"This is Zain," Fajr announced to the girl who was staring in bewilderment. "He's been drooling over you for the past hour!"
"That is not true."
"Um...I'm Sura." She reached out her hand and Zain shook it slowly, feeling the softness of her skin and...
Her finger froze against the glass as she drew a heart on the foggy window. Ayah and her sister would sit there and have raindrop races when they were kids. Rain was their favorite weather. It was when even the most frantic mood could be remedied by the pleasing sound of rain pouring down on their house.
Now, Ayah watched as her sister paced the wooden floor scratching her scalp, as her thoughts ran wild inside her head.
"Are you two still fighting?" Ayah said in disbelief, letting her shoulders fall.
Sura stopped in her tracks, her feet betrayed her as she slipped and fell. Her sister snorted to hide her laughter.
"That is why I don't wear socks indoors," Surah said through clenched teeth.
She couldn't even remember what she was worried about anymore. She didn't even know why they had fought in the first place. It's entirely his fault though, she thought to herself. Arms crossed over her heaving chest.
"You're idiots. Both of you," Ayah said and exited their bedroom without lending her sister a hand.
"Thanks, sis." You're supposed to be on my side.
Ayah had always been fond of Zain. He was a surrogate older brother for her.
Sitting there on the cold floor, Sura had a clear view of what lay underneath her bed. It was a mess, to say the least. Mostly old board games that were collecting dust and shoe boxes full of stationary she didn't need. After all these months her heart still ached when she discovered a new word or found pieces of letters from her Scrabble games.
That stupid game is why we're fighting in the first place.
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All he had been doing for the past six months was trying to find distractions, but everything reminded him of her. Zain lay in bed, groaning into his pillow. The headaches were a result of lack of caffeine.
He had sworn off coffee the day they had fought. She smelt of coffee, he thought with a melancholic smile.
Despite the rushing sound of rain outside his window, he could hear his parents whispering downstairs in the kitchen.
"It's adorable, isn't it?" his mother giggled.
"Slightly."
Silence.
"It's also slightly ridiculous," his father replied. "They can't let nearly a decade of friendship go to waste over a Scrabble game."
That's what they've been saying for the past six months. Zain's mother treated her son and Sura like her personal live-action romantic comedy. And his father just wanted them to reconcile with each other and get it over with. He wasn't really much of a romantic.
Zain's headache was like the thunder that shook their house. Continuous and piercing.
He had replayed that day over and over in his head and kicked himself for saying all that to his best friend.
