Can't Help Falling (Book 2)

01: He Can't Be!

It's been a while since she has done this. Four years to be exact. At first she thought it would be like riding a bike. That once she started doing it, it would come naturally to her. What she didn't predict was the zigzag way her bike would maneuver even though the road was straight. Still she kept trying to do it perfectly like she used to do once.

"And exactly to what city this map belongs to?" Her brother, picking up a roti from the bowl, asked tauntingly to his sister, dangling the map of Texas in front of her face.

She shot him an evil eye.

Yes, she has been trying to make a perfectly circled roti in the past half an hour without any progress. She remembered how hard it was to learn to make a well rounded roti in her youth. She couldn't believe she has forgotten all of her hard work in the matter of four years.

"Don't bother your sister!" Her mother scolded her brother from the kitchen, "she is just out of practice. Come on dear, keep at it. Make sure your roti also moves with the rolling pin. "

"Yes ma. " Aleya begrudgingly answered and started to roll the roti with vigor.

It's been a week since she has returned to her home country. And since then she has been trying to reconnect with her old habits and the things she used to do before moving to USA. Making rotis was one of them. The other reason she might have felt inclined to keep herself busy with tedious tasks like making a roti was a certain professor and a certain question he asked her that she failed to give answer to before leaving the country.

He might even be married by now. She would tell herself from time to time when it would become too unbearable to breath in the air he is not breathing with her right now.

After the roti debacle her mother has decided it was enough for today and proceeded to make the rest of the rotis herself and gave a break to her daughter. She has been preoccupied with something since the day she landed in her motherland and into her mother's arms. At first Nazma, Aleya's mother thought it was her who was just imagining things as she was seeing her daughter after so many years so the changes in her was sticking out to her eyes too much. But now, after a week of this she has realized something was bothering Aleya. Nazma discreetly tried once or twice to ask her about it but the girl who used to blurt out everything to her mother in her youth refused to even acknowledge her efforts to learn about her daughter's life.

Giving up on reconnecting to her old skills Aleya dragged herself to their living room that is actually called the drawing room in Bangladesh, which was way off to it's original meaning.

Her brother was watching Teen Titans Go, something they would watch together when they were younger. He was also munching on the Pringles she brought along with other countless food items from America.

"It sucks. " He stated from her side.

"What sucks?" Aleya asked absentmindedly.

"These chips. Our deshi ones are so much better. " He answered while putting few more chips in his mouth at once.

"Why are you eating them then? Do you know how expensive they are in Bangladesh? Give them back..." Aleya tried to snatch the box out of his hands and he exclaimed NO!! While keeping it away from Aleya's approaching hands. Bilal was 3 years younger than Aleya and over the years he had grown at least  8 inches taller than her so it was in vein when she tried to take the chips away from his hands simply because she couldn't reach them. So instead she proceeded to do one thing that she does best in these type of situations.
She started to tickle her brother.

Bilal could tolerate many things in his life. What he couldn't tolerate was tickling. He is very ticklish and the moment his sister hands reached at the side of his stomach and started to wiggle in a violent manner he shrieked like a 5 year old and tried to get away from her, spilling the chips on the sofa in the process.