CHAPTER 1

(Laya P.O.V)

I am lying on my bed with closed eyes, when I open them my room is shining. Oh, shit! what time is it? Oh, I am late! The alarm!  Where is Nana? Why she did not wake me up? I take a quick shower, brush my teeth, pick up my things and leave my chamber.

“Nana!” I shout, but there is no response, she is not here! Where does she go? it is not normal, leaving in the morning! I decide to make a quick toast and leave, I'm not ready to be insulted by Mr. Eric.

 When I am trying to make a toast, she enters with Jennifer carrying a bag.

“Good morning, honey.” She says, in surprise I think, but I don’t know why she is surprised.

“Good morning. Where have you been? I am too late, I overslept.” I say.

“Late?” she says it with the same tone. She puts the bag on the dining table.

“Yeah, it is almost 8:20 am. I am super late.”

“Are you sure darling?” She poses and looks at Jenny who raises her both eyebrows, staring at each other and I can see that they are trying to suppress their laugh! Laughing at me, but why? “It is almost 6:20.” She continues.

“What? Really!” I pick out my phone from my purse to check. OMG! What happened to me?

“Are you okay darling?”

“It seems not really…. I am sorry.” I apologize and my tone is quietly changed because I really mean it.

“It is all right.” She gives me her best smile. “It is a good sign… you wake early… you know it is something anomalous.” She adds.

It is not true, I do not really sleep enough only three or four hours. Besides, I see nightmares that keep me awake all the night, but frankly speaking, I don't see any good omen in it. My phone rings. It is Selena, the only friend that I have. 

“Hello Selena, I hope everything is okay?” I sit on my chair and trust.

“Morning Laya, I just call you to remind you about the party of my parents… and I can guess that you totally forget about it.”

“Umm...I’ll do my best to attend but I can’t promise you.” I have tried to convince her that I couldn’t and she knows how much I dislike parties but she strongly insists, and the worst is that she asks me to fiddle music on her parents’ party.

“Well, you’ll come because you have to come, there is a surprise, I can’t say more. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty see you there.” I can say that she is so excited, is it because the surprise or something else? What is it? I hate surprises and unexpected events.

“Hold on, I’ll come with Nana.”

 “Nana! Will she come? Sounds great. Any way, I’ve a lot of things to do here.” She gets more excited; she loves Nana, my grandma, and wish that she would attend.

“No, actually she has a meeting with an old friend… It is on her way.”

“Okay, see you later then”. I hang up, put the cell phone on the table and reaching for the bag. Hmm…croissants, I put them in a plate, and Nana pour coffee for us.

Nana and I have so many things in common. Well, both of us hate parties, but unlike me, Nana is more sociable. I 'm too much of an introvert, don't like noise or crowd. 

“Do you have any idea why she is insisting? I guess… there is something. Don’t you think so?” She is questioning, and she is right because that was not the case in couple years ago.

“Yes, she told me there is a surprise, that is all what I know,” I take a sip of my coffee then continue, “she asked me to bring my Cello with me.”

“To fiddle?”

“Yeah.” I am not sure that I can do that. I am wondering what she has. I can envisage anything from her, but I love her and the one that I can count on plus Nana, of course.

“What?” Nana asks.

“What?” I mirror her.

“Can you do it Laya… In front of people?”

I blink at her, confused. I am asking the same question to myself, I’ve to try, but how can I be brave, I am not strong enough to do it, I play with my instrument as a hobby in my room and nothing much but Selly sometimes acts weird. “No… I am not sure, I think Selena also will play on her Piano too.”

“Nana! Can I take fruits with me for school?” Jennifer says. Jenny is, my adopted daughter, a pretty girl of nine. She lost her parents in a car accident two years ago and her grandma, Maya, last year. Maya was our neighbor and a close friend of Nana, she was the one who helped us to move here. Jenny has no relative that's why we decided to adopt her. She is a strong girl; she never shows her weaknesses to anybody but me. Nana says that we have the same character and destiny, losing our parents at a very young age, facing the outside world alone and stragling ...

“Sure Jenny, I'll personally prepare that for you.” I say.

“Well, thanks, what an honor........ Where is Lou” She asks about my dog. She likes him, so that she spends most of the time with him more than she does with somebody else, Lou plays a great role in her life as well as mine, he is the one that help her to overcome what she had experienced at some point of course.

“Lou… Lou.” She cries. A couple minutes he is here with her.

    “Nana, I have to visit Sam in his office first, we have to leave now, so I wont be late for work”.

 “Give me a few minutes dear and you, Jenny, get ready.” And they leave the kitchen.

 After getting ready, Jenny says goodbye for both of us and takes her bike to school. We leave the house as well and climb the car. Nana always drives me to my places. Since the accident that happened to me six moths ago, she insists to drive me safe till that day, the day that she’ll hand me to "Mr right". Well, sometimes she is overprotective, to be honest, most of the time. I wonder how could be my life without her, without my grandma, the only one I have. She is my family.

