What Not To Do When You're In Love

12 | Miss

12 | Miss

"And what happens if your huge brother attacks me as soon as I set foot into his house?"

"He won't," I rolled my eyes, "I mean, not unless he comes to know that you're depriving me of a cat, something he's seen me yearn for forever."

Hasan was driving me to my mother's house before he left for work. I could stay the whole day there before he joined us at dinner.

Being around Hasan I didn't really realise it, but when he slowed towards the gate and I could see Jebrail on the porch of my old house, it hit me like a bolt - I was seeing my family again, after being away for about a month.

Typically, my eyes teared up again.

"Don't start crying now, Allah," Hasan said. Then softly, "Adinah? Adinah! I want you to stop crying. Right now. Hush."

I faced him, drying my cheeks.

"Hey," he said, reaching for my hand. "Do you want them to think you're unhappy with me?"

I looked away and did not reply, and then he realised something; his face showed his sudden wonder. "Oh my God, are you really going to complain about me once you're there?!"

"No," I said. "Of course not."

"Thank Allah! I mean have you seen Jebrail? He'd turn me to unrecognisable human pulp," he laughed.

Then he looked at me, and stopped. "Adinah, what's the issue?"

"It's that I'm seeing them again!" I sniffed. "And come on, at this point you must realise that however annoying, this is a piece of me, all this crying," I sniffed.

"Oh Allah," he said. "You need to chill."

"You need to stop caring!"

"Who said I do? You're just being way too girlish."

My head whipped to face him. "Excuse me, I am a girl?"

"You're a woman now," he laughed.

I told him to shut up, and did so myself.

When he pulled over at our gate, Jebrail respectfully came forth to greet us.

"Assalaam Alaikum, Hasan Bhai," he said, although Hasan was younger than him by a year.

Hasan replied with a smile.

After a mandatory couple of minutes of my brother's trying to pull my husband inside for chai-nashta and his politely refusing, Jebrail finally let him leave, and I sighed.

"Your struggles to get him in convince me that you were more excited to meet him instead of me," I said as he lead me inside.

"Lol, who wanted to meet you again anyway," he said, but he didn't meet my eyes, and looking at him from behind, I smiled.

I missed Jebrail - his ugly, irritating, overly uncool self; I missed it, because he'd been a huge part of my life, and now suddenly, when he wasn't, it felt like there was a hole there where he'd been all this while.

But before I could say anything more to Jebrail, my mother came to my sight, and seeing her after all this time, characteristically, I melted.

So I was crying again, as was she, and for some minutes we just cried as we held each other.

Next was Amaan, my most favourite person in the world.

"How have you been, motu," I asked, never breaking the embrace.