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They sat in the car alone staring at the stars above. Aswad had left half an hour ago, leaving them alone. Do whatever you want, he had said. Under the thick veil of damning silence, a memory flashed in Laila's mind. She looked at the boy beside her and took in a long breath.
"I'm not the girl you would really want to marry if you actually knew me Faris." Laila whispered, voice so low that if not for such silence Faris probably wouldn't have heard her. "I am no saint. I have sinned, some sins for which I can't even forgive myself."
Faris turned his head toward her. "Why would you think so?"
"I once kissed a boy." Those word lingered among then for a moment. "I wanted to feel something, to fill the void which seemed to be eating me alive. So I kissed him Faris. "
Faris said nothing.
"I cried for days after that. I asked Allah for forgiveness. I couldn't look at myself in mirror. I couldn't face the boy after that."
"What happened to the boy?"
"He left and I couldn't never see his face again." Laila chuckled humorlessly. "I wanted a closure to our friendship, but that was a privilege that I was never granted."
Faris kept staring at girl, heart throbbing inside his chest painfully. Old words rang in his ears and his hands fisted tightly. "What if that boy thought that to be a favor Laila?"
Laila's head snapped toward Faris who now looked ahead. Eyes lost and thoughts traveling to another time, a time where he still had that one friend. "What if Azlan left for your own sake Laila?"
"How-? You knew?" Laila didn't know what to feel that time. Relieved that Faris knew? Or Angry that he knew what others didn't?
"Azlan was a lost boy who went through so much." Memories, they flashed in Faris' mind.
"We knew each other since childhood. Me, Hudhaifa, Hala and some friend from states." Memories, they killed Faris.
"Azlan, as a child, went through a trauma which he had no will to cope with. So he came back to Pakistan." Memories, they chocked Faris.
"It was such long ago-" Memories, they weren't letting Faris breath. "I talked about a girl who laughed to much and how slowly her laughter dimmed to nothing, and Azlan talked about girl once who wanted to laugh again yet the world sealed her lips so tight, that she forgot to even smile."
The night Azlan looked at stars and talked about a girl who dreamed of reaching them flashed in Faris' mind. "He talked about a girl who dreamed of reaching stars Laila, and I talked about a girl who I always found staring at starry sky."
What words could Laila utter? What could she say? Azlan was gone, a memory in her mind, a chapter of book which she finally got over now.
Yet here he stood again. Even of he was not there, yet Laila found herself remembering his face clearly. "Wh-where is he now?"
