That Winter You Came (Completed)

episode 2

I'm not sure whether I indeed loved Rayan at that time, I don't really know when it all started.

what I remember more than anything else .. Is that I spent that whole night thinking about him.

Remembering how sad and lonely he looked under the pouring rain.

I kept recalling that moment when he walked pass my mother and I.. he suddenly stopped at a little distance from us, raised his head to look at the sky, covered his eyes with his palms ..
then his shoulders started shaking.

He knelt on the ground and cried.

I didn't need much intellect to know that what this boy was living must have been bigger than his young age, and harder for him to handle.

At the time I didn't know, that he needed help.

Somehow, the new boy in school showed me more than I saw from others in years.

The following day it was impossible for me not to look at him all the time, He was carelessly leaning on the back of his seat .. Ignoring everyone inside the class like if no one really existed for him.

However, every time the teachers asked him any sort of question, his answers were so perfect and effortless that we all often looked at him in an awe, this only could come from someone who must spend the majority of his time eating books, this boy sure lived a very different life from what we all were imagining.

I remember the bell ringing the following day, announcing time for morning break, Dounia's friends from other classes, as their habit, soon attacked our class looking for her, when they reached our desk one among them impatiently whispered-shouted:

_" did you hear what happened yesterday with Rayan?!"

_" of couurse.. Everyone is talking about it since the morning." Dounia frowned feeling bored.

I looked at them shocked..
How did they know?
The street was empty .. Who told them?

Her friends quickly dragged chairs from other desks and circled ours, as they sat down another one among them soon commented:

_"tututu .. It was his own house! How can he attack his own house and make his father threaten to call the police for him, I didn't think Rayan was this unfilial! I heard his father has a second wife and new children, maybe it's hard for Rayan to accept his father marrying a new woman"

_"yes, if I__"Dounia barely spoke when  her words were suddenly cut, she looked at something or someone behind me with a frightened expression.

I noticed that the whole class went weirdly silent as well, all the students were looking at the same direction.. Right behind me.

When I turned to see what was happening I was surprised to find Rayan standing right behind me, he was eying me to be precise, his face looking unsightly and so angry that it gave me shivers.

He suddenly kicked my desk so hard it almost flipped! Half the books fell on the floor while the other half landed on our laps.

Dounia and her friends shriked of the shock and terror, while I only kept looking at him confused, why was he acting insane towards me?

_" are you enjoying gossiping about other people's business?" He coldly asked addressing me.

Confused I asked:

_" are you talking to me?"

He suddenly came so close to me..  And brought his face so close that we shared the same air as he breathed deep out of anger while I did the same out of fear, in those eyes of his as I looked inside them there was absolutely no warmth towards me.. Only loads of loath and disgust, I was never hated this way, this boy hated me to the extremes.