The Secrets We Keep Hidden

13 | A White Love Affair [Part 1]

"I hadn't told them about you, but they saw you bathing in my eyes. I hadn't told them about you, but they saw you in my written words. The perfume of love cannot be concealed." ~ Nizar Qabbani

~|✵|~

Oxford University Dorm Room

Monday, 25th April 1988

I had spent more time with Zayan in the past month than I would have ever imagined. We talked between classes, during lunch, and afterwards long into the night. Most nights we would spend studying over the phone, but all I needed was an excuse to spend time with him. He had become more open, and every time I found him letting me in, I could not help but fall deeper. 

But where was it that I was falling? Is there any end to this? 

It is no secret that he is irresistibly handsome and irrevocably intelligent, and that I am happier when I am with him. I know that Salma and Hajar believe I give him more time than them, but it is not like that at all. Yes, I love spending time with him, but I value them more... or maybe just as much? I don't know! Their friendship means the world to me, and I cannot imagine a life where they did not exist. 

But I cannot ignore the emptiness I feel when I do not see Zayan for a long time. 

They think that I have fallen in love with him, but what is love? Is love the weakness I feel in my limbs when he stands or sits within close proximity of me? Is love the butterflies that take flight in my stomach when he gives me his priceless smile? 

We all went to dinner the other night, and he easily sat next to me while Hajar and Salma sat across from us. And my oh my, I felt like I would combust into a thousand and one particles. 

I sometimes find him watching me in class from afar, but I am afraid if I look up, he will not look again. Oh my heart, how do I know whether or not he has feelings for me? Is it too early? 

I spoke to Amma last night, and she said that I sounded different. When I asked her what that meant, she told me that it was nothing bad; it just sounded like I was enjoying life. Zaakir Bhai had yelled from the back that I was 'high on life'. 

Maybe that's what it is, maybe I am high on life?

~|✵|~

Firdaus's fingers brushed along the fading ink of her mother's manual cursive as she read the last sentence in the journal entry. It was so intricate, dancing like a seductress on the thin paper yet sharp on its ends. 

Did her mother ever imagine that that night was the portal to destruction? Her mother had been so in love, so mesmerized with Zayan, that she simply lost all touch to the rest of the world.  

Firdaus exhaled a deep breath before gently closing the leather bound journal. There was a single piece of frayed twill that wrapped around the book, not letting the demons of the heart enter it any further than it already had. The pages had started to wether and yellow at the edges as the paper had become thin and fragile. However, its musky aroma was still intact, and it gave Firdaus a sense of belonging. 

She was sitting on the length of her bedroom windowsill, her knees pulled up to her chest as her dupatta swayed from her chest and down to the floor. As she looked towards the rising sun, her heart sank. In just a few hours she would be bound in marriage to a man that had come in as a storm and swept everyone away before they could have blinked twice. 

This man had caused heart ache and pure love and devotion from those who barely knew him. He was an enigma that dared to be defied, and her whole being felt as if it was burning. She had promised herself to not let her conscience slip. Life was a battle that she had been a player in since she the first slap from her father. Nothing compared to what she had been through, what she had endured in her first decade and a half of life.