When I was 18 years old, I said to the then 22 years old Eliyas:
_" I don't believe there's something such as selfless love in the world.. We are all selfish, either we want to be loved by others without loving them back, or we want as much love from others as we give them.. We always want to be in the receiving end, This is how the world works, take us for example.. If I say that I don't love you not even a single bit, would you still insist on wasting your feelings on me knowing that you'll never receive anything in return?"
At that age, I was in my last year in high school, and I wasn't in my best mental shape.
I used to be a top student in middle school.. But starting from the day my mother abandoned me .. I abandoned everything else in my life after her departure: my friends, my dreams, my studies.
I felt like everything was pointless.. And that people were frauds.
I moved from being the first student in the class to hanging just above the average, what saved my barely surviving grades was my exceptional talent in learning languages.. I didn't even need to pay attention while in classes for me to write my essays with total ease during exams, so it was natural that I chose the literature branch for the continuation of my dying highschool journey despite having O interest in literature either.
Besides my degrading life, I was quite rebellious myself at the time, I had no one to correct my attitude: my father was dead, my mother only god knew where she disappeared to, and my grandmother only made sure I slept under her house's roof every night.. The rest was my business.
So yes, I hardly put my head on a rug to pray to Allah at that time, I wore extravagant clothes, had a weird hair cut: I did it myself.. It was short, spiky, and my whole face was covered with edgy bangs, I didn't put make up because I just hated makeup, but I had a thousand bracelets from the end of my wrists up almost to my elbows, and my fingers were always painted in black.
For some unreasonable reason I thought U looked cool, and the trashy new friends I thought of as friends gave me this impression as well.
I had a boyfriend who I never actually liked at the time, he was simply the first guy to ever ask me out so I just accepted him, His name was Samir.. Actually he was pretty much the only decent person in my life at the time, he tried to advise me against whatever rebellous phase I was drowning through and to act sanely, to focus on the coming baccalaureate exams (national college entrance exams) and stop shutting the whole world out.. with time I figured out he was not just playing around with me the way I did with him and that he genuinely liked me, so I did what I honestly thought was better for him, I dumped him.
Well, Samir didn't exactly accept that happily.
That was when Mr Eliyas walks into my life again..
back then he was frequently sent by his father mr buelguassem filladi to check on my grandmother and to send her expensive deliveries that consisted of money, food, and clothes. Usually when he visits he'd spend few days at our house since D city was 6 hours away from our hometown and it was rather inconvenient to double cross that distance in one day.. I still wonder until this very day why he never thought of coming in a plane.
Anyways, I was in the middle of my breakup process when I walked inside the house oneday and found Eliyas sitting in the guests room with grandmother, he looked very surprised seeing the way I looked the moment his eyes fell on me, it took him long awkward moments before he finally asked:
_" how are you doing Noursine?"
_"good" I replied indifferently ..
then I went straight to my room ignoring him and my grandmother who immediately started scolding me for being improper.
Eliyas spent an annoyingly long time at our house during that visit in particular, my grandmother was so pleased with him that she cooked generous meals everyday just to lure him to stay for longer.. And that worked apparently.
Our encounters consisted of only the time we had meals together or the rare times I sat in front of the tv in the guests room to keep him company under my grandmother's persistent nags, we poorly spoke at these times, it was clear to the blind that we both didn't like each other at all.
I remember sitting on the rooftop of our house bathing in the spring sunlight and eating the hawthorns that I bought from downtown when I heard chaotic footsteps moving in the rooftop.
I naturally turned to check the situation, only to find Eliyas trying to fold his wet clothes on the rope to dry.
I was so amused watching the sophisticated Eliyas filladi handling his laundry.. After a bit, I decided to join in the fun, But when I walked close enough.. I noticed that his supposedly clean clothes were in fact still very dirty, Being the rightful person that I was, I immediately yelled:
_" Eliyas! Are you kidding me! They still even have mud on them.. Did you just throw them in the water and then brought them to dry?"
_" no, I used soap."
I looked at him very displeased then I started taking them off the rope and throwing them back in the basket.
_" just leave them to me .. I'll wash them for you.. But where did they get the dirt from?"
_" I fell" he explained.
I inspected him for a bit to look for any apparent wounds from the fall, and I asked:
_" did you hurt yourself?"
He looked at me pensively for long weird moments, I was thinking he was going to report a series of injuries after such a long thinking process, Unexpectedly he just replied:
_" No"
I looked at the basket and felt very lazy, we didn't have a washing machine at the time, not because we couldn't afford it, but because my stingy grandmother simply found it wasteful to buy a machine for something we can do by our own cost-free hands. I really had no heart to scrub and squeeze in such a beautiful weather, so I sneakily said to Eliyas:
_" how about we have a chat for a bit? We haven't spoken at all since you came.. I have sweet hawthorns too.. I'll share some with you while we chat!"
He nodded with an elegant smile, then he followed me to the bench were I was sitting.
We chatted for so long, it was mainly I who asked the questions while he kept answering my questions and eating the sour hawthorns, then out of the blue he reported like a police officer:
_" by the way, I noticed a boy walking around the house frequently lately, I saw you talking with him as well in one occasion and you looked rather displeased, I met him today so I warned him not to come around again because no matter who he is it's still inconvenient for him to frequently walk around the house of a young woman, he said his name is Samir"
_"aah, he's my ex."
Once I said this.. The police officer sitting beside me turned into a moral teacher, he started to scold me right away:
_" you already had a boyfriend!? How old do you think you are Noursine! How can you get a boyfriend at this age!"
_"I'm already an adult Eliyas, I'm 18.. I'll be even able to marry pretty soon."
He looked at me with a flushed face.. unsure whether his face turned red from embarassement or from rage I still continued mindlessly:
