I am trying to save a story
That lives in my mind
Grows in my dreams
And flourish with my words

The story that I forget
As soon as I open my eyes
The shards of memories
Taped together into a story.

-Selena

Selena's POV:
It's surprising how people have stopped putting their noses in my academic life since he decided to step up his game. I had given them the benefit of doubt, believing they have gotten over their addiction to sniffing around. However, their noses have been busy somewhere where I wouldn't like mine to be.

I can write down volumes of books for everyone to understand the reason behind the hate that flourishes within me. But still, they fail to understand how can a person hate someone that everyone loves?

The bustling of the boys in the corridors echoes in the silent toilet cubicle. The tipping of water from a leaking Muslim shower in another cubicle. He is hyperaware of all the voices around him with his eyes blinded by the vape smoke enveloping him in the sweetness of strawberry. He waits for the thick sweet blinding cloud to disperse for him to move out of the cubicle. But when the smoke isn't fading away and it starts losing its sweetness his frantic hands rummage for the door lock. The greyness of the smoke stings his eyes. His flared nostrils try to inhale as much oxygen as he can. But nothing seems to be enough.

The echoes of people reverberate in his head. He stumbles on his shoelace with his hands clenching his hair trying to shut the voices out.

"He is such a failure.", someone snorts.

"He won't be able to pass this.", the pity in the voice is flaking out into sarcasm.

"Why can't you ever be responsible?", his dad's anger throws him to the verge of a breakdown.

Huh! She rolled her eyes at him, "That's the best you've got?", these words are the last straw. He opens his mouth to scream. He wants to scream. He tries to scream. But he can't. He is drowning in his hot tears with lungs collapsing, heart-pounding and his voice muted. The ringing of the ears follows it and it's a complete blackout.

Gasp!

When he submerges from his never-ending nightmare that he doesn't want to relive the ringing is still not gone. His ears follow the sound. There sits his mobile vibrating and ringing him back to life. His hand scrambles for his glasses on the side table. The clunk of the metal frame against the tiled floor makes him squint his eyes scanning for his glasses on the floor.

His lazy body squirms beneath the quilt. He flexes his not-so-muscular arms to run his fingers through his rough black hair. He sits up in the bed to pick up his glasses. He smiles at the first thing he sees; his family portrait across the bedroom. The young him with his hands around his younger brother. His elder sister's two fingers above his head as she grinned in mischief. He throws the sheets to one side revealing his lean torso. The paper skin pulled up against the protruding ribs.

(Selena's POV) According to them, he is smart.

He walks into the shower. The second alarm goes off. He jumps out to shave his face. For a moment he pauses and smiles at himself and winks at the mirror before proceeding to put on a towel around his hips. His mirror is screaming at him to stop. To pause. To see what is obvious. The dark circles of a restless night. The lost shine of cheerfulness. But he chants his mantra positive vibes only and closes the bathroom door.

(Selena's POV) He is brilliant.

He puts on his white shirt and the navy blue pants before the third alarm goes off. The glass clinks against the marble kitchen counter when he pours himself orange juice he had bought from a hypermarket after a detailed study of its ingredients. The lonely him standing in the aisle while people walked past staring at him. At this point one can say he holds a Ph.D. in ingredients code. The codes to which he never paid attention to when he lived in The United Arab Emirates. He sits with a cereal bar to have a glance at the CDC article on Medical Waste. Not glancing at his flatmate's door to ensure he is awake he continues with his intense reading and chewing with the crumbs of bar flaking off gracefully on the counter.

(Selena's POV) He is organized.

When the fourth alarm goes off a damp piece of kitchen towel wipes the counter leaving behind the pint of orange juice sitting in the glass. Picks up his notebooks from the shelf where he had kept them yesterday night before hitting the bed after revising. Unhooking the coat from behind his bedroom door he wraps a muffler around his neck. With one arm in the coat and the other fighting its way into it, he walks into the lift with the people rushing towards it screaming to hold up for them but he shuts the door closed leaving them to curse by themselves alone.

(Selena's POV) He is the golden boy of the two families.

