Aida sat outside on the garden swing four days later, munching nuts and reading the latest book of her favorite author Khaled Hosseini’s, and the mountains echoed. The story was quite different from the literature she had read but from the first page, she was captivated. It was something that even she wondered sometimes about. Hosseini had brought to light the love, care and the choices we make in our life and has clearly used these to highlight our lives as we live it. As she read on, Aida’s mind questioned her as to the validity of this subject. She wished her father was there with her to discuss the pros and cons of the book she was reading with her for he was the one who had instilled this hunger of knowledge in her. As she thought about her father, tears came to the back of her eyes and her vision blurred for she had never been able to get over her loss of him. It had been five years since she had lost him but why had she lost him? She questioned herself. He had gone to the office in the morning as usual and had never come back home alive. All they were told was that he had an accident but she knew that there was something more to the story than they were told. She had searched for an answer, investigated but nothing fruitful had come out of it.
Looking back at the book, she tried to read another page when she was disturbed again.
“Baooo!” Someone whispered in her ear which made her jerk around wildly and look who it was. She vowed mentally if it was Rameen, she would get a huge tongue lashing from her for this scare but she came face to face with Haashir, his hazel eyes smiling into her stormy ones and all the anger left her face.
“Well, hello there princess! Good to see you.” His grin showed his perfect white teeth.
“Hello!” she said. “You scared me.” Haashir’s grin widened at that.
“That was the intent, my dear.” He winked at her which made Aida feel a mixture of emotions. She was angry but she didn’t know how to react therefore, she kept quiet and looked at him, telling him without words what she thought about his pranks.
“Well, let me tell you something Mr. Haashir, once and for all. I do not like to be disturbed when I’m reading, secondly, if that was some kind of cheap joke you were playing on me, it didn’t hold my interest for long and lastly, this is Pakistan not your United States anymore therefore, hold your endearments to yourself.” Having said all that, Aida stood up and stormed inside, leaving a grinning Haashir behind her.
Haashir grinned as he watched her storm off into the direction of the house and vowed to tease her more now for she was easily riled up. Cheap joke indeed, he thought. He had known her since they were children and she had always been the one to warm his heart but this Aida was so different than the one he knew. This one was much too controlled, uptight and cautious which sometimes made him think that she was living in a nutshell. That scared Haashir for she was missing out a lot in life if she was like that. He remembered the way her stormy eyes had looked at daggers at him as if she wanted to kill him and he had wondered what had happened to the sweet, loving Aida that he had left behind. She had created a shell around her that nobody could break but he was sure that there was a different Aida inside that shell. It seemed that she was always angry with everything and anything and he couldn’t put a finger on what was about her behavior that disturbed him. He had expected to see his best friend, all grown up and happy girl but what he saw broke his heart. Her mother was right, Aida was too uptight for her own good and she needed someone to tell her that. Well, Haashir thought that he was here now and he would make sure that he gets his Aida back. Whistling a bawdy tune, he followed her inside.
****
Haashir and Rameen were laughing on the top of their lungs when Aida entered the lounge. The picture she saw there made her smile, for she could see the happiness on her mothers and sister’s face. She had longed to see those expressions for almost half a decade and finally, she could see them now. She looked at Haashir’s profile for his back was turned to her. He looked so relaxed and at ease with her family, grinning at something Rameen had said to him. They both had gotten really close in such a short time. Haashir was the same as she remembered him, naughty, loving and caring, while she had changed so much over the years. She could see that he had the talent to be with everyone and listen to them, for she could see he was different with her mother and quite a different person with her younger sister. She smiled when she saw Rameen made a puckered face for she had lost the game. Entering the room, she took her favorite place at her mother’s knee and looked around.
