The Girls

[Loosely Based on a True Story]

-1-

None of us chose the other, but eventually it had to be the four of us.

I remember the day I got assigned this room, Dorm 4 Room 328. I was told at the registration office that two fourth-year law students had already gotten there before me. I remember how I dreaded the dorm life just because I’d have to share my room. I couldn’t afford to rent one anywhere else though, nowhere close to the university at least, and I’d already spent my first year mostly on the road between my city and this. But this government-funded, almost free “Students’ Town”, or as we called it, “the Town”, was exactly across the street from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, where I’d just started my second year studying English Literature.

Priority was given to students coming from distant cities, and those stayed long months before going back to their hometowns to visit their families, which wasn’t only expensive, but also dangerous. The country was in a state of war, each area had its own hell to live through. This city, the capital, had bombshells falling out of nowhere, anywhere, anytime, hitting military spots which were countless, scattered here and there, close to houses and between schools and hospitals, or missing them completely and exploding in said places, causing more often than not casualties among the civilians. How did we still go to work and school, you may ask? Well, we just had to. The war had been raging for years now, no ending in sight, and life had to move on. We wanted to move on. There was no telling which was safer anyway; the capital, your hometown, or the roads between them.

We’d bid our families goodbye, hoping it weren’t our last time, and they’d send us off praying; “May God be with you and protect you”, “May God bring you back home safe and sound”.

Sometimes God listened.

Sometimes He didn’t.

-2-

I got to know Laura and Lubna, my roommates, on the very first day. They didn’t only share the same major, but were both from Salma City, “so we go there and return to our room every few months”, Lubna told me.

"Our room", no wonder. Those two had spent more time together here than with their families back home over the past few years.

I come from a much closer city though, so I could go back home every weekend or the other if the situation allowed, which was good for me. I needed a break from the stress of sharing a room with others.

-3-

Fast forward a few months, and as short as a few months might seem or sound, those girls were already changing something in me. The stories they’d tell me about their first three years here, the girls that came and went while they stayed, the things they went through together, and yes, the things we went through together, all that was enough to open my cautious heart to those two.

One time there’d been a huge explosion in Salma City, and the girls couldn’t get word from their families before the end of the day. I lived their horror of getting the news, their despair of not being able to contact their families, their agony of not knowing whether their parents were alive or dead. I shared their prayers through bitter tears, I held them tight as I’d never held them or anyone before.

Every passing moment of that day I could feel it, in the tone of our voices talking to one another, in the memories and stories we shared about faith in God and happy endings, in the warmness of our embraces and the sourness of our eyes, I was no longer an acquaintance or merely a friendly roommate, I became one of the girls, “one of their very own”. We were living one of our worst days, but going through it together.

Sometimes though, even after that dreadful day, I couldn’t help but keep to myself. So while they'd join their friends in the room next door to enjoy their “girls’ night”, I’d stay in the room studying or would sleep early. Sometimes I wouldn’t join them when they went shopping, pretending I was ill or something, which they knew by then was just code words for, “I need some time alone”.

They’d always have something for me when they’re back, whatever they bought for themselves they’d buy for me. They were kind and caring, too caring I felt guilty for keeping my distance.

I did like them, honestly, and that affinity only grew stronger every day, but I just wasn’t like them, no matter how I longed to be.

-4-

Around the beginning of the second semester, a new girl from a nearby city joined us. She was a first year Law student, a newbie who knew nothing. Laura and Lubna taught her everything. The capacity these girls had to give, to trust, to be patient and accepting, to be kind and loving, it amazed me. She was a complete stranger; they knew nothing about her, but it didn’t matter. They explained to her about all the subjects, the professors who taught them, and how to pass each one. They showed her around the tremendously huge Law faculty, told her about all the buses that went there, where to buy her lectures, literally everything. Their Faculty was almost a fifteen-minute walk from “the Town”, close and easy to get to. Still, they walked her there the first couple of times just to make sure she got it right.

Even though she’d spend every weekend back at home with her family, thus missing some precious time with the girls, she warmed up to them a lot faster than I did, and that friendship extended to their friends, our neighbors and the whole floor. She was a happy, perky person. On Sunday eves, we could hear her laugh roaring all the way up to our room, and we’d know right away, Leila is back!

-5-

One warm day in June I had gone to Uni and back by twelve o’clock. I had just gotten out of the Town’s bakery with some sweets for the girls when I heard a loud thud and felt it shake the ground beneath me. I hurried back to the dorm. Lubna was cooking us her special spaghetti, I could smell it throughout the corridor. “Hey, that shell just now sounded pretty close.”

“Yeah, I felt it too.”

I changed to my pajamas and started prepping the table. We were going to eat together, and as usual, keep some aside for Leila who won’t get back before five. Laura was still at our neighbors’, checking on one of the girls who was ill.

We heard another thud, a bit stronger this time. I took out my phone to check the news.

“I pray this day ends well,” Lubna said, her voice low and quivering. “The last two shells fell over the Umar Square, that’s unbelievably close.”

