While I Was Alone (Chapter II)

         Winter is here, my favorite season. I like Winter because I get my most peaceful sleeping nights, and I got the chance to live the night with all it's charming darkness and cold breaths, even if it's raining, I like to put my jacket on and take a walk, to have a monologue as usual while my feet draw the path of another journey.
         I am a student engineer by the way, you might be wondering what the hell am I doing here. Well I would say that writing isn't for journalists and authors only.
         24 December 2017, I have just put the final details on my final exam paper, as I walked out of the room, a familiar voice knocked the windows of my ears.
-"Hey Taha,"
I turned to find Fatiha calling me with a book in her arms.
         I will take my time to talk about Fatiha. A tall well shaped girl with a very white skin that reminds me of Vampires, with a big wide green eyes covering the mysterious and hidden secrets of her dark personnality which I was capable enough to dig out. This girl is the rich type of girls that seeks troubles and sufferance through a poor and indifferent person like me, the thing that adds a value of depth to their personality, or at least that is what she believes.
-"Hey Fatiha, how was the exam?"
-"Not bad", not bad is our way to say "it was good but I won't tell you so you won't ruin it with your misfortune", because in our culture they believe that a failure is due to others and not your incompetence.
-"Uum, Taha"
-"Yes"
-"Are you free this evening?, I was thinking if you would like to grab a coffee with me?"
-"Yes of course"
         It's not a date, that is what I thought at the begenning. I always put one idea in my mind since the day I decided to stay alone, is that I am not good enough for any girl I met and had a chance with, not because this is the truth, but to stop any attempt from my side to take anything to the next level, it is like the desguise some animals do to survive. Some of them disappear, some others pretend they are dead. Based on that, I don't act as the person who is hoplessly seeking for the girls in front of him, in fact I act with a sad clodness, that brings despair and sorrow to my heart, because as I said before, my disloyal senses remember.
         I ordered a cup of hot choclate, even if I detest chocolate, and I did that because Fatiha had ordered a juice costs 30 DH, and in order not to look pitiful in front of her, I should order something more expensive or just in the same price, coffee is my usual choice since it is only 10 DH, and enjoyable, so I looked for something close to that taste but a little more expensive, hot chocolate cup with no sugar was the result of all this.
         I was barely listening to her while my internal thoughts are cursing the moment I decided to buy this cup, I go back to the room after traveling with my imagination to focus on the face of the girl in front of me. the other reason why I hate chocolate is that it make things pinky. At that moment, Fatiha looked more adorable to me, more quite and well organized -maybe that is the ideal image for me-, I hated my brain at that moment beacuse he surrendered so easely to the influence created by chocolate. Suddenly, and in a suspicious silence like if the whole cafe is conspiring on me, she asked:
-"Nothing to talk about?"
-"Yeah, let's talk"
-"You didn't talk or move since we got here"
-"We’ve just got here"
-"It has been 30 mins"
I didn't pay attention to time while I was arguing with myelf about the chocolate cup.
-"Okay I have a question", she said,
-"Okay go ahead"
-"What is trust to you?"
-"Uum, trust is when you are able to talk to someone without any precautions"
-"Hhm, what about secrets?"
          I didn't expect such kind of questions since we don't get into things that would lead to such a things, I was expecting how old am I, or where am I from, because I am still kind of uknown in my school, not because I am invisible, the truth is those who tried to know me already know a lot about me, and those people are Hamza and Mustapha.
         Secrets weren't a big deal for me, they meant nothing to me since I have nothing to hide, and I do believe that my mother would reveal anything I would think to hide with her ultra instincts that only works with me. I didn't exactly told her my opinion, I did just give her a definition; secrets are things that should be known only by you, and for me I think no one should have the previlige of having your secrets. I was wondering after she gave me her own opinion how girls agree on an idea that takes secrets as a criteria of how good is a relationship, in other words, you should keep your secrets with me if you want me to trust you or love you. They don't actually say that, but it is the same as giving your most reliable weapons to your enemy and wait for him to protect you. Despite of my position that finds Fatiha's idea ridiculous and childish, the chocolate made her impact, I did accept her beautiful rounded face and her piercing eyes, the thing I don't usually do.
         it's 9 PM, I couldn't finish my drink, the thing that would look as a sign of social elegance, the fact is the drink was owful, and I couldn't bear it. I decided to walk her home, to have more distance to go back to my appartement - to exchange reproach with myself about why I took that drink and why he was seduced by the dirty chocolate the whole way home- and to look like a gentelman too. At the door step of her apparetement that is similar to these fancy and expensive apparetements of NewYork, I am still keeping the idea of " it is not a date" while the other side is holding my hand and asking me for my number. It has been 2 years for me in this school, and it's obviously the 21st century, but I am still considering my phone number as precious as my clothes, and giving it somewhere to someone is like taking off my clothes somewhere in front of someone, beside the fact that no one has ever asked for it since the size of my phone isn't noticeable enough, so I was thought not to be having a phone.
         I reached the buliding, cursing the whole way to the appartement with 91 different curses, to find the place unusally clean and empty,no one was home, including my brother and 4 other roommates, except my cat, Saadia,who was waiting in front of the door.
I prepared a cup of coffee and headed to the roof to attend my daily hearing session with my mother. After I finished, and just before falling asleep, the calamity that would ruin the next two months of my life had come, as a message.