonna get--" I swallowed my words as she started to climb over my lap.