We were both trying to stay calm. We always say we‘ve gotten used to the situation, and in some ways we have, but we can never get used to the dread of possibly getting “the bad news”. I was so lucky I didn’t have any of my siblings studying here in the capital, but many of my friends from home studied or worked here.

Laura suddenly burst into the room startling us both. She was so pale and her eyes were wide open. She saw I had gotten there and just nodded, then blurted out, “This last one fell over our faculty, Lubna,” at which Lubna gasped.

“I’m going to get Leila, that foolish girl won’t know how to get out!”

She put on her shoes hastily, not bothering to change her pajamas, not listening to us begging her not to go, she was in a haze, but had her mind set and wouldn’t listen. She was out of the room in less than five minutes, running so fast we could actually hear her rushing out of the dorm already through the open window..

I started phoning Leila, the first couple of times she didn’t reply, then ten minutes later her phone was out of coverage.

“My God, I hope she gets back safe. I pray they both do, I pray… Oh God…”

I had to sit Lubna down. I urged her to breathe, she wasn’t breathing.

“What if they target the same place again after people and medics had gathered, those bastards do it all the time. What if…”

“They won’t, Lubna, don’t think like that.”

“I’m going after her, God, how did I let her go alone?”

“I should’ve gone with her, what was I thinking?”

She headed for the door.

“No, no. it’s too late now”, I blocked her way, “Listen, she told us to stay here. She wouldn’t want to worry about you too. You won’t know where to find her anyway, stay here.”

I managed to convince her to stay, and we waited most impatiently, calling Laura every few minutes. She wouldn’t pick up.

Finally she called.

“Lubna, meet us at the Town’s east gate.” to which she sprang to her feet immediately, but I forced her to stay, she was still shaking. I ran downstairs in my slippers and pajamas, out of my dorm, across a few others, and reached the gate. Students were coming and going, some didn’t even know what had happened. I looked like a maniac and certainly got looked at as a maniac running in PJs and slippers. I had only one thing on my mind; I kept praying they were safe. I stepped out to the crowded main street and walked a little, becoming more self-conscious by the second. I felt my cheeks flushing, my forehead getting hot, my heart racing and pounding against the walls of my skull, but I couldn't care less. I cut my way through flocks of staring people, desperately looking for my friends, finally finding them a few meters ahead. Laura had an arm around Leila, who had a blank stare like she’d been to hell and back. I rushed to them.

“Leila, Laura, oh God”.

I checked their clothes, no blood.

“Any of you got hurt?”. Leila shook her head. I looked at Laura, she said nothing, just took a deep breath she seemed to have been holding ever since she dashed out of the room. I walked at Leila’s other side and put my arm around her, feeling I was now propping them both. I walked them to the dorm where Lubna was waiting at the entrance stairs. The moment she saw us she came rushing to Laura's side. “Both okay?" she asked not waiting for an answer. She checked their clothes, no blood.

“Sit at the stairs a little, catch your breath”, she told them. Laura lifted her eyebrows, waved her hand and finally managed to say, “No. No. Straight to our room”. So we went two by two, crossing the entrance hall, up three flights of stairs, through the long corridor and back to our room where we sat each of them on a bed. They weren’t injured, but they both reeked of the metal stench of blood, or so I imagined, because Laura kept repeating, “I reek of blood, I smell of blood. I want to change my clothes.”

So Lubna got on her knees and started to take off Laura’s shoes. Laura put her hand on Lubna’s shoulder trying to stop her, but she insisted. I was surprised to see that. That was something you’d only do for your Mom or Dad, I mean taking off their shoes, but I could understand why. Those girls had been to hell and back, they’re our sisters, and they’re in shock. So I took off Leila’s shoes and gave her some water, then I got her up to wash her face. She was shivering, then she started mumbling almost incoherently.

“I didn’t know where I was. I felt lost.”

“Oh honey.”

“I… I didn’t know how to get out to the street.”

“It’s okay dear,” I tried to calm her down, but my tears were streaming down my face ceaselessly, “It’s okay, you’re here now.”

I patted her face dry and sat her at the edge of the bed.

“It’s Laura,” she mumbled again, “I was looking for an exit, then I saw her.” Her vacant eyes rotated the room, as if she were still looking for the exit, “If it weren’t for her, I’d…”

She seemed to come to her senses then, finally finding Laura among the shadows or whatever terrible things she might have been recalling or imagining.

“Laura, you.. you saved my…” and she started sobbing uncontrollably, covering her face and retreating to the corner of the bed, not wanting to be touched.

Laura didn’t let out a sound.

They never spoke of what they saw, but later that night the news confirmed six students dead, thirteen badly injured.

I have no idea how that day passed, nor how time passed after it. All I know is that I regret missing every moment of “girls’ talk”, every late night those girls spent together bonding over the good and the bad, every time they went out together to share moments they’d remember years to come, and photos they’d look at when they’re older, photos I wasn’t in.

All I know is that regardless of all that, I have my back forevermore sheltered, and my mind at ease, because whatever life might throw at me from then on, I've got those girls as my best friends, no, as my family.

THE END