Hey! I hope you all had a lovely Eid. The holiday’s nearly over so before I get crammed with uni work, why not write once more? I got a sudden need to write randomly so I’m taking it out on the story. Hope you enjoy the new part, to whoever is reading this THANK YOU for reading, from the bottom of my heart it means the world to me just knowing there’s at least one reader out there reading my words. I only hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy writing them. xx
“Life doesn’t always introduce you to the people you want to meet. Sometimes life puts you in touch with the people you need to meet - to help you, to hurt you, to leave you, to love you, and to gradually strengthen you into the person you were meant to become.” - Unknown.
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Previously in Part 2:
“Don’t!” I shook my head in disgust, all the curiosity in me died away at her childish behaviour. I suddenly didn’t want any part of this. I was involved for too long and all it did was cause me more problems. I couldn’t take this any longer.
“Then leave,” she shot daggers at me through her eyes, I couldn’t believe hoe such sad eyes on such a pale face could look so emotionally dead and cold.
“Fine.”
And with that, I left.
Sadly enough, the curiosity and worry that I believed was dead only followed me out of that hospital room..
That wasn’t the last time I saw her.
It was only the beginning of the many times I’ve come to see her again.
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“Akeed ma ra7 etghayr rayk?” Faisal asked me once more. I was so familiar with being around his presence that it felt peculiar that I was now facing him through the screen; using Skype to communicate with him. After the break ended, he went back to the US and I decided to stay back in Kuwait, I’ve already missed the first week of classes and I was unsure about even completing the current course.
“Walla madre, omi lal7een t3bana lazem athel wyaha,” I sighed, my eyelids were trying to heave themselves shut, I looked up at the clock and read 3:00 AM. It was only 5 PM in Los Angelos and Faisal was sprawled across our apartment couch with a cigarette wedged in between his lips, the laptop resting on his beer belly.
“Allah yeshfeeha w yegawmha belsalama,” Faisal gave me a pitying look. I saw one of the guys, Ahmed was it? He passed by behind Faisal an gave a little wave at the camera once he realised Faisal was skyping me. He was one of Faisal’s freshman friends, I didn’t know him too well.
“Shlounk Bader? Sema3t 3n omk! Allah yeshfeeha,” Ahmed bopped his head and blocked my view of Faisal’s face, only giving me a 720 HD effect from the Skype image of his moustache.
“El7mdellah tmam, ent shlunk? Allah ysma3 mnkom, mshkureen shabab.”
“Tamam,” Ahmed responded before walking off, giving me a view of Faisal’s face once more.
“Yalla ana dekht 7ail Faisal, banam,” I yawned.
“La et6awlha ha? B3dain tet2akhar bel tekharuj w shlun netkharaj gablk? Tbena enfashlk?” Faisal joked.
“Says the guy who’s repeating Calculus for the fourth time now,” I laughed. “La t7aty, akhith 9aify Letha ma dawamt hal course w thalait bel Kuwait.”
“Yalla mashe,” Faisal nodded after I got a clear view of his face. “Salem 3la el shabay okay?”
“You9al.”
We both signed off at the same time and I stared at the clock once again, heaving a sigh. I didn’t have it in me to fall asleep, my mind was running at 6 kilometres an hour and I had no idea how to slow it down.
“Bader? Shfeek ma nemt?” My dad’s voice startled me from behind. I didn’t hear the sound of his footsteps creep into the living room.
“Kent 3la skype m3a Faisal, ashuf ajwa2 L.A,” I gave him a tired smile.
“Bader wldy, rid kamel derastk, mala da3e et’thil m3ana w etkharb 3la derastk,” my father approached to my side and slowly sat next to me, he was holding onto his back and I could see the pain creeping into his wrinkled eyes even in the dark living room at 3 AM.
“Yuba. Fay eb New York w Faris eb Dubai m3a murta, ma agder akhaleek bru7k m3a omi, bru7k t3ban!” I argued for the millionth time.
“Keberna b3d, shay 6bee3y namrith,” my dad gave me a weak smile, acting as if the topic was light.
He made me promise not to tell Fay and Faris that my mom was getting worse, he didn’t want to worry Fay during her Masters final exams nor trouble Faris and his pregnant wife, both siblings had a lot on their plates and I was 100% certain that if I wasn’t in Kuwait during the break when Mom got worse, he wouldn’t have told me about the news either. He always believed he could handle everything on his own, he never asked for help even though he honestly needed the most help in the whole family, his diabetes was just as bad as Mom’s, but Mom being older in age and more frail, it hit her harder.
“Yuba, el salfa mu 7rara ba9ee6a w et6eeb b3d esbu3-“ I was about to continue but he cut me off midway.
“Khala9 khala9, al7een shnu qarart?” Dad changed the subject back to my education. It was his only weapon in every discussion we had; he never liked to discuss anything, the way he solved everything was through avoiding them until it slapped you in the face.
“Ma qarart shay,” I sighed. “Bathil m3akom ashuf el wath3, etha ma radait 3ade agder awa’9a eb 9aifi,” I stated. How could I leave the side of the two pillars that held my whole life together?
“La la enshallah mu lazm et3awi’9 shay, omk ma feeha ela el3afya, ehya bel Seef Hospital m3a a7san dekatra,” Dad patted a frail hand over my shoulder; his words and reassuring movements were trying to calm my worries down but I knew for a fact he was mostly talking to himself, trying to reassure himself that everything was going to be alright.
I didn’t believe in his reassurance as just much as his worried eyes didn’t follow the same confident meaning of his words.
“Enshallah,” I went along and remained hopeful, not breaking his positivity with brutal reality.
“Yalla la et6awl bl sahra w nam.”
“Enshallah,” I repeated once more.
“T9ba7 3la khair,” he gave me one last pat on the shoulder before grabbing his walking cane and leaving me alone in the dark lit living room.
I didn’t realise that I passed out on the couch until Raya pinched my shoulder and I felt the rays of sunlight stab my pupils as soon as my eyes were wide open.
“Haaa,” I groaned out in response.
“Wake aah-up! I am trying to clean, go your room to sleep Bader!” Raya’s 50 year old frail voice shot at me, annoyed. I focused on her squinting small eyes and her tight bun as she was hurrying around the living room, huffing and puffing as she cleaned.
“Okay okay, 6igeeni b3d!” I laughed at the way she moved, she was an old lady with a pear shaped body; she walked in a funny way, staggering with each step and I always made fun of her penguin walk, ever since I was a child and she’d grab my ear and tell me off about it, calling me rude and ill-mannered. Raya wasn’t the typical housekeeper, she felt more like a grandmother than a domestic worker and she easily became apart of the family.
“It’s fa-aw (four) PM!” She still couldn’t pronounce her R’s properly. “No ma-aw (more) sleep!”
“Oulllaaa,” I suddenly jolted off of the couch and looked at the clock in horror. She was right, it was 4 PM and I slept half the day away, I was supposed to drive Dad to the hospital for our daily hospital visits at 8 AM but he didn’t wake me up this time.
“Where did baba go?”
“Your baba went to hospital already, he said not to wake you, he always too nice to you, he must teach you more discipline, I always tell him since you were child you too naughty-“ Raya began lecturing me as she was vacuuming the ceramic floors, it looked more like she was attacking it with how aggressive her moves were.
“Rayaaaaaa,” I gave her my innocent face.
“No no, don’t give me that look, I still don’t approve you no going back to study and staying home!” Raya wagged a finger at me. Raya didn’t know about Mom either, she thought Mom went on a trip to Dubai to visit Faris and his pregnant wife. Dad didn’t include Raya into the affairs anymore after Raya nearly had a heart attack when she found Mom on the floor. Mom and Raya were basically best friends, it was a weird relationship but Mom was always soft towards her, no matter how many other house keepers she employed, she always favoured Raya, even though all the other house keepers were brought to make a better job of cleaning than Raya.