Exactly at 7.30, his phone rings in his white coat pocket underneath the thick layer of overcoat as he is walking towards the city campus of the university. He swaps his student ID on the detector before moving in.

"Assalam o alikum, ammi". He nods at his colleagues.

"Walikum assalam, you woke up?". A sleepy voice muffles in his ears.

"Yes, ammi. You know my routine.". He replies monotonously.

"So, the last exam. Good luck. We are so excited to have to back. I can't believe -". A twitch of muscles almost spread a smile on his face but then he saw his professor.

"Yes, I am coming home today. Excited. Gotta go. See you at night".

He hangs up.

(Selena's POV) Right? I should love him? WRONG.

The alarms go off. She slides it to snooze and continues to dream about the Arab professor's thick Arabic accent English lecture. What are they studying today? She doesn't know. All she knows is she is there in the lecture room. Until it was the eighth alarm she almost snoozed. Her eyes squint at her mobile in the dark as she sees the time.

"Crap.", it's 5.20. 

The bus arrives at 6.00. It is the shower day. No time to stand in front of the wardrobe to decide on clothes in the torchlight. She jumps over her sister's arm as she sprints to the washroom. The yellow brightness of the washroom is too painful for her to open her sleepy eyes. She narrows her eyes at the nest of hair on her head. Shower it is.

5.30. 

The water seeps into her shirt, sticking to her back when she rolls her dripping wet hair into a bun before changing her clothes. She puts on her white coat hanging outside the washroom and almost runs into her mom who is making her way to the living room with a prayer mat.

The wet hair rolled up into a bun gives headaches but who cares. Hijabis gotta do what they gotta do. She is almost done wrapping her hijab when she realizes it. THE MASK. Oh shit! Redo.

The plate clatter across the wooden table as her mom lays down her breakfast. Classic - brown bread with Young's chicken spread. Five minutes later she brings her tea cold as she "prefers"- She doesn't prefer tea but can she afford the headache of arguments on the breakfast table? No. It's just a family thing. Tea in the morning or tea with a big lecture on how dependent you are on your parents. 

Her papa tosses his prayer mat on the sofa keeping his topi cap safe in his drawer before Saad can claim his topi as his own when he wakes up for Fajir. Seeing the mess of unorganized stapled handouts on the dining table with a blue pen and purple highlighter lying on top of them he clicks his tongue. 

"Selena, when did you sleep?"

"One? 12 something. I don't remember".

"I told you, your cut-off time is 12".

"But-". She wanted to explain to him how she had to revise everything she took in the day and learn it but despite her efforts to stay up all night, she could not. He picks up her handouts and piles them into one. These scattered handouts might have looked unorganized but her hands lung out in her papa's direction.

"NO! I organized them into sections."

"This mess?"

"Yeah. Just put the notebook in my bag and leave the rest on the divider". He does as he is told. The chair scrapes as she gets up. Her eyes fixated on the wall clock. 

5.56. 

Fajir time. Her knees slam against the carpeted floor as she goes in sujood. She can still smell her hot tea breaths against her black mask. In the rush of being late, her head hits the ground a little harder in the second rakah. And when she turns her head to her left saying Assalam o alikum wa rahmatullah her fingers grab the corner of the prayer mat and fold it into a messed-up square.

5.58. 

Her feet are in her black duck socks which everyone finds cute at the university mosque.

5.59. 

She plants a kiss on her mom's cheek from behind the mask and dashes towards the lift with her dad following behind her. Her untied laces lash the tiled floor with every leap she takes in the direction of the elevator.

"Tie your shoelace before you fall". Her papa's words make her chuckle. She looks at him with her eyes glimmering.

"I am professional at this. I don't fall". she straightens herself and folds her hand proud of herself. Her dad shrugs glaring at her untied shoelace.

"Aariz is coming tonight. We'll be heading to Hafeez's house. Will you come?". She overhears the imam saying Allah Hu Akbar but her papa waits for her to reply.

