She was never the kind to feel alone even in an empty room devoid of any sign of life but at that moment where everyone around her was in pure bliss, she felt rather lonely. The room that enclosed her and about a hundred thirty three people was decorated in all possible shades of pastels colours one can imagine and giving away the total so accurately was only possible for her because all the management was weighed upon her responsible shoulders.
For some unexplainable reason, her heart was pounding hard and she could feel each beat within her chest. It was a wedding, but not hers. Her cousin was marrying a cross race from Britain, that explained the why the tiny room was filled with an accent she always found quite attractive.
Some funny line she read a while ago passed her thoughts and she giggled, bursting her bubble of glumness.
"Marwaa?"
For a millionth part of a second, she felt all movements in her body stop as the voice filled her ears; it sounded so familiar yet foreign in every way. Her smile faded and as her body resumed to function, she realised how stupid she must have been looking chuckling to herself.
"Oh my God! Zayn?"
She shrieked in a way a fangirl would if she saw him the first time in person but this was different, given their shared past.
"I saw you from the buffet stalls and I just had to call out to you. What a surprise!"
His perfect teeth was all that caught her attention, they were straighter than when they were both fourteen. She looked up to meet his excited eyes and smiled back at him.
"Yeah. It really is a surprise. What are you doing here, by the way?" It was after the words spilled out that her mind processed how rude and snobbish she sounded but her tongue seemed to be having a mind of her own--which it wasn't even using at the moment.
"My cousin is the groom. You didn't know?" His full grin dropped from one side so what remained of the original beautiful smile was a lopsided version, the kind that his Instagram images are full of except his mouth wasn't making the letter 'o'.
All the puzzled pieces fit to the right places as Zayn told her. So his cousin was marrying her cousin, that explained why the room was filled with British accent chatters and why every one kept saying the groom was a British-Muslim.
"Well, now I do." She covered up the fact that she was clueless about her own cousin's groom--something she had learnt over the years as she wasn't the same little too-innocent-to-face-the-world-girl anymore, the one that Zayn probably remembered. "You look so much better than the last time I saw you."
"I do, don't I?" He smirked in his peculiar way. There was always this air of obnoxiousness around him and it was quite obvious to her at this time. He might be the shy one in front of the camera but behind the stardom was a man who knew what he was and was confident about it in every way possible. "Seems like we have a lot of catching up to do. But I have to go now." His gaze was locked down by his beeping phone in hand. "I'll see you after the reception dinner?"
She simply nodded at him in return and some goodbye gesture was exchanged before both of them headed to tend to whatever they had pending.
While for her, her heart rate had calmed down to normal and she wasn't jittery anymore. It was as if, just a simple talk with Zayn refreshed her-probably that's why she always loved hanging out with him even as little kids.
They were neighbours, here in Egypt before Zayn's father had to shift to Bradford. They lost contact but a few phone calls were exchanged between his father and hers over time, given their years of friendship.
