A New Beginning - Round Seven

She didn’t know what to reply. She contemplated ignoring and pretending that she fell asleep but it wouldn’t make a difference since it was a text message which means that it will still be there in the morning when she wakes up. Then it dawned on her that he only had her Dubai number and didn’t have her Muscat number. She quickly sent a message to T telling him that if Sami asked for her Oman number not to give it to him. T called her back.

"What's going on dude?"

"Hey – he's texting me and he's asking me if I'm ok with him calling me when he gets back to Muscat"

"So what's the problem?"

"Dude he's freaking me out – he stole my number from your phone. He's such a lazga. I was waiting for my car outside the mall and he drove back with me. He wanted to help me carry my stuff to my room but I didn’t want him knowing my room number."

"Meems – he's a good guy. He doesn’t know how to deal with girls much cos he's Saudi. U know how it is. Give him a chance. Why are u so against it?"

"T I'm sure he's a good guy but I can't . . . I don’t know. I guess I don’t wanna get hurt again and he's just tooo clingy. I'm the girl. I'm supposed to be clingy not him"

Meems and T chatted for a while. T was always a great support and he always managed to make her feel good about herself. He managed to convince her to give him a chance and she said she will think about it.


The next morning, Meems got up early and checked out. She passed by the mall to pick up 3 boxes of Krispy Kreme since it wasn’t available in Oman and hit the road. Her phone rings and she picked it up without looking at who was calling. It was Sami. He was calling to keep her company on her lonely road trip while he waited at the airport for his flight. It turned out that she will be arriving in Muscat around the same time as his landing time so she offered to pick him up from the airport.

A few hours later, she was parked outside the airport arrivals waiting for him to come out. She sees him rushing and then somebody stopped him. She couldn’t see who it was because the person had their back to a pillar but she could see that Sami was not very comfortable and was trying to rush off. A few minutes later he gets into the car and he seemed a little upset.

"I really appreciate you picking me; my sister is not familiar with Muscat roads yet."

"Your sister lives here as well? I thought it was just you."

"She's married to an Omani and he's out of town this week. She's the main reason I made the move here but I live alone"

They rode for a few minutes in silence and then he came out with it, "listen I just wanna be honest with you. I've known about you for a long time. And I've always heard very good things about you. You actually know my sister and she was the one who suggested you to me in the first place."

"Who is your sister?"

"Hanan ilFlani" he replied. Then it all fell into place. She had met Hanan a while back during a charity event and she remembered the conversation well. Hanan had given her a strong talk about being with someone like he ex. She had met him and never really liked it. There was something about him that just seemed sleazy and untrustworthy. She loved Hanan but she hated her that day for trying to force her to meet her brother that was arriving the next week. So since she left her house that day, she hasn’t been in touch with her. It's been almost 4 months now.

"By the way did you see who I was talking to just now in the airport?"

"No I wasn’t looking" she lied. She was trying to see but the pillar was covering the guy. She could tell it was a guy but she couldn’t see neither his face not even his figure.

"It was Khalid"

She hit the brakes HARD.