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.
No, she must act a little sensibly, if not more. Her stomach gave a low growl again, and taking it as a means of escape she was about to leave for the cafeteria when her small Nokia phone started buzzing. With the salary now she'd get, she was definitely going to save for a smart phone of her own. Pressing the left button, she received the call from her uncle and raised the device up to her ear, sighing with relief at getting away with the awkward conversation she was having with her roommate and her friends.
"Some people from your university just came." Her uncle informed after all the greetings, his voice a gruff croak.
Surprised, Mirha asked as she closed the book and got up from the bed. "University? For what?"
"Wanted to look around the house, they said. Something to do with the scholarship you applied for. Said that it was important to know who's deserving and who just wants to take the advantage. Also said there'd be an exam of some sort."
"Oh, right." Nodding her head, Mirha mused. "And yes, there is going to be an exam."
"Would we also have to sit for it?" Her uncle's worried voice sounded from the speaker of the phone as she walked out of the room, leaving her roommate with her friends who had resumed their positions around the phone plugged on the charger cable.
Mirha chuckled, amusement glinting in her eyes. Such was the innocence of the people deprived from the right of education, living in the under developed villages away from the modern and oh-so-literate people of the cities.
"No uncle, it's only for me." She assured, the corner of her lips twitching as she walked down the corridor to get to the gravel path.
"Oh, thank God." Her uncle laughed sheepishly. "I feared I'd fail you because I don't really know anything."
She let out a low laugh, starting toward the small canteen by the admin block. "Don't be absurd, you know a lot. Anyway, how's everyone at home?"
"Fine. Everyone's fine. Pray for your aunt though. She's getting weaker by the day."
A weight settled on Mirha's heart. "Why is she not getting better, uncle? She is regularly taking proper prescribed medication . . . isn't she?" She added as an afterthought, her attention prickling on the sudden swarm of concern, that things might not be all well at home. Eyebrows furrowed with concern, she unconsciously began to wring her fingers. "Did you take her to the hospital?"
A millisecond hesitation was enough to confirm her fears. "No dear," he said after a brief pause and released a long helpless breath, "who's got the money for these things."
"Alright then," she spoke in a firm voice, "as soon as I get my salary, I'm sending it to you. And the first thing you're going to do is to take aunt to the hospital, okay?"
"Beta," Her uncle began to protest but Mirha cut him short. A new smartphone could wait.
"That's it uncle. I'll ask Shazil whether you took her or not."
Her brother was the most honest child in the village. He was generally quite the prankster, popular among everyone for all the mischiefs and pranks he pulled on the other kids and the elders alike. People always knew it was him every time because he never lied, and was always present for a little scolding he knew he'd earned. While villagers got irritated by his frequent pranks, it never ceased to amaze them how Shazil never put the blame on the other kids and always apologized in the end as well.
"Okay dear, whatever you wish." Her uncle said, as if giving up.
"Good." She grinned, still on her way to the canteen, that was still a long way to go.
---
He found his friends sitting on the fence wall on their usual spot. Bilal was the only one standing, hands leaning against the brim of the wall, legs stretched out. Hadi approached them, and dropping his bag on the pile already gathered, he met with their stern looks. Bilal, seemingly the most furious, glowered at him, jaw clenched, lips pursed. A wave of annoyance and anger overtook him, though he still hoped his friends would possess the good sense to not mention anything about that night to him.
Ma'az whistled and made a lewd gesture with his hands. But of course they didn't.
"What's up with all the hiding, Hadi?!" Rafay exclaimed, propping his chin up on his hands innocently, eyebrows raised up to his hairline.
Hadi rolled his eyes. "I wasn't hiding . . . per se."
Sasha scoffed. "Avoiding even the person who lives in the same freaking house means hiding, Hadi."
"I didn't want to deal with your criss cross inquiry, Sasha. Damn, stop complaining like a little girl."
"Why don't you clear things out then?" Bilal snapped with quiet fury, voice full of scorn. "Just tell us once how could you do what you did."
"This shit is exactly what I wanted to avoid." Hadi replied, his voice stiff, pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling the remnants of the morning headache surfacing again. "Look. I know what it looked like. But it's not my fault. Rohina did it on purpose. I was drunk and she jumped me. None of you would have done things differently. And fuck, so what? So what if I kissed Rohina, Bilal, it's been so long you should have gotten over her by now, for heaven's sake." Making a sweeping hand gesture, he glared fixedly at Bilal, and added, "End of story. Okay? Do not make a big deal out of it."
Red faced, Bilal averted his gaze. Even though he wasn't the least bit surprised by his behavior, Hadi found it difficult to put up with it.
Grow up already would you? His nerves crackled and tension hung heavy in the air.
"We are not making it a big deal, but everyone else is Hadi." Leila said softly, who had been quiet up till now. "Everyone's talking about it."
"Let them!" Immensely frustrated, Hadi countered. "I don't give a shit. Bet Rohina wasn't expecting it to blow up this royally either." Shaking his head, he bent down to grab his bag and added as he straightened, swinging it over his shoulder. "Don't show me your faces until you have something else to talk about." He turned to Bilal and held up a finger. "Especially you." Glaring at Sasha next, he said." And you. "
Taking long strides he disappeared out of their sights. He avoided going to the student lounge because he knew Rohina was bound to be there and in the cafeteria there were just so many people to bear. Deciding on an empty classroom, he was about to turn into another corridor when someone tried to pull him back by grabbing him by the sleeve, but apparently he was simply too strong for the person.
Startled, he turned around himself and instinctively let out a sigh of extreme annoyance. Rohina stood staring at him, nostrils flared and eyes red with fury.
Hadi saw her raise her hand and caught her wrist before she could have slapped him. Gripping it tightly in his hold he lowered her arm, all the while looking intensely at the surprised face of Rohina.
"Wrong move, Rohina." He sneered, lips tugged up in derision. He had not seen it coming, and it had surely taken him by surprise, but he kept his face in a controlled display of cold regard.
Just how lower is she going to stoop? He thought.
"Let go of me." She said quietly, enunciating every word with contempt.
"Just to remind you, you were the one who slammed your stupid face on mine. Had I not been drunk, you would have been lying on your ass the moment you touched me. So go fuck yourself with this attitude. But I want your apology."
"Let go of me." Even though she tried her best, her voice shook at the end as tears pricked her eyes. She hadn't expected the situation to take this turn, worsening her position, her life in every way it could.
All she had wanted was to see Hadi stuck, see him in some sort of trouble. She hadn't lied when she'd told him that she wasn't drunk enough to not know what she was doing. Rohina had been in fact very aware of what she was doing, but hadn't grasped the worst repercussions it could have.
She had known there were people around in the vicinity when she kissed him but hadn't thought that they would take a picture and upload it on Facebook for the world to see. Maybe it had been some messed up emotions because of the drink or her own genuine feelings that had brought such a spontaneous decision out of her, she wasn't sure about that.
Whatever it was, it had turned against her, disrupting her entire life. The picture had gotten to her parents through a relative who's child apparently was in the same year as herself.
Outraged and horrified, her parents had grounded her, making it their final decision to drop her out of the university and marry her off to someone who would still agree to respect her after such an offense.
In her frenzy she'd snuck out of the house to have a last word with Hadi, who had destroyed her life twice by simply existing.
With how hysterical she was, she didn't know if she might end up killing herself or being killed by the cruel world.
When Hadi finally let her go, shoving her hand down, he gave a last look of hate and strode off, though not before noticing the abhorrence that reflected back at him.
Rohina's world had come crashing down.
---