She was a beautiful girl, and he was a handsome man.
The sun is shining, and the car cuts through the empty road like it owns it.
The breeze coming in through the windows blows her hair and tickles her cheeks .
He reaches out to tuck it behind her ear.
She trembles at his touch, laughing as if happiness is electricity running through her body.
It is love, certainly the love she has always read about in her novels and seen in movies, but even better than that; watching it or reading about it are two completely different feelings than experiencing it.
She was fascinated, fascinated by his masculinity, his dignity, his tender looks, his handsomeness, which she always wanted to record in her paintings, so she drew a picture of them together that never left her, and whenever she was alone she would take out that paper picture, touching his face in the picture with love, touches that shyness prevented her from doing to his real face as he sat next to her.
She never asked him where he was going, but wherever he went, it was her homeland that she longed for.
It's love, it's definitely love .
She looks at him for a moment, then says in a loud voice that covers the sound of the engine:
" You are so serious, never laugh."
He says:
" If I laugh, my eyes narrow, and I can't see you well enough. It's enough for me to see your laughter, which fills my world with happiness."
Clumsy repetitions, but for her it was enough.
She smiles shyly, looks ahead and doesn't answer, so he continues, saying:
" All I can think about now is kissing you."
She raises her hand as if she is doing karate, and says coquettishly:
" What did we say about those compliments?"
Iyad replied:
" What? You're going to hit me? You can't hit your lover."
She leans back on the chair, then says:
- "My love? Like this ! This is the second time we've met, so are we lovers?"
" Yes, my love and my wife too, whatever it may be."
She can't help the smile on her lips as a blush invades her face.
She loved him and was crazy about him even though she barely knew him, and despite the mystery surrounding him, but weren't all charming men like that?
Even the big age difference between them was no obstacle. In fact, that's what she loved about him; his intelligence, his poise, his careful choice of words, especially his honeyed words that succeeded every time in melting her.
It started with a conversation on Facebook, then developed into some voice calls, in which Eyad was a living example of the "gentleman " that every passerby should love. Now, she is with him in his car, wandering the streets of Cairo like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon to a colorful paradise where she eats, drinks, and walks with only her heart muscle. She has just jumped from the top of a prison wall called a house, where the two prisoners are the father and mother, who never stop quarreling day and night over the most trivial reasons, until the battle ends with a cup whose pieces are scattered on the ground or a chair that settles in the window glass, then the father leaves to leave the mother huddled in the nearest spot where she collapsed, crying. So the daughter has declared disobedience, social media has become her requiem and her hymn, through which she pumps the energy of a teenage girl, that terrible energy that could run a nuclear reactor. A long history of typical posts and videos of a young woman on the verge of collapse.
Until I found him... Iyad , who leveled the playing field and lit up the room that had always been dark, and with him lit up her empty life. Is she dreaming? This is more than enough infatuation, for she loved him and his words that struck chords inside her that had begun to erode from excessive neglect .
The sound of car tires suddenly stopping pulled her out of her daydreams.
- "Why did you stop?"
He looked at her tenderly and told her that something was wrong with the car, and that he would be back to take a look.
She goes back to being busy with her cell phone, while he's doing something in the back.
But it is late.
You call him, but he doesn't answer.
You look out the back window of the car, but you don't see a trace of him.
Now she is worried.
The car leaves. From inside the car, her voice is heard, wondering: Why is he standing like this? What is he hiding behind his back? Why doesn't he answer the call? Why is he holding her hands like this?
She tells him it hurts.
Tell him to stop.
A request turns into a plea, then a plea, then a scream, and it ends with the sound of her face hitting something metallic .
The car door opens, she is now lying on the ground, he carries her and puts her in the car, but this time she is unconscious and a line of blood is running down her forehead.
If she were conscious now, she would remember her mother's advice to her when she was little: "If someone gives you a piece of candy and tells you to go with them, don't do it. Never go with strangers."
It was Iyad who was waving the candy at her, but she was so busy that she did not see his other hand that was hidden behind his back, holding death.
She was about to learn a lesson about strangers whose cars you shouldn't get into, strangers who used to have their passenger lying in a pool of blood.
****