"He said to tutor him, but he fixed the car." Bareera sat against the crown of Elanur's bed. Elanur had her head in her lap with her eyes closed.

"So, you flaked on him today. That's not very nice of you." Bareera phupo braided and unbraided Elanur's hair. The actions were soothing to her.

"I was too exhausted emotionally. I think I want to sleep for a hundred years and wake up in another world." Elanur curled up under a small blanket.

"Don't we all wish that in this family." Bareera sighed. "Next time be careful, Ellee."

"What did dad say to Taya Abbu?" Elanur's body shivered for a second as she skirted around the topic that caused the accident last night.

"He is trying to fix your wedding with Irtaza." Bareera whispered knowing the storm the words were about to cause in her niece's world.

"He can't do that to me." Elanur shot up in her bed, staring at her aunt.

"I'm trying, okay." Bareera put her hand on Elanur's jaw but her words held no strength. Bareera was an outcast in her own family. Divorced and independent. Her name traveled like a witch's folklore in their families. All her brothers and sisters warned their kids to not end up like Bareera.

"He thinks shaadi will fix me. Everyone in this family thinks a wedding will fix everything. Why don't they understand that I don't need fixing? I just want to do what I like. I want to find my own way." She rubbed her eyes with her palms.

"Stop rubbing your eyes, Elanur. They'll hurt." Bareera Phupo pulled her hands from her already turning red eyes. "I need you to stop crying at everything. The only reason I withstood through everything my family put me through was taking a step for myself. If I sat down and waited for some miracle to show up at my doorstep, I'd still be stuck in that unhappy marriage, making two people miserable. So stop."

"What am I supposed to do? I'm not even allowed past my university hours when dad is here." She looked in her eyes, everything lost and crushed amongst the clutches of her family rituals.

"I don't know, my love. That's for you to figure out. Like you said, you need to decide how you want to explore your life. You need to do whatever it takes to achieve your dreams because they don't come true without struggle and scars, especially in this family." Bareera caressed away the hair falling on Elanur's face. Elanur's shoulder sagged as her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. She curled up in the bed again. Bareera's journey was the only one giving her hope.

"You bailed out on me." She jumped back, barely catching her breath when his sudden voice came. She huffed at his antic and continued walking.

"I didn't come to university yesterday." She glanced on each side as if everyone's eyes were on her. The conversations around her dimmed as the pounding of her heart took over everything. Oh God, what if someone sees me? What if someone told dad I was walking with a boy? She swallowed taking two steps at a time.

"What's wrong? Why are you running away?" With his long gait, it was easy for him to catch up to her.

"I can't talk to you right now, please. Can we just meet in the library, back in the music wing, please?" She peered around, clutching her bag.

"Ok..."

She took off, breaking into a jog to make sure there was a safe distance between them if anyone saw her by chance. Once she was around the building, she could finally breathe.

"I'm sorry, if I scared you earlier." He flopped in the seat across from her. She shrugged, finally coming to her essence with hardly anyone around them. No one wandered in to the music wing even by mistake except music students, and they weren't the ones to ever cross her family.

She glanced up from her music sheets. He sprawled in the seat in front of her. Unlike last night, his hair today was styled and gelled up to the max.

"My cousins are her from my dad's side. Some of them are not quite fond of me. So, if they see anything like this. It will get reported to my family." The truth of her family was hardly a hidden fact in their colony. Everyone knew Elanur's father was the strictest man in the neighborhood. No one dared to glance the wrong way to her daughters and hardly anyone ever invited them over to anything.

"I'm sorry I'll be careful next time." His words held genuine apology. She glanced up from the music sheets. For the first time in twenty-one  years of her life, Elanur noticed the boy in front of her. The brown of his eyes were dark against the white. They were the whitest she had ever seen, except there was a black dot in his left eye. Unusual flaw in all that perfection.

"So... why did you flake on me yesterday?" He pulled out a calculus book and notes. Jesus, what the hell did he write? How did he even read that? She squinted at the notes across the table. He could win against a doctor, no wonder he failed calculus. "Elanur..."

