If somebody asked Zahra - "do we ever reach a point in time when we just cannot love a person any longer?" - she wouldn't know.
Zahra Yusuf is the most sensible girl in her family. She listens to her mind more than her heart, maybe that's why her Na...
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chapter 17: ask me what's wrong
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That feeling when you look into someone's eyes and realise— they might be the person whom you'd get to spend your entire life with... It was something I had only read in books. I had given up long ago on finding a guy like that in real life simply because fiction and reality most often never collided.
But Shafaq made an exception.
It was crazy how there was now a person that wanted to be with me... He was someone who had confessed because it was important to him that I find out first. And though it was not like anything I had planned, it was much much better.
"Though you disturb my thoughts, you make me want to be better."
"I know it might be too much for you to take in, but I'm helpless."
"I will pray tahajjud for this to work out, if it's the best for us."
How does anyone live with those words being said to them? How does one come to terms with the butterflies in their stomach and the fact that you get to do life with this person? It was a little hard, and frankly, I didn't want this phase to be over yet, no matter how restless I felt. It was an overwhelming yet a peaceful feeling.
Ali walked in on me and Shafaq while the conversation almost took several turns into dangerous waters. I knew it was time to leave and promptly said goodbye. Ali warned me that Ammi had already called me three times and I better run if I didn't want to make her mad. But I couldn't possibly be dejected by anything after Shafaq's confession. I felt like someone had painted a permanent smile on my face.
Even as I carried out the errands Ammi had lined up for me in my absence, I was daydreaming... Or should it be called night-dreaming since it was around 10:45 PM? Had I really spoken to him for 45 minutes? I looked at my hands and wondered what he felt when he thought about his heart in them. All those times when he sat with me in his car every morning, this was what he was holding back? This eternal gift he had given me? It must've taken him a lot of courage to finally say it out loud after so long.
"What happened?" Falak suddenly grabbed me from nowhere.
"Falak, oh my god—" I started, breathing a little fast.
"Wait, let's go sit down somewhere and you can tell me everything." She said, her eyes sparkling.
"Okay." I grinned and I saw something click in her eyes as she raised her eyebrows.
"Oh, my god." She repeated my words. "Oh my god."
"Exactly." I muffled a shriek.
I could see Amirah still talking to Junaid bhai across the room and I knew I couldn't hide it from her for long. When something major happened in my life, one of the first people to know about it were my best friends. I ended up following all the rules in the unspoken book of friendship, and just as I wanted to tell Falak about the confession as soon as Shafaq had uttered it, there was my beloved cousin sister, Amirah too.
