When the airplane
landed, I hurried off of my seat, so I’d be able to get to the exit and to my
family as soon as possible. I shuffled my way across the airplane aisle, trying
my best not to let anyway cut in front of me. I had to stop when a lady managed
to dash in front of me to get her bag from the cabin above.
When she open the
cabin, her bag fell straight out because she opened it so quickly, but luckily
I managed to raise my hands fast enough to stop it from banging her head. When
she looked up, I finally got a glimpse of her face; it was Dalia’s mother. I
gently brought the bag down to her side waiting for a response. She looked at
me with a nasty look, which possibly meant that she was still angry about what
happened earlier with her daughter. But when she realized that I just saved her
a trip to the hospital, she thanked me shyly and started moving away as soon as
she got the chance to do so. When I looked above her head, I saw two girls
staring at me. One of them was my sister, impressed by my ‘heroic moment’, and
the other girl was Dalia, giving me a thankful smile. The moment I caught a
glimpse of that breath-taking grin of hers, I felt my whole body warm up, and
my heart started galloping, pumping the blood through out my body, causing my
face to go red. I tried making my way through the aisle faster, hoping that
somehow I’d be able to see her one last time before I lose her in the crown
leaving the airplane, but the people were moving to slow, that when I finally
got out of the plane she was nowhere in sight.
I moved forward to
look for my sister and father. It took me about two minutes to find them, so
when we were united again, I tried making us move fast, hoping that I will see
Dalia if we do. However, I only caught a glimpse of her back when she got her
luggage and was leaving along side her mother.
When we finally got
our luggage, ten minutes after Dalia got hers, we made our way out, and were
greeted by my uncle, Ebrahim, who took us to grab tikka for dinner and then
headed home. Of course, since he’s my dad’s younger brother, we were used to
having him around and didn’t have to act all polite, and were able to walk
around and eat comfortably without any awkwardness. An hour after dinner, my
sister was already upstairs asleep, while my dad, uncle and I watched a movie
in the living room. A few minutes into the movie, uncle Ebrahim excused himself
to go smoke outside, but my dad was too caught up in the movie to realize his
brother’s absence.
As I relaxed on the
couch, I couldn’t help but think, what’s
the thrill in smoking? Why did I smoke before, and why is my uncle still
smoking?
I started arguing with
myself on whether or not to go and at least just see how my uncle is enjoying
the cigarette, or maybe get a secondhand smoke and see if I still get that soothing feeling from it. Why
shouldn’t I? I stopped before so if I didn’t like it now I could just stop
again, right? Besides, if my uncle has been smoking for about six years now,
and seems to be perfectly happy, then cigarettes shouldn’t be as bad as people
portray them.
I got off the couch
and walked up to the house door. I didn’t go out immediate, but instead, I
watched my uncle through the window. When I saw him, he looked at peace, he
seemed like he got all his thoughts straight and was just relaxed. I started to think of an excuse that would allow me to go
out and sit with him, since I don’t remember ever sitting next to him while he
was smoking. I couldn’t think of anything so I decided to just go and improvise.
“Hey.” I started,
awkwardly.
“Haman, why are you
here, is everything okay?” He asked immediately. I took a sniff through my
nose, allowing the bad air to come in. I took another deep breath through my
nostrils, as if I tasted the smoke. I felt a kind of need to have a cigarette,
but I couldn’t make out if that ‘need’ was because I was curious about the
taste and feeling, or was it because I actually did want to smoke a cigarette
for pleasure. As I was evaluating the feeling I was receiving from this
secondhand smoke, my phone made a ‘ding’ sound, announcing that I have received
a message. My uncle laughed, “You must be really popular, your phone has been
ringing since we stepped foot into this house!”
I took it out, to
check whom it was from, and it was from Noor – again. I put my phone back into
my pocket, ignoring whatever she sent me, “It’s nothing.” I said as I sat down
besides him.
He elbowed me lightly,
“What is it? You know you can tell me anything.”
It was true, he was
always the first I cried to when I was a kid, and he always took my side no
matter what. But since my mom died, I can’t remember spending much family time
with our family, “It’s just that I had a fight with one of my friends before we
left, and I am just not bothered to listen to whatever she has to say.” I
mumbled.
“So it’s a she?” He
teased.
I chuckled, “It’s not
like that.”
“Instead of asking you
what happened let me ask you this; was she a good and loyal friend?”
I sat thinking about
it, remembering our times together, and how much fun I had with her, but my
answer reflected opposite of my thoughts, “I can’t really say that.” I thought
for a moment and continued, “I don’t really know why she is my friend, and it’s
just that there is something about her that makes her seem a bit suspicious,
you know?”
“Hmm… Actually no, I
don’t know what you’re talking about exactly, may you elaborate?” He asked
playfully, but this time it didn’t flip my frown.
“Well, when we became
friends, she was always nice to me, but then I found out something that just
made everything seem like she only became my friend because of guilt.”
He waited before he
asked his following question, to allow me to think of my own answer, “Does she
make you happy, and care for you?”
“Yes.” I answered
right away.
“Did you read any of
what she sent you?”
I shook my head.
He took one last puff,
threw the cigarette onto the ground and squished it like a bug, “Get your phone
out, and just read out the last thing she sent to you.”
I hesitated a little;
my eyes were still on the torn and burned paper on the ground. I got up and
slipped my phone out of my pocket, and read out loud, “Abdulrahman, are you
okay? Please reply as soon as possible; we miss you.”
“That sounds like a
friend to me.” He took a pause for a few seconds, “Haman, there comes a moment
in everyone’s lives where we stop to think, who are the people that really care
about us? Who are the people who will be in our lives ten or twenty years from
now, and who are the ones who are in our lives just so we learn a few things
from each other, and then move on with our lives.” He paused again, this time
longer than before. I looked up to see what was wrong, and I saw a bit of pain
in his eyes, “You didn’t ask me why I didn’t bring my wife with me tonight.”
My head snapped up and
I asked him, “Why? What happened?”
“What happened was, me
becoming an idiot. After three years of marriage, I thought that I no longer
have to treat her in a special way. I started slacking off and becoming lazy,
and somehow along the way, she thought that I no longer loved her the way I
did. One thing led to another and we got into a fight, and now we don’t speak
as much as we used to, or the way we used to speak with each other.”
“You got a divorce?”
The words just slipped out of my mouth.
He laughed, “You have
to give me some credit, I’m not that stupid! Anyway, the point is, when I saw
you, your father and sister, I remembered how it feels like to have a family,
and how it matters for the family to show that they care for one another. And
then when I came out here, thought about our fight, I realized that she had the
right to be mad at me because I stopped treating her like the princess she is.
So what I am trying to tell you is that sometimes your decisions may feel right
at the moment, but in the future, you will realize that you made the wrong
decision, because that feeling that told you that you were right, cost you one
of the most important things or people in your life.
This friend of yours
really cares about you, and I want you to think about the following, is this
fight or whatever you two are having, really worth it? Are you sure you won’t
wake up one day regretting your actions?”
I thought twice and
thrice about what he said. I unlocked my phone and texted her back without
reading any of what she sent me, and wrote, “Stop texting me, Noor.”
Send.
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