"Oh huh, yeah. I was exhausted. The accident and then whatever followed. I'm sorry again." She chewed on her lower lip, stealing her gaze away from him.

"We good?" He put the pencil behind his ear. Elanur oddly found is satisfying.

"On a level one to I suck at math where are you at?" She raised her eyebrows at the notes, swallowing her doubts.

"On the level I'm about to fail and get benched for the rest of the year." He threw her a sheepish smile. Ya Allah, how am I going to deal with this. She sighed at the sight of scribbles which rather looked like a bunch of spiders.

"How did you survive the first semester?" She grimaced at the red marks on his test.

"I might have unintentionally looked around and coincidentally my friend was sitting next to me."

"A WHAT..." Elanur blinked at him. She might have omitted truth from her family about her violin, but cheating... never. She was scared to even glance away from her own exams. "You cheated? How?"

"I told you how." He shrugged.

"But why?"

"Sometimes you have to do wrong to achieve what's right for you." He leaned forward. The navy blue hoodie stretched across his body. "If I failed calculus, I'd get a big fat F forever and lose my spot on the team during last year. My wrong didn't hurt anyone, but it did save my dreams."

"But you know you did wrong what about that?" She looked into his eyes. The little black dot caught her eyes again.

"I did but there is no other way I could pass calculus without help. I tried, I studied. It didn't work. My brain just doesn't get it, but the university won't give me a business degree without it even though I won't even use a question of it in real life. So I did what I had to. Desperate situations call for drastic measures. Sometimes you have to achieve what you want by going against the rules." He pushed the book to her.

"I don't know." She understood his point, but how did he get courage to do something so risky and terrifying. "Anyways, I can't understand even a word or number on this so I'm going to make a copy of my notes and we'll go from there, but for now let's start from basic." She sighed.

If Calculus was from earth then Husam was from another galaxy. The two couldn't coexist in the same galaxy. After an hour and half they had barely gotten through three questions.

"I can't. I swear I can't anymore. Were you sleeping through the whole semester?" She closed the book, huffing at him.

"No." He smirked, she narrowed his eyes at her. "I was watching boxing matches." Elanur rolled her eyes, almost wanting to smash his face with those notes. "Wait, I found something for you yesterday." He rummaged through his bag as she packed her stuff. "I went down the internet rabbit hole and I don't know how I ended up on this, but this reminded me of you." Elanur grabbed the crumpled printed flyer, opening it.

Audition for the International Violin Festival.

Coming Soon to Islamabad, Pakistan

"And?" She held it back to him, but he didn't bother to take it.

"What do you mean and? You should apply. This is the first time the auditions came to Pakistan. This is like a once in a lifetime chance. And you don't even have to be there for the first part. All you have to do is send your recording." He read her the rules and they flew over her head because she was still staring at him in disbelief. Did this boy not understand where she came from?

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She put everything back in her back. Crumpling the flyer back, she stuffed it back in with her notes. There were more chances of her getting hit by a lightning strike than getting permission to audition.

"I'll see you on thursday here at the exact time. Anyways, how long do I have to tutor you? You didn't even get hurt and calculus tutoring costs more than the total for a car dent." She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Forget that. So you are not going to even try?" He draped the bag on his shoulder along with the boxing one.

"No."

"But why?" He stood in front of her, almost a head or more taller than her because she had to tilt her head to look into her eyes.

"Because it is impossible. You are likely to find water on the moon than have my family let me even try to audition." She walked around him through the doorway. "Last time your sister posted my photo on facebook, I—" She put an abrupt stop to her words before everything spilled in front of him. "It's not going to work out. See you on thursday."

Elanur stared at the white ceiling of her room. Audition for International Violin Festival. She closed her eyes. The thrill shivered across her body like a wave of current. The lights, the stage, the center cross on the stage, the galore of the audience, the intense gaze of the judges, her fingers pressed against the strings of violin and bow, her beating heart, and... just her living her dreams. How many times had she imagined that scenario while falling asleep as if it was some fairytale or a farfetched daydream? Now it was something tangible between the prints of her fingers. The strings of her violin etched their fate in the lines of her palms. But the question remained flashing on her head, was she brave enough to turn it in a reality.

