A Thing, Beyond Forever

21.

"I don't get it, man," Talha said reclining himself onto the couch in Yazan's room. "Salwa aunty met Zukroof during the graduation ceremony? Didn't Zukroof used to come and study at your place or something?" 

"Yeah well," Yazan swung in his rolling chair to face him. "Mom didn't actually meet her when Zukroof used to come here. She used to be busy with her clinic" He shrugged drumming his fingers on his study table, "Albeit she knew there was a girl who came every day after school and studied with me, she even convinced Zukroof's mom to let Zukroof study with me"

"Oh, that's...crazy" Talha scoffed. "Convincing a girl's mother into letting her study with a boy"

Yazan chuckled lightly, "Zukroof's mom was unaware she was studying with me or that I was tutoring her. She thought my mom was tutoring her" 

Talha's shook his head as he started laughing. Yazan eyed him quizically, "What? What is it?"

"It's just that you both spent so much time together alone and yet she chose Nouman over you"

Yazan rolled his eyes as he grabbed a pillow from his bed and aimed at Talha. "That was when I was with Huda plus I didn't even make any effort in winning Zukroof over, okay?"

Talha caught the pillow in his arms as his laughter subsided, "Then why did you challenge Nouman into proposing her if you had your eyes on her first?"

"I don't know" Yazan curled his lip outward and then sighed, "I met Zukroof at the park nearby one day and we watched the sunrise together and she happened to tell me about how she had a long-lasting crush on Nouman and I just wanted to do good for her"

"Seriously?" Talha shook his head in disbelief, "You helped her by giving a dare to Nouman?"

"No, of course not" Yazan disagreed, "I knew Nouman had no feelings for Zukroof but Zukroof had for him so I gave him that dare and I thought he would just do the dare, take the money and get lost and not play with her feelings anymore. In that manner, I could make Zukroof see what kind of a jerk Nouman really was but I didn't know it would flip out the way it has. You know the proposal he did in the park? It was written by me" 

He massaged his temples with his forefingers as he continued, "I just don't know what to do now. I don't want Zukroof to get hurt amidst all of this. And if she does get hurt, how will I carry on being her friend knowing I caused that"

Talha nodded in understanding, "Let's just hope she finds that out by herself"

"I hope so too," Yazan agreed whilst removing his exam guide from his bag and placing in front of him on the table, bracing himself to start studying for their board exams. 

"Let's focus on tomorrow's exam now, shall we?" Yazan gestured towards the book, turning pages searching for problems as Talha dragged a chair beside him to join. 

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It was the last second exam day for us plus my favorite subject, maths. And I know now that I think of it, I wonder to myself if I was really that smart. With our board exams going on, I and Nouman barely had any time to hang out so we used to see each other before we went into our designated classrooms to give our exams.

I kept my pouch and hall-ticket on my bench and went outside the class because there was still time left for the exam to start. The invigilators didn't allow our bags or purses inside the class where the exams were being held so we had to dump them in the school playground before we made our way to the class. On the days of our exams, we woke up every day to come to school only to be taken by bus to another school to write this exam. I made my way towards the water cooler to quench my thirst. I looked around for a plastic glass but there wasn't any instantly feeling stupid of leaving my water bottle behind with my bag, I groaned at my own stupidity, You can say I was feeling very thirsty. I bent down a little towards the tap to check if I could drink water with my hand cupped like a saucer. I lifted the tap and water came gushing out and before I could place my hand in order to drink, a hand came from nowhere beneath it. I looked up.