Senses.. (24)

'So.. you love him, but you told him you won't marry him if he was the last man on earth?'

'Yes..'

'And he said he loves you but he won't force you?'

'Yes..'

'So in a nutshell you both love each other but decided on the first day of your engagement to break up and never see each other again'

'Yes..' she replied while absentmindedly stirring her now cold coffee,

'You're both idiots then.'

'Manal!'

'What? How does anything I just said make sense to you?'

'I don't trust him Manal. I can't spend the rest of my life wondering when he's going to cheat on me, because he will. Once a cheater, always a cheater.'

'He was young and immature, al7en he's not!'

'He wasn't young, he was 27! I was the young one, and yet I was dedicated to him 100%, my life revolved around him. He threw everything away for a meaningless fling, and now he has the audacity to tell me he loves me? No, that's unacceptable!'

'Did you ever ask him why he did what he did?'

'No. He didn't even try to explain, it was like he wanted to say I did what I did, take it or leave it. So I decided to leave it. Manal you have no idea how humiliated I was, everyone I knew in London knew that we were together, and Zaina made sure that everyone found out that he left me for her. It took me months just to be able to leave my house without trying to avoid everyone I know. I ended up not speaking to half of London from sheer embarrassment, I was afraid they'll ask me about him, I stuck only to my closest friends, I had to leave the university I loved and had wanted to study at for years. You have no idea what he put me through! I was going crazy, blaming myself for his mistake, thinking to myself that it must've been because of something that I did!'

'Did you tell him all this?'

'No and I never will! I love him, I still do, for a reason I don't know. But I hate him for everything he put me through, for making me what I am today and for the six years I wasted of my life, comparing every man I meet to him'

'And you will continue to do so Nouf. Don't you see? Even if you do end up with someone else, you will always compare him to Fahad, so laish te'6lemeen nafsech o te'6lemeen Fahad? Talk to him Noufa, maybe he can make you forget, maybe you can end up together after all.'

'La. Anyway khalas we agreed that after 2 months I'll say that we didn't get along and we'll break up officially.'

'I can't believe he agreed to that without putting up a fight'

'La 7abeebty, 3adi. He'll easily find someone else, a9lan he probably didn't think of me for the past six years, bs I happened to be working here and he remembered how it was before' she said, shrugging her shoulder, pretending not to care that even the thought of such a possibility felt like a stabbing pain in her heart.

'I don't believe that. You don't see how he looks at you, I do. The man is crazy in love. Kaifech, but I think you're making a big mistake.'