She shrugs motioning at the mosque, "S-sure. But you know I have exams coming up". The bus light reflects onto the black tiled wall of a building at the corner. Bus 13.

(Aariz's POV) There is a fine line between love and hate. One is fire. One is ice.

He walks towards the anatomy department in front of his flatmate who was busy debating the difference between hyperlipidemia and dyslipidemia with not-his-girlfriend. As they reach the department Ali asks Aariz to wait for him in the elevator.

"We'll continue that argument on WhatsApp.", he smiles at her.

She flips her hair, "Ain't got time for that, walking buddy."

He smiles as he watches her go. And when he turns he watches Aariz press the button. The door closes a few inches away from his face, "Son of a-"

Such a waste of time! Ugh! Relationships are such a weakling thing. Such a fleeting case. It is just the science working at its best in the human body. The physiology of the hormones. And when it subsides what is left is the reality of responsibilities. He rolls his eyes, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He adjusts his white coat collars and fixes his glasses. He turns around but turns back swiftly with a smile. The lift pings. He winks at his reflection before stepping out of the lift.

(Aariz's POV) One burns the person to ashes. One freezes the person in time. Which one is what? That's for us to figure out. Yet both question our sanity. No time should be lost on either of them.

"Omgaaad, gurl!", her friend throws a hand around her. They both stand there, in the middle of the lecture room. The rays of the morning sun shimmer against the Burj Khalifa in the distance. Just the shimmer the rest lost in the mist.

"Yelin, Aariz is coming. And they want me to go!" She whines.

"No! Bruh! That a-hole. Who left you on seen two months ago".

She nods, "Come on. Let's go to the student lounge. I am not in the mood to revise for self-assessment".

She scowls at the vending machine recalling the dumbness of her past not being able to see the red flags. Her fingers trace each row and column to find a glimpse of dark chocolate so that she can push the code while her coins are waiting in the machine. No dark chocolate? How on earth is this possible? Curling her hands into a fist she stomps into the student lounge to sulk over the bad start of the day. How she was used just for retrieving the information. Why was she so stuck up on helping the eternal enemy?

Tahreem scratches her waxed glistening moisturized arm with her coat sleeve rolled up. She looks at Yelin and grumpy sulking Selena.

"What are you doing? Stop it.", Yelin swats Tahreem's hand away from her arm and gasps, "Inflamma-shawn!", her Iranian dramatic Iranian accent draws Selena's attention towards her hand.

"What's wrong with this uni? I cannot. I cannot. No chocolates! Like- who on earth does not keep dark chocolate which is the healthiest of all? And then these...", she collapses beside Tahreem, "goddamn mosquitoes!"

"I swear."

By 7.30 am the lecture is jam-packed with the girls, some sleeping in the back with their heads down on the wooden table while others scrolling on their mobiles with legs folded. A girl stands in the center of the crowd near the smart board with the stylus in her hand. Her swift left-hand surprises the girls by outlining the human heart before she continues to explain the blood flow and cardiac muscle contraction.

A girl brushes past Yelin pushing her into Selena beside her. The girl's slipper strikes the marble floor as she runs through the corridor with her 15-inch screen laptop. Their heads turn in the direction of echoing footsteps moving toward the lounge. Yelin's wide eyes close shut and open with a surprise written on her face. Selena scoffs. Their heads hang down looking at their shoes. Where is the professionalism that they were taught in the first year?

They could have stood there communicating with their eyes as they dissected the girl's behavior and her appearance but a sharp clear of the throat behind them makes them scurry back to their seats. Physiology. The self-assessment that she was not in the mood to study is happening now. The grimace spreads across her face as she sees the slide loaded with a dozen questions. After the professor chooses a question for the students to answer she sets an alarm for 2 minutes.

Selena sits in the awkwardness of the front seat, blank brain and white page with pen doodling trying to gather anything she can but she can't. She straightens when the doctor walks up to her and covers her notebook with her hands and slowly crouched to cover the blankness of her brain and page. The doctor inches closer to her standing just an inch away from her desk with her hands folded. Her white coat button brushes against the wooden desk.

