The Secret Life Of Yousria.

1

      "Make a wish darling."

As usual Yousria closed her eyes, pretended to make a wish, and blew her candles. But this time was different she wasn’t blowing 12 candles, in fact she was blowing 21 candles, and yes for a second she felt like she consumed all the oxygen in the room.

"Oh, I can't believe it! 21 years, unbelievable! When did my little darling grow in to a woman?" Said her mother with tears steady in her eyes, but somehow she managed to prevent them from coming down and ruining the night although it seemed like a hard task since her mother was a pretty emotional woman. "Oh, mum come on! I've been a lady for a while now, it's not like I was 12 yesterday!?" Said Yousria even though deep in her thoughts she wondered when did she get so old? "Very well, this year's gift is quite different. Me and your father decided to send you to your uncle in Miami for the summer." Said her mother trying to change the subject as the task of not crying became much harder. "Oh my god mum! You must be kidding, oh my god that's crazy, this is like the best birthday gift I've ever received besides of course the dream journal."  Said Yousria with what could be called a dancing emotion. But then her mother couldn't bear the weirdness of the moment and she started crying, and she leaned to her daughter, kissed her on the cheek, and then hugged her so hard that Yousria wondered if she ever was going to let go, but eventually she did. "Okay, okay everybody I have something to say" Said Sammy trying to change the mood of the room, although he didn't seem all that excited about the Miami thing. "Very well, go on Sammy we are all ears." Said Yousria with a sarcastic tone which Sammy ignored and said: "To be honest I wasn't planning to say this now, but with all this Miami thing going on, I think I have no choice but to say it now." He got up and stood in the middle of the room, specifically just in front of Yousria and got to down on one knee and said: "Yousria, will you be my wife?" And with that a wave of awkwardness and stillness hit the room.  Yousria wasn't quite sure what to say or to do. She knew Sammy loved her, but she didn't expect him to propose to her before even telling her he loved her, and of course not in front of every single member of her family. "Aw, I didn't see that coming." Her mother said breaking the silence. Yousria looked at Sammy who was still on one knee looking desperately at her, waiting for her to say anything. So she decided to open her mouth and she desperately wished the words would just come out of her mouth without the effort of thinking what to say. "Oh, Sammy I'm so sorry, but I just can't marry you." Right after those words were out of her mouth she regretted her wish and remembered the fact that she was bad, really bad with wishes. Sammy was still on one knee though, she wondered if her words were so harsh that it turned him in to a statue, but then she saw the tears streaming down his face, and for the first time disappointment on his face. She felt relief for a split second she was surely grateful she didn't turn him in to a statue, but then a wave of guilt hit her, she felt like she was such a bad person. 

***

Yousria threw the phone and cursed. It's been a week since her not quite happy birthday and Sammy hasn't returned one of her calls, not one. "Well maybe if you didn't respond to him so harshly he would've picked up." Her mother said trying not to sound too harsh. "But I didn't mean to ok?" Yousria said in her most defensive tone "He surprised me, in fact shocked me. I didn't know what I was saying I swear, plus he can't just friend zone me for our whole life and then suddenly expect me to marry him!" "I understand that, but what I don't understand is that for your whole life you loved him, and the second he tells you he loves you, you turn him down? That's not quite understandable." Her mother said with a completely confused emotion on her face. "Mum! He didn't just tell me he loved me he asked to marry me! Okay? That’s not something you expect me to process and give you a descent answer to, and maybe it was the sentence "Yousria, will you be my wife"" She mimicked what he said trying to sound more like him. "It's somehow funny; I mean "Yousria" is not a name of girl who gets to have a boy down on one knee for her. I was about to burst out laughing then to be honest." Her mother managed a small smile and said: "Now you're saying it's the name ha?" "Yes mum, it's the damn name. Seriously couldn't you find a worse name to call me? I'd prefer to be called nothing over that!" She said with an angry tone, actually she got all the anger she had on Sammy in this sentence. She also couldn't help but think and wonder why did he choose that day? And then she remembered him saying "I wasn't planning to say this now, but with all this Miami thing going on, I think I have no choice but to say it now." And she wondered what does that have to do with Miami? Did he think she would turn that down for him? "Well you get your uncle to blame for that; you can ask him when you meet him in 2 days."  Her mother said disturbing her deep thoughts. "My uncle? Okay, you're officially a weird family."  And with that she left the family room and headed to hers. She had a lot to do since she was leaving in exactly 2 days. "Okay then, I just need to pack." She said to herself excitedly. She opened her wardrobe, got everything she had in their out, from her childish Hello Kitty underwear to her lady like designer dresses. Beneath her PJs she saw something, a glittering pink something. Her eyes shimmered with the memory of the first gift Sammy gave her and she wondered, how could she possibly be so cruel? And with that she started crying for the first time since her birthday. 

***

"I told you I'm not going to pick up the damn phone!" Sammy said as he threw the phone on the bedside table. "You can't just ignore the girl. She's leaving in 2 days in case you haven't noticed."  Mahrous said trying so hard to get Sammy to pick up, not because he cared but because it was pretty annoying and Sammy refused to turn it off or put it on silent mode. Even though Sammy and Mahrous were twins, they had nothing in common. Sammy was tall, well built, has brown hair and eyes, and his skin was just the typical Egyptian skin. Sammy looked more like his father; on the other hand Mahrous looked a lot more like his mother. He's a little bit shorter than Sammy but still not quite short; he has dark black hair, and round dark brown eyes. Although they at all didn't look alike, the difference between their personalities was much greater. Sammy is more of a gentle man; he also has a classic taste in music, and he has always wanted a simple, safe, and normal life. Mahrous is probably the exact opposite. He is anything but a gentle man, he's so much in to biking stuff and he is probably a walking party, his taste in music could be summed up in the word "crap".   But even with all this contradiction between them Mahrous was Sammy's only friend, besides Yousria of course; however Sammy was never all that good with making friends. "So do you think I should say goodbye?" Sammy asked trying to hide the fact that he so badly wanted to see Yousria. "Well brother it all comes down to what you want." Answered Mahrous in a sarcastic tone trying to copy the way Sammy used to speak when he came asking for any advice from him. Sammy was too lost in thought to notice the sarcastic tone in Mahrous's voice. He decided to call Yousria, even though he had no idea what he would say. "SAMMY!" Yousria cried. "Yousria, hey."  Sammy said completely paralyzed by the fact that Yousria picked up pretty fast; under normal circumstances she would've probably answered after the 6th or 7th ring, but since she was trying to reach him since her birthday it was kind of normal for her to do that. "Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to reach you since forever!" Yousria said in worried voice. "Listen about your birthday, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that, I'm not sure why I did that. I'm sorry I ruined the night." He said trying so hard not to sound to vulnerable. "Oh, stop being a gentle man for once; I'm the one who should apologies. I shouldn't have said that." "Yousria, I don't want to force you in to relationship you don't want. I want you to know that..." "Shh." Yousria interrupted. "I love you."