It has been two hours. He did not realize how time passed at all. Time swallowed him as he swallowed her words and pauses. He removed his weapon of ‘reservation’ and put it aside without even noticing that. It seemed to him that she liked sitting with him, too.
It really surprised him that Huda completely fitted the model he created in his mind. It did not deviate one millimeter away from it.
Love is the set of ideas that we visualize about the man—or women— of our dreams. When the right person arrives, they do not do anything; they just embody that image with their physical being. Deep within Khaled was resisting calling it love because it was too premature.
When he spoke to Huda, he felt comfortable, and he admired her. He did not need to get entangled in love; his love affairs were very few. Only a small number of women loved him, but they did love him genuinely. This was really what was terrifying him.
He knew that it was not easy for any woman to love him because of his reserved character, but when it happened, it was too difficult to set himself free. It was never something he willingly did. Some events would take place and force him to break up. He endured a lot of pain every time he had to break up. It was like forcefully removing a hook from his own flesh.
Huda’s features were fine to a good extent. Beautiful? He actually did not like this adjective. Beauty for him always remained relative. For instance, he considered the limb, one-eyed cat that he kept amazingly beautiful.
When Huda smiles, a dimple appears on her left cheek. One of her incisors protruded slightly over the other. It does not diminish her features; it makes shine more.
He liked that she called him with his name without titles. She could remove the formality barriers in a way so gentle that one might not spot.
Huda laughs and swings her head gently backwards. She moves his emotions again. Are these spontaneous movements or deliberate ones?
She looked down then up. Their eye met for few seconds. A sensation of shiver travelled down his spine to his feet. Meanwhile, she acted indifferently and stirred the sediment of her coffee.
Some moments of silence prevailed their rendezvous more than once. He was thinking, and so was she. Then they would smile. It was delighting for him that she did not wear any makeup at all. He always hated cosmetics, the odor nails polish and lipsticks, and all members of that disrespected family of deception.
When they left they café, she offered to give him a ride to his home, but he did not agree.
They said bye to each other and agreed to meet again. Her car seemed to him as delicate as Huda herself. She stepped on the gas pedal and did not forget to wave gently with a smile that should be classified as a weapon of mass destruction.
He went home completely exhausted; his heart was full of emotions that he did not experience for so long. How chaotic women can make men! Even his apartment seemed entirely different to him.
He fell on the bed like an unconscious man. His cat, as if she could sense his feelings, looked at him with sympathy mingled with caution. He carried her and put her close to his feet. She rolled up and drew herself closer to him while he was contemplating the moon that was trying to escape passing clouds.