Sometimes you have to achieve what you want by going against the rules.

She shook her head so vigorously as if Satan was whispering in her heart instead of Husam. Well, he wasn't any less manipulative than Satan. Stop thinking, Elanur. Don't think about that spawn of Satan. Don't do it, girl.

He is getting to you. She read prayers of the night before pulling the blanket over her head to shield herself from him and his words.

The melodies danced across the stillness of the lake again as she turned her violin. Audition. All you have to do is send a blind file with your recording. The bow screeched against the strings. She winced. Distractions. She hated them. This was her only time of peace. Home was far too dark for her to spend her evenings there and he ruined her for her too. It had been a week and her mind still wandered to the flyer lying crumpled at the bottom of her bag.

"Her?"

Elanur screamed bloody murder at the sudden voice in all the silence around. She held the bow in front of her like a weapon. The person standing near her was no one other than the spawn of satan with another boy.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?" She still stood there in a defensive stance, holding the bow like a stick, ready to hit him on the head.

"Just got done with practice. This is my friend. He does some music recording bullshit." Husam ruffled his wet hair. "And you really thought you could defend yourself with that?" He gestured at her bow, snickering.

"The strings are pretty sharp. I can try it on your throat." She blinked and took a step his way. He held up his hands in surrender.

"This one. Nah. She screeched so bad the birds flew away. Who gave her a violin?" The midget broke their banter. Elanur definitely wanted to try it on his throat now.

"She is pretty good usually." Husam salvaged her impression with whatever he had which was not much.

"It's all the audition shit you pushed in my head and now as a cherry on top you invited a midget with you to insult me." Elanur sized the short boy with her bow. The little man huffed, sneering at her. He was nowhere near a little boy with the features of a college student. The beard and mustache covered his jaw. The brown of his eyes flared with red at her.

"Dishonor. That's what she is. Dishonor in the name of a violinist with no manners. I'm not recording her." The little man who came to be little shorter than her, pointed fingers at her.

"She is not a dishonor and you are not a midget." Husam tried to truce between them. "Elanur meet Musab. Musab meet Elanur. Elanur is going to audition and Musab will record. Now that we have established our roles here, let's talk nicely kids—"

"Who said I'm auditioning?" Elanur interrupted him.

"You are."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"I will report the accident." He smirked, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

"I will tell your dad you are failing." Elanur crossed her arms with equal vigor though it was hard with violin to show attitude.

"I thought we were playing nice, Kids." Musab cut their arguments.

"Why do you want me to get in trouble? If it's because of the accident I can pay." Elanur sighed.

"It's not that, Elanur." He came closer. The fresh scent of shower gel and axe enveloped her. He took the violin and bow from her. "I have heard you and watch you play this since the accident here. You create magic. Your music speaks volumes. Your music needs to be heard. I have seen the look in your eyes and it's the same when I look myself in the mirror before a match. The desperation to live those dreams. You have one chance. One damn chance to live it. You will never succeed in Pakistan as a violinist. Hell, half the people don't even know violin even exists. This is your one chance." He held the violin as if he was holding her dreams in his hands. "At least audition. There are no obligations. It's a blind audition and all you have to do is send your audio file."

"Let me think." She whispered, merely touching the violin. One chance to live her dreams. One chance to be more than a useless human they all thought she was.

Elanur walked through the door. One chance. She stared at her mother who sat on the sofa in the living room watching the TV mindlessly. One chance her mother never got. Her mother who still suffered at the hand of the man who was supposed to love her. Instead of calling her love names he cussed her and her entire heritage. Her mother whose dreams were buried under the threats of divorce. Did Sarwat Rana Shinwari even have dreams anymore? What would she do if she got her one chance?

Elanur stood next to the fridge staring at her mother through the window.

"You need to talk to your mother about it, Ameer. She is taking me to a mizaar and some alim sahab. I'm on the verge of losing everything. Last time I was there, She said she was thinking about your second marriage. I'm getting abused because you can't tell your mother the truth."