The transparent slimy vomit trickles down the bowl dripping from her mouth. Aariz's hands involuntarily grab her hijab flap that she had been flipping the entire evening at him. He sits on the rim of the bathtub beside the toilet seat.

Her hands clench the seat as she heaves. Tears drip into the bowel. Aariz grabs the tissue roll from the cabinet and rolls a big ball out. He kneels beside her as she sobs waiting for more to come out. She jerks and her hands wrap around her abdomen.

He dabs the tissue on her mouth cleaning the dripping mucus, "Hey... Umm... It's gonna be okay...", he stutters not knowing what to say to a person bleeding and vomiting. If this is what the girls suffer every month then girls should get excused from work and education these days. He offers her a hand to get. Her teary eyes meet his. She takes it. She needs it. The backstabbing brain has wounded her bad enough.

She grabs her toothbrush and brushes vigorously to get rid of the smell. Aariz throws the ball of tissue in the bowel and lowers the lid to flush the vomit. The splashes of cold water against Selena's burning skin calm her down.

Selena holds the black ceramic slab in which the basin is fitted. Her tears cannot stop. She tries to calm herself down but for some reason, the tears are still gushing out of her eyes in the stream never to be soaked up in the skin. The blots of tears on the dry and clean ceramic are smudged by her shaking hands.

The arrhythmia drugs, toxoplasmosis, Trypanosoma, infective endocarditis - so much to revise for comprehensive. Her head throbs as today's lecture flash in front of her eyes. Leukemia. Smudge cells. Flame cells. She cannot remember. Marey's law in physiology. She has to catch up on everything.

Aariz rushes towards her wanting to hold her and wrap a hand around her shoulder but he walks out of the bathroom giving her some time alone.

She plops on the sofa while he runs to grab her bag. She had given the girl a tablet for periods. As he rummages through her bag to find it his eye falls on the orange wrapped in a tissue. She hadn't eaten her lunch. This is not the right time to lecture her on the lunch but he is still infuriated.

When he reaches back she appears considerably composed wiping her tears off in the tissue. An empty glass sitting on the round table indicates she has drunk water to replenish all she lost. He places a slice of pizza on a plate, "Eat something before taking a tablet.", she nods to his advice.

"Thanks.", the first slice of the pizza is eaten in utter silence only interrupted by Selena's hiccups. His hesitant eyes shift from the pizza box to her trembling hands frequently.

"Selena you can't do anything to make up for the lost time. Today is lost. There is always tomorrow. Instead of looking like a ball of misery in front of your rival you better clean up all those tears", Selena's head is wrapped in her thoughts. When she emerges from the drowning sea of thoughts she finds Aariz holding Amelia's cherished guitar. She places the tablet in her mouth and shoves it down her throat with a gulp of water.

"You don't wanna touch it. Or you have a death wish?", Selena points at the guitar however Aariz silences her by pulling a string. He looks at her. She opens her mouth to speak again. String! He strikes the cord with a playful smile. She blinks in disbelief and leaves him be. 

"I know how to play. Unlike Nooran.", he rolls his eyes, "And I can tune it for her too."

"Cute! But I'd rather you keep it back in its place." Selena still not looking at him, replies. Aariz places it beside him and takes a bite of his sliced pizza.

"So you like Amelia. Huh?", her fingers play with the vegetables on the pizza.

He chokes on his chewed food and gulps Pepsi to make it slip down his throat, "WHAT? No. To me, she is a younger sister."

"When did you start treating us as your sisters?", she looks up from her plate and arches her eyes at him.

"Who says you are my sister?", he mumbles.

"Of course. Once an enemy always an enemy.", she jumps onto the armrest on the two sofas joined together to scan Aariz who is sitting on another sofa. She points a finger at him, "I will erase your existence from everyone's life!"

She slips back down in her place. Aariz who has leaned backward sits up straight, "Please! Everyone thinks just because she studies in the school I had a bad past it ultimately makes her bad.", he looks away.

Selena falls silent recalling the times her parents had been skeptical of her sister, her friend circle, her having a mobile, her grades - every move.

"I -", she is rendered speechless.

"It's okay. That school doesn't have a good reputation.", he adds and turns to stare down at his plate.

This flips something in her. No. Amelia's friends are hell smart, "Amelia's friends are remarkably impressive. What is not impressive is the group you were associated with! Just because your friends' circle wasn't good doesn't mean the entire Gems School is bad. Every school has people who secretly smoke in the toilets. And that doesn't make the entire school bad. It's the person who does that. And you, Mister, were that person!"

"Can you drop it already?", his tone changes as Selena directs the conversation at him.

"Make peace with your past!", her plate clutters as she places it on the glass table.

"Have you made peace with your future as a married woman?", to his words Selena knits her brows standing up from the sofa. She walks up to the two-seater sofa he is sitting on. He folds his spread leg making room for her to sit.

"What?", she almost whispers, "You make peace with unacceptable things that have happened, not the future that lies in your hand.", she stares at her empty hands in front of her, "And as we progress we accept fate if something goes in a direction we didn't foresee.", she is relatively calm. Not angry at his remark because maybe she does want to get married but not now. Not to a man who fails to understand her. Who fails to see her as a human with wishes and dreams she wants to fulfill.

"What if fate chooses a man for you? ", he asks, not inching away from her.

"If fate chooses a man for me-", she bites her lips and looks away, "It will make me fall for him."

"See love is blind you will eventually accept him no matter what?"

She looks up, "Fate is blind. Fate chooses men for a woman. It's like a multiple-choice game. Each choice opens a new door of life."

"And for whom are you gonna open this door?"

"For anyone who gives me the freedom to work. Come home late as he does? Give equal share in finance of home. Have a say in family planning. Have the right to reject living in a joint family if they are toxic.", she scratches her chin.

"But how do you know that you are inside and he is knocking? Maybe you were outside all along?", he arches his eyebrows.

She pauses, not knowing what to say, "Doesn't matter.", she shakes her head, "How about this theory...", she pauses again, her eyes excited, "There are two doors."

His eyebrows raise but he knits them back again in confusion, "Two?"

"Yeah two. One for me. One for him. If I want to reach out to him, I open my door. But if he doesn't lemme in, I can't get him."

"So what you mean is even if one is ready for a relationship and the other is not, it's not gonna work out. Makes sense. Explains the idea of consent.", he nods his eyes momentarily and meets hers but she looks away, "Turns out you can be as smart as me sometimes."

"Please!", she rolls her eyes.

Aariz can imagine himself unlocking his door with jittery hands still looking at his feet. And when he swings it open and raises his hand to knock on the door his eyes meet hers. Standing in the door with a hand raised in the air which awkwardly waves at him and flies behind the back as they both feast their eyes with each other's presence. Must be dramatic.

The shifting of the sofa cushion makes him zone in back into the real world.

"What can you do for him to open his doors for you?"

"What can I do for him? I? Haven't I given him everything? Freedom to work, come home late, give a share in the finance of the home, and have a say in family planning. He won't be living with my family! Gosh! And you ask me what I can do?", she paces back and forth in front of him and swings around. She scowls.

"then who's supposed to do house chores?", he argues.

House chores. This word has always triggered Selena. Always. With her parents nudging her now and then about her inefficiency in the kitchen and how it might affecting her prospects of getting married she shoots, "Tell me one thing. When you come home from uni do you do the laundry, cooking, and cleaning?", to her question he nods, "if you can do it then you and your wife can manage it. The problem is with men who do not.", she smiles amused by her argument. He can't argue with this. She has a point.

"Fair enough.", he replies not knowing what to say. They both awkwardly stare at each other realizing they had been discussing relationships in the apartment alone.

Selena looks away, "I'll wash the plates.", Aariz stands up to dispose of the pizza box. As Selena moves into the kitchen she peaks behind her shoulder. Her cheeks burn. These butterflies. She tries to push the feelings away by recalling subjects she must cover.

With a click of a key Aariz walks out of the apartment to dispose of the box in the shute. As he walks outside he bites his tongue feeling the surge of blood in his cheeks. He fixes his glasses on his nose.

After dinner, Selena gets her pathology handout to study Acute Rheumatic Fever, the disease of age between 5-15 that starts merely as a sore throat and may progress to heart defects and glomerulonephritis. In the corner of the page, she writes down the acronym for the pathognomic symptoms of ARF: JONES criteria. She replaces the word 'O' with a heart emoji representing pancarditis. Aariz asks if can help but she replies the only help he can give is by being silent.

The printer whirrs as she sends the print command to print her speech for Thursday. The buzzing of her phone alters her attention from the pathogenesis of ARF. The cross-reaction of immunoglobulins against the bacteria with heart antigens. 

"Selena, are you okay?", her mom asks, "I just had a very bad gut feeling."

She almost wants to cry but she gathers up her courage to say she is fine. 

---

Same question Lauren. Same question.