     The drive was quite silent before Nana speaks: “Is there something serious you want to share with him?” She says interrupting my thought.

  “No! I just miss him. It 's been a long time I didn't see him. It wont take a long.” I lie

  “Oh! I see and then?”

  “To my office. And after that, as I told you, I’ve to be there, Selly’s parents house, by eight evening.”

   “Ok, if God will. Here we are, I’ll wait you here. Don’t be late, I really don’t have enough time.” She says as she parks.

   “Sure.”  

   “Good morning Miss Khalifa. Dr. Elton is waiting for you.” Charlotte, the receptionist, greets me warmly. She stands and opens the door with a small smile traces on her lips.

   “Good morning, thank you.”

    As I enter, she closes the door behind me, Dr. Elton stands, I greet him and he reflects it. The room is white, cleaned and lighted as ever, it makes a sign of peacefulness. He wears glasses, a white shirt and dun-colored pants, he is relaxed as ever. He doesn’t change at all since I knew him even though he gets older but still handsome and attractive. I knew him for more than seventeen years, he was my therapist and now, he is my close friend neglecting the age between us. I owe him, he helps me a lot by his wisdom and kindness.

     “Hello! the free woman, what a plearure to see you in my office.” He gives me a large smile that I like and approach me to hug me. He used to call me FREE WOMAN cause of two reasons; first; it is the meaning of Laya (it’s an Arabic name). Second, and the most important thing, he wants me to believe and feel that word, to be liberated from the past. “Sit.”  Ushering toward the couch. “How things doing with you Laya?” He asks.

  “Fine, thank you, and you?” I sit and pressing my thighs together. He is watching me, He smiles and replies: "Now, I can say I'm doing great seeing you after a long time." I stay silent, he has a point to be angry cause I didn't meet him for six months, well, since the accident. He finishes eagerly " it is a good sign although ... but seeing you here, in my office... what happened Lyly?" As I start speaking, he presses his mini-disk.

  “I have a party of Selena’s parents … umm…  She asks me to play the cello.” He listens to me prudently. “I can’t neither refuse or accept."

  "Why so?" He asks.

  "Because, in one hand it’s her first request, and on the other hand,… You know.” I stop.

   “I know what? I know nothing, tell me please.” Sam says.

   “I … actually, I believe that” I stop for a moment “well… I am not brave to do that in front of hundred people”

    “Do you really?” He doubts, as if he knows me well than I do. I stare at him puzzled Do I really?! I keep silent, no answer.

   “But you did it before with your orchestra”

   “It is not the same and it was a long time besides, I’m alone on the stage.”

   “There is no lost in trying, just try it, you ‘ll loose nothing. Forget all people around you, watching you” he says, “It is normal… being nervous, anxious and afraid, at the beginning. You can manage, right?” He asks.

   “No.” After a moment I replay. 

   "And why you took time to answer me? even you, you know that's not true... Look Lyly, it is like having a new born baby. When a woman gets her first baby, she doesn’t know how to take care of him in any sort, but she tries and succeeds… and I strongly believe in that.” He answers my unspoken question.

   “It is hard way.” 

  “Take it easy, and as I know, you express yourself well through your playing, and cello is your baby.”

  “Fair words Dr. Elton. I want but I can’t.”

   “You know what? You don’t know your own strength, this is your problem. Don’t lose faith Laya.”

   “You can’t lose something you don't have.” I say it acidly.

   “Give time to yourself and try to reflect upon it.” He mutters as he cocked his head to one side

   “My faith?”

   “Faith, strength… and yourself”

   “I need them all more than anything else.”

   “I’m optimistic about you, you’ve changed better than you was before... just believe, trust and love yourself.” He gives me an encourage smile.

   “I hope I do.”

   “Why do you say that?” he gazes at me with compassion.

   I stare down at my fingers that on my lap searching for the appropriate words to utter but nothing comes out.

   "Don't be harsh on yourself, believe you me you are doing great."He says.

   "I don't know. I feel lost, I feel that I'm dying slowly."

   “I partially agree, ‘cause what you’ve lived not easy at all for a kid of eleven, even for an adult. Part of you still there, a little girl behind the storm door in rainy dark night.” He makes me goes back to that time that ‘Winter Storm’. The fear and anger appear and possesse me again. No, I have to control my emotions and feelings. “You still need time”, he said changing the subject, “the fear possesses us …all of us it possesses our thoughts, our feelings, everything and we stay there in prison we can’t move a step toward our future and dreams instead we move backward… but believe you me the great achievement of human is when he overcomes his fear…. Face what makes you afraid and you’ll win.” 

“But you’ve really changed.” He finishes his speech.  

“Good or bed?”

“Good of course, and it slowly appears when you enter the paid employment world.”

“Agreeable sounds.”

“And this is an example” He says and his finger directed to my thigh relaxed. I didn’t notice that! 

    "There is something else Sam, I want to share it with you but as a friend." I say when he stops his mini-disc. "Since couple of weeks, I started to see the same dream every night.... In the same hour" I stop waiting him to say something.