A Thing, Beyond Forever

28.

"You didn't know?" 

"No" I almost shouted at him. I was growing frustrated. How could he leave just like that?  "How's that even possible? When?...I mean...when did he decide that?" 

"After you left the party, he informed that he was thinking about completing his high school in Riyadh" 

I rubbed my face with the palm of my free hand as the other one held my plate. I couldn't stand the thought of Yazan going away with leaving things between us the way they were. 

"He didn't tell you?" Talha asked and I looked at him as if he was teasing me. 

"We didn't talk after the party" 

He nodded as if he understood, He didn't say anything more and drank his cold-drink nonchalantly. 

I looked around the hall. Everyone minding their own business. Smiling, laughing and chit-chatting and I took a deep breath in to calm myself. I felt like as if the news of the world ending was given just to me and nobody knew or care about it. 

Seeing me look so frustrated, Talha took my plate from my hands and gestured me to take a place on his table across from him

"Look, maybe it's not my place to say this but what you did to him was wrong, Zukroof" Talha spoke, every word coming out of his mouth, carefully and precisely as if taking precaution not to blow me off. 

"Of course, you will defend him. He's your best friend after all" I said as I rolled my eyes. 

"if that's what expected from a best friend then you could have done the same" He said

I looked at him then, he raised his eyebrow as if to say, checkmate.

"How can you justify what he did to me? And even after that you expect me to defend him? I am sorry if I saw him at fault with what I heard that day" 

"The answer to your question is in what you said just now" He smirked.

 No wonder him and Yazan were best friends from kindergarten, they had the same way of speaking and that smirk, that smirk reminded me more of Yazan. 

"What do you mean?" 

He kept his elbows on the table and drew himself closer, "You just heard one part of the conversation and your judgement of Yazan has been based on that" He shook his head, "You weren't there when the dare took place. You don't know what conversation happened before Yazan placed the bet. You don't know his side of the story - the actual story of what went through between Yazan and Nouman" 

I didn't say anything. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I was beginning to realize what a huge mistake I had committed. 

"I agree" Talha continued, "I completely agree that it was wrong for him to do that but you don't know Nouman like we do, alright? And believe me when I say this, Yazan never wanted to hurt you intentionally. He only did it to protect you. I remember...I remember him telling me about your feelings towards Nouman and he told me that you had genuine feelings for him but Nouman wasn't- isn't" He corrected just like Yazan, "He isn't worthy of the love you have for him" 

Talha shrugged, "Yazan just wanted to show you his real face but even after he had proposed you and taken the money, he refused to come clean in front of you. The conversation that happened after that was what you heard" Talha paused for a brief moment to wait for my answer but before I could open my mouth to speak, he added, "Wait...I don't even know what you heard or how much you heard but I know for sure you might have not heard him say, "if proposing to her cost me thousand bucks, how many are you guys willing to pay if I told you I kissed her" 

I shut my eyes closed. Now I was the one who felt disgusted. 

"We didn't kiss" I whispered through my clenched teeth. 

"So, you know now what kind of a person he is" He rolled his eyes, "Tch"

"Too bad my best friend had to go through so much to prove this to you" 

I took a deep breath in knowing fully well that I was going to hate myself for saying what I did next. 

"How can I believe you? For all I know you are just trying to make Nouman look bad and Yazan look good" 

He laughed throwing his head back as he wiped his hands on the napkin, in between his laugh, he took a deep breath trying to compose himself but laughed again. He was beginning to annoy me at this point. 

"God, Zukroof" He shook his head and laughed some more. 

"I really wish someone would love me as much as you love Nouman, that piece of a jerk" He said, his laugh turned into a wicked smile. 

"If you don't believe me you are free to ask your other best friend" he smirked when I looked at him quizzically, "Faisal" 

What came later happened within the blink of an eye. Everyone went home, I came home and the first thing I did was search for Yazan on Facebook. 

While I was doing that I had this strong intuition that he might have unfriended me or worse, blocked me. And my intuition was right. I wasn't able to see his account or message him. 

We continued with the rest of the packing when the doorbell rang and all of my friends entered the room with a huge packet of gifts inside. 

I plastered on a smile for their sake and carried on for the rest of the evening, "Aw, you guys didn't have to get me gifts, man" 

"Of course, we had to. We don't know when we will meet again, Zuki" Zeenath frowned as she came over to hug me, I hugged her back. "Stay in touch, please" 

"I will" I replied, unsure and uncertain about my future 

We sat in a circle on my bed as we talked about our fondest memories of the school

"By the way..." Aisha tapped on my shoulder as she was sitting beside me. My heart leaped as I turned to look at her, Aisha always had some information related to Yazan and I hoped this time as well she would tell me something about him, just anything. But instead she searched for something in her purse and handed me an envelope. I was about to open when she interrupted, "No, you have to read this when you'd be sitting on the airplane waiting for it to take off" 

"But..."

"Please, Zukroofie. I mean it" 

"Alright" I shrugged and moved to drop the envelope in my hand luggage. 

A thought came to my mind all of a sudden, "Aisha, can I use your Facebook for a second? There's something I need to check. Mine is creating some issues" 

"Yeah, sure" She handed it to me without suspicion 

and the first thing I did was search for Yazan. No user found. There were many users with the same name as his but the Yazan I was searching for, was not there. 

It wasn't possible for him to block me as well as Aisha that meant only one thing: He had deactivated his account -left India, with no trace.