Yuanfen

Part-3

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The day had started just like any other. Work, and a strange sense of camaraderie with her lab partner. Ahmad had taken upon himself the duty of bringing her caffeine in the cold evenings, in return she would reluctantly bring him a morning cup to even the favours. They never talked about it. And it was more than fine by her.

About their project, the desired drug had been isolated successfully from natural sources, but the yield was much lower than their expectations and needs. Yusra was working on finding ways to deal with that, while Ahmad was busy testing the drug directly on human tumor cells in the lab. If the drug proved to be even a little effective; they could proceed further with it; send an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA for approval. So far, they had already isolated and discarded three potential drugs, but this one seemed promising than others.

Yusra was hopeful about the outcome. For her, the mere fact that she was involved in finding a relief for another human in pain, was gratifying. In near future, maybe someone would sigh in relief after hurting for so long and she’d have a role in bringing that relief to them. Sadqa’ e jaariya for generations.

Time had escaped her and when she remembered to check her wrist watch, she jumped realizing how she had only five minutes to catch a bus that took her ten minutes to reach. Packing up in a record time, she was out of the building immediately; silently berating herself for not setting up a reminder in her phone clock.

Usually, Ahmad would remind her of the time. But he had a prior engagement with the arts society of the campus; he was a social butterfly, friends everywhere. And it was those moments of his absence, that made her realize again and again, how much she was starting to depend on him. His mindless chattering and easy laugh, as distracting they were, often grounded her to reality. 

Yusra had a brain that never shut up, sometimes it felt more like a cage than a blessing. Living in the moment, was something Yusra had rarely done. But Ahmad was all about it. The stark differences in their personality, often distracted her from the musings in her head.

It was both worrying and refreshing.

“You’re late, beta, the buses left already!” Chacha jee at the transport gate informed her with a frown. She nodded solemnly at the empty parking.

“It’s okay,” Yusra told him. “I’ll call an uber or something.” 

She checked her phone, knowing the jammers would cut off any cell signals, but she did not want to walk all the way to the main gates, alone in the dark streets. Their university was in a remote area, away from the city’s center, so it was already going to be a tough chance that she would get an uber soon. She would reach home late, and it was something she wished to avoid at any rate.

She regretted not checking the time earlier, her worry was building up. Quickly, