Let Me Redeem [Completed]

Wrong Move, Rohina

Lying on the bed, back leaning against the headboard, a text book of Algorithms hiding her face as she tried to grasp the jargoned paragraphs, Mirha felt her stomach give a quiet growl. She straightened up, crossing her legs and put the book down. 

Her roommate and her three friends were huddled around the chest of drawers set against the wall, where a phone was plugged to the charging and the girls all had their eyes trained on it, talking and giggling among themselves. 

Mirha sighed, feeling the absence of friends in her life bubbling up from her heart to her eyes, like milk rising under the flames upon reaching its boiling point. Not that she never made an effort to make one, just the fact that she never found someone as lonely as herself. She looked in the wrong people for a partner she could confide in.

 Making small talk with her roommate was a futile attempt for the girl often lost interest and zoned out when Mirha had just started telling her something about herself. To even try to interject with her friends present, was a waste of energy. So Mirha found staying away completely to be less awkward and bearable than being an odd one out among a circle of friends she didn't quite fit in.

“Hey, Qadeer?”

She looked up at her roommate, who, along with her friends was now staring at her, with strange, suspiciously curious looks in their eyes.

“Yeah?” Mirha raised her eyebrows, wondering dubiously what could be so interesting about her.

“You take stc from Hadi Maher, right?”

Her eyes went wide. Though she wanted to ask why it mattered in any way, she couldn't be so blunt. She didn't have it in herself to be rude to people, or to even say no to anyone for that matter. So she instead said, “How do you know?”

“Oh, stuff like this spreads like wildfire, never mind that,” she said airily with a wave of her hand, “So did you see his picture?”

Mirha frowned. “What picture?”

“There’s only one picture that has gone viral in this university, Mirha, don’t act dumb.” Her roommate rolled her eyes, and one of her friends interjected with a shrug,

“It doesn’t look like she knows.”

“Okay see for yourself then,” pulling out the cable from the phone, her roommate strode to her and shoved the screen in front of her face.

Mirha blinked as she took in the picture. It was Hadi with a girl, their bodies pressed up against each other and their faces . . . oh, they were kissing. Her nose scrunched instinctively in distaste, and she looked up at her roommate who was regarding her with something akin to sympathy, as if somehow it was Mirha’s  loss.

“So what do you think?” one of the friends asked.

“Nothing.” She lied. It didn't really matter what she felt anyway. It was just a jumble of disgust, disappointment with a hint of fear. She hadn’t taken Hadi as the kind of a person who would go around kissing girls.

“Do you know who the girl is?”

“No.” Mirha shook her head. How would she know?

“It’s Rohina Jawwad. His best friend’s ex.” Her roommate provided, “Quite a bit of a scandal, don’t you think. I bet he's furious at whoever leaked the picture.”

Mirha just frowned, her stomach feeling like it had fallen into a pit and couldn't climb back up. She hadn’t taken Hadi as a person like Bilal. Maybe it was a sign that she shouldn’t go to him anymore. But she worried about her classes, not wanting to jeopardize such substantial value tuition, just because her paranoid part of the brain is now worried Hadi might try to take advantage of her.