A love story?

Chapter 1

June 1, 2014

"Ahh, it's June already! Only two months to go until I begin school at Solitaires International School" I thought to myself as I checked the calendar.

It's almost been a month since I stepped out of my house. The time seems to fly oddly fast. I just wake up and laze around. By lazing around, I mean I eat a whole lot, I stare at the people outside my window, and I just listen to music... and oh, I study. Studying is my favorite thing to do. Just me and the books and our own little world. What a zone to be in... almost makes me forget my anxiety... almost.

June 7, 2014

I stare at myself for the 100th time in the mirror. "I can do this. I can do this." I chant to myself as I step out of my house for the first time in a month. I usually only go out with my parents but I decided to take matters in to my own hands and experience my neighborhood today.

The streets are pretty vacant except for a few occasional vehicles zooming by. I look at the bright shining sun, it's scorching hot in Dubai. "Well, that explains it!" I thought to myself. The vacant streets made a little adventurous as I crossed street after street until I was a few blocks away from my home...

I see a man from a distance leaning on a wall. My instinct was to turn back but I kept on walking. "He looks like a decent man" I thought to myself as I kept on walking and walking... until I saw a lit cigarette in his hand... a cigarette... that heinous thing...

The next thing I know, I am pacing back home. I increase my speed as I cross a couple of blocks, by the time I reach home I am panting and gasping for breath.

I quickly run into the kitchen and stuff my face with two glazed donuts and chug an entire pitcher of water. I then run into my room and hop on the bed and cover myself up with a blanket and pretend the incident didn't happen. "There was no cigarette. There was no cigarette at all!" I tell myself as I induce myself to forget everything and fall asleep.

June 11, 2014

I finally cave in and join instagram. There's only so much i can study... and eat. I disabled my instagram account when i joined boarding school a couple years ago. My hands shake as I enter my username and password to reactivate my account. A million questions fill my mind. I wonder how people from my old school are, I wonder how they look now, I wonder if they changed schools but most importantly, I wonder if they remember me... Should I really reactivate my account? After what feels like forever, I click on the login button.

I shut my eyes and peek a little as the screen loads. The loading circle seems to go on and on... I lose patience and close the app but before I know it, I open the app again and the first post I see is of Zara... my best-friend since the 4th grade or maybe ex best-friend? Does she even remember me now? I visit her profile and she looks radiant as ever. I feel a tingle in my heart, the good old days where we would be together all the time. I wonder if she misses me... she has a lot of pictures with a lot of people, some familiar and some not-so familiar faces. She looks... happy. I ignore the urge to message her and move on to other profiles. I spend the next hour just looking through different profile until I come across Akash's profile. Tears roll down my eyes without me even realizing, I'm seeing my best-friend after 3 years... he looks the same, he just has a slight stubble now and oh, he looks taller. My mind instantly remembers every little moment I spent with him. There wasn't a single a day where I wouldn't constantly yell "Aki, Aki do that!, Aki let's do this!" Oh, how I wish I could rewind time.

The more time I spent scrolling through different profiles, the more anxious I got. All the people I know are hanging out together, going to restaurants, watching movies, having fun, and just being... happy. I throw my phone away and sob uncontrollably. Why can't I have fun? Why am I like this? Why can't i be happy?

Why?