Performance

  
 - So, does that girl love you more than I do?
 - Ha ha ha... what are you saying!
 - I'm making you say it! Don't you tell me anything of your own?
 - I just talk to her sometimes. When there's marriage talk happening with someone, you have to exchange a few words with them, that's why I do it.
 - I've had marriage talk too; I didn't go around talking to them!
 - Don't go near them in the future either. Never.
 - Why?
 - I don't have an answer to that.
 - So there's a special rule just for me?
 - Not special—just one. Just one rule. You won't go, you won't go, you can't go. That's it!
  
 - You seem so happy these days. People have already started making you happy ahead of time, I gather?
 - Is everything you see always true?
 - So she doesn't love you more than I do?
 - Perhaps.
 - Why are you like this? Why can't you say things straight? Why don't you give yourself away?
 - Maybe because we don't give ourselves away that you love us the way you do.
 - Us? You mean that girl? Has she made her place in our conversation now too? How wonderful!
 - Oh, hush.
  
 - You seem so happy these days. Has he already started the work that comes after marriage?
 - Are your classes over now?
 - What else have you two decided together?
 - Is your headache any better today?
 - I want to die.
 - When the person who taught me to live again says something like that, my whole education in this new life becomes meaningless!
 - Was this second chance at living just so I could be destroyed?
  
 Antee was sobbing—great, heaving sobs. Ahnaf listened from his end of the phone, silent. At any other time, he might have cut the call, or steered the conversation elsewhere, using words to stop her tears. Not today. Today he wanted to listen, wanted to hear her properly. Perhaps he would never get this chance again. After three minutes and several seconds had passed, Ahnaf set the phone down. If only he could cry like Antee was crying, his real tears would never allow him to perform this lie so convincingly.