When the alarm rings she places her hand on Selena's desk who is contemplating whether to look into the doctor's eyes or not. Should there be guilt of not learning or should there be the confidence of not knowing? Which is worse? She doesn't know. So she looks up. Her eyebrows furrow for a moment then relax. But her teeth are sunk in her lower lip behind her mask.

Knowing she doesn't know the doctor looks around in the lecture room searching for the raised arms. She nods at the girl and motions for Selena to listen. When the girl is done with her answer she nods at Selena again who nods back.

Stepping near the smart board she says, "For those who haven't learned yet, please, my advise as a mother, start learning on a daily basis". Her eyes are not on Selena yet Selena can feel the words attack her gnawing at her already shabby dignity.

One lecture fades into another. The hours fly one after another in complete silence only broken by professors' words and tapping fingers on the laptop and seldom page turns of hands inking down the words. The grumbling stomach announces its demand to Selena in 30 minutes lunch break that she chooses to ignore to walk her way to the mosque for Zuhr's prayers meanwhile Yelin enjoys her hotdogs.

The last two hours are spent in small groups of 10 students discussing the case of follow-up after heart failure. The various subjects that cover the scope of this case. Two girls have decided not to show up in the discussion while the other 2 are on Zoom quarantined in their houses. This leaves behind 6 girls including Yelin and Tahreem sitting by Selena arguing over who will read the first trigger.

The fingers of six students mentally and physically present rapidly move across their gadgets as they search for normal ranges of various blood values. When Yelin gives in to Tahreem's persistence, each of them takes a turn to read the remaining four triggers of the case with the Yelin summarizing each trigger. After their facilitator dismisses them early they decide the move the conversation to the study room where they divide objectives among themselves to explain tomorrow.

She reaches home at 4.00 pm. Her eyelid begging to close. Her footsteps are heavy against the tiled floor. She opens the unlocked door quietly whispering," Assalam o Alaikum. ", knowing everyone will be sleeping.

However, today is different. "We leave at 7.00 pm.", her mom remarks from the other room banging on the washroom door. Her brother was taking his sweet time to get himself ready for the afternoon nap, "Saaaaaaaaaaaaaad!", she almost bangs the door when it flings open with Saad standing naked in the doorway. Throwing the towel at him she walks out of the room.

"Selena, get ready. Hafeez uncle has invited us to the party". Her mom marches into the living room to pick up Saad's belt lying on the sofa.

"A party? WHAT!"

Her sister creeps out of the room wiggling eyes at Selena. She rolls her eyes at her sister wrapping her left hand around her right-hand fingers and slowly sliding her middle finger out.

"Beach!" Amelia remarks.

"You, cow". Selena counterattacks.

"You, crustacean".

"You, trematode". Selena recalls the parasitology of trematodes, the snails as the egg formation, the release of cercaria, and then encystation to metacercaria that causes various human diseases of GIT that she has forgotten since they were last semester topics.

"You, hernia". Amelia jogs through her memory to remember any medical term Selena has gloated about recently. She doesn't remember what a hernia is but all she knows is random protrusions of the abdominal wall are hernia.

"You, pessary.", this stops Amelia because she doesn't know what to reply to a fancy word she isn't aware of. Taking advantage of that Selena adds, "You, suppository."

"What's that?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out.", Amelia wants to nudge Selena till she ends up telling her the definition of two fancy words that she will eventually forget but their mom stops and looks at them wasting time over absurd things. They both flip their fingers at each other to conclude the fancy exchange of adjectives.

"Amelia. Selena. Stop wasting time!"The shove of her mom scares her and she places her hands quickly in her coat's pockets. Can she not go? She has objectives to cover.

---

HOW WAS THE FIRST CHAPTER?

Don't forget to vote for the love of Amelia.

Quick question:
Are you in the faculty of medicine? Or aspire to join one?

(Please note that there is more to medicine than MD and Mbbs - like Pharmacy, Dentistry, Biotechnology, Medical Research, Public Health, and Physiotherapy)

What else comes under the faculty of medicine? Hmmm...