Raya didn’t clean as well anymore, her old age affected her work so mostly she’s still around because we loved her too much to give her a reason to stop working for us.
Plus Raya would have phoned my sister and brother in a heart beat if she knew, only ruining Dad’s plan of keeping everything a secret.
“Ali took Baba to the office?” I sighed, ignoring Raya’s usual lectures, I no longer fought them off, I let her think I was being lazy instead of telling her the truth of why I didn’t go back to L.A. We referred to the hospital to “the office” in front of Raya.
“Yeah Ali took him in the maaw-ning,” Raya yelled over the vacuum cleaner’s loud sounds.
“Okay,” I nodded before walking off to take a quick shower. I grabbed the first pair of clean Abercrombie & Fitch navy shorts with a random white shirt and hurried out of the house with my car keys in hand.
“Waaaait Bad-ew! You don’t eat breakfast yet!” I heard Raya call over behind me but I waved her off and climbed into Faris’s old wrangler. Only Raya would tell me to have breakfast at 5 PM.
It was a Saturday. The roads weren’t as crowded as yesterday but you still had to wait an extra fifteen minutes at the line of Nuzha Starbucks Drive-Thru. The cars were all parked for show and I heaved an exasperated sigh, I drove the car out of the Drive-Thru’s line and parked by the mosque. I was forced, for the millionth time, to walk in the coffeeshop instead of ordering by car through the Drive-Thru.
The only reason why I don’t bother ordering my coffee at the hospital’s Starbucks is because I’ve been paranoid about them touching anything I eat after I found an insect-not ONCE in my cup, but FOUR times, yes, FOUR times…I found an insect in my coffee cup for the fourth time last week and I was sick of arguing with them.
“Good morning Bader! The usual?” The Barista with the kind Filipino eyes behind the Starbucks counter greeted me once I walked in.
“Yeah A-“ I was about to read her name from her name tag but something caught my eye. I looked to my left and saw a petite girl with pale skin and dark hair. My breath was caught in between my lips and I was so sure it was her. She noticed me staring and turned to look at me, a small flirty smile drawn onto her lips as soon as she noticed this weird guy staring at her- that weird guy being me.
It wasn’t her. Her eyes were a washed out shade of hazel. She had too much sticky stuff on her cheeks that made them look abnormally orange and pink at the same time, and her nose had weird lines on them. The same weird lines that I’ve been seeing on all the girl’s faces these days. Fay told me it’s called contouring and that the majority of the girls weren’t doing it the right way. I didn’t care what it was called or what it necessarily did, it just looked plain weird to me.
Reem was weird but Reem didn’t have any lines on her noses. And if she did have them then they weren’t visibly as striking and in your face as this girl’s.
This girl was definitely not Reem.
This girl was the hundredth girl with black hair and pale skin that has grabbed my attention this week because of Reem.
I was growing sick and tired looking for her face in this ocean of strangers. All these strangers bore such familiar features but non of them could ever amount to the life and death I found in her - the kind of life and death I didn’t realise I’d grow so attached to so quickly.
“Yeah Amy, the usual,” I continued my sentence and looked away, ignoring the weird nose with lines chick who kept giving me flirty looks now. The coffeeshop was empty inside, it was just me, the weird chick with her tall girlfriend and a middle aged business looking man sitting in the corner with his laptop.
“Grande iced Americano blended!” Amy bellowed out to the other Starbucks employee as she swiped my credit card. I waited impatiently giving the weird nose chick my back to avoid her flirting eyes.
I was transfixed on the screen of my iPhone as I was heading out of the coffeeshop with my Americano in hand. I didn’t realise there was a car coming straight at me when I was passing the street. It first hit my left side before I was forced to spill my coffee all over my shorts. I fell down to the hard concrete ground of the street and the my vision was instantly blocked.
“Oh my god! I’m so so so sorry! Oh my god! Are you okay?!” My eyes were shut and a sharp pain hit my knee, it was first to hit the ground when I fell and I couldn’t see the panicked girl with the hysterical voice.
“Jenna! Bsr3a t3alay sa3deeni! Oh my god! Oh my god!” She kept repeating “oh my god” and it only made me feel annoyed, I ignored the pain, the spilled coffee and heaved myself up, not taking a look at the girl just yet. My fingers were drenched with Americano and I found the coffee scent strangely calming in the midst of the whole f*cked up situation.
“Walla asfa! Umbay! Oh my god Jenna T3ALAY!” The girl sounded hysterical, I turned around to face her and patted at my wet shorts. I looked at her and looked at my spilled coffee sighing, feeling slightly woozy under the heat and sun.
“Are you okay?” Oh my god, you’re bleeding! Oh my-“ The girl was in heels and her hair was ash brown under the sunlight, her skin bronzed and her rosy lips glossed. She definitely looked like something way different than what her annoying voice portrayed. If she didn’t have the voice of a hysterical hyena she would be the typical girl I would be attracted to.
“Etha gltay oh my god one more time…” I gave her a pained expression, rubbing the back of my head and in result, I found fresh drops of blood on my fingers. I looked down at my white shirt and saw more blood seeping into the cotton material of my shirt. I weirdly didn’t feel any pain so I kept staring at the blood, dumbfounded.
“Asfa, walla asfa!” She kept moving her hands everywhere in panic, not knowing what to do. “JENNA!” She yelled once more.
“Tell that to my Americano,” I looked back at the spilled coffee, feeling more sorry for the wasted coffee than my bloody shirt or my scraped bloody self.
“JENNA! Shfeech mu rathya t6l3een men el sayara! Sa3deeny!” The hysterical hyena yelled once more only giving me a more painful migraine. I silently prayed to God that this Jenna would come already to shut this annoying girl up, her screams were shooting daggers into my head.
I tried to look behind the pretty and annoyingly loud girl to look for this “Jenna” person. The first thing that came into view was black hair.
Black long hair.
Pale full lips.
Snow white skin.
Dark liquorice eyes.
“God I’m hallucinating,” I shook my head and rubbed my eyes to look at the other girl more clearly. Now I was panicking and I could feel the beads of sweat at the back of my neck, enticing the pain I suddenly began to feel at the back of my head.
Okay now I definitely can feel a head wound.
And a knee wound.
Godamnit!
“You,” the girl whispered and her eyes widened in horror.
Even her voice sounded like Reem’s.
What the hell is wrong with me today?
“Jenna?” The pretty girl with the annoying voice looked at Reem and back at me, looking confused, yet still pretty… but her prettiness nor her annoyingness didn’t distract me much anymore, I was too busy trying to focus more deeply into the second girl.
I failed. I couldn’t focus, she was slowly becoming blurry and I was now convinced I was seeing things; both girls became large blurbs in front of me.
This must be another weird girl with weird lines on her nose, this can’t be Reem, this is probably another pretty girl with pretty eyes with some weird hysterical voice like her friend.. It can’t be Reem.
No it can’t be her.
It can’t.
This was probably..
probably…
probably..
“I’m hallucina-“ I couldn’t finish my sentence nor my last train of thought, I saw a deeper black than her eyes; it was as if her liquorice eyes exploded into mine and shut the world out of its light.
The next thing I knew I was blind to everything, the sounds around me were muffled and I heard a last loud thump and felt the last shot of pain to my head before passing out down to the ground.
My vision enveloped and dove into the black all around me.
And all I could think of last was if only I had one more second to this strange hallucination… I’d then steal one more second of time and rob one more glance at her dark liquorice eyes…
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Thank you for reading. xo
