Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

She looked up at him, almost in surprise before her eyes returned to their normal shape
and size. Her eyes had black moons pooling beneath them.
“Haya is sleeping.”
She seemed to soften at this. Guilty, maybe, that checking wasn’t her first instinct. “Were
you asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Do I look terrible?”
Hamza did not know if she had actually wanted an answer. He didn’t know what answers
he himself wanted.
“We need to get another key, because I lost mine.”
“Sure, tomorrow I’ll do it.”
“I did actually lose it. Because you always keep it in different places.”
“You’re right.”
“I hate when you do that, you know, it’s not you to just agree with me,” Lamya told him.
Hamza snickered tiredly. “Oh, you don’t even know.”
“That’s more like it,” she said, though she didn’t sound pleased.
Hamza laughed at this. “None of us will act like ourselves today, they predicted. Didn’t
you hear that on the radio?”
“I don’t listen to talking when I drive.”
“Hm?”
“Never mind,” she said, “I don’t understand anyway.”
“Me neither,” he said.
Lamya pulled the duvet from under one of the pillows with one hand, then she tried it
again with both. Her hair stuck to her cheek as always, split up into strands like sun rays
stretching across her skin. Hamza felt that time had left them behind sometimes, that no matter
how much they moved around and changed things, they still looked the same. This could be
Lamya just waking up, piecing things together to prepare for a day at work.
“How didn’t you recognize this house?” Hamza asked.
“It happens.”
“They don’t look the same, Lamya.”
“Please don’t start,” she said, stopping.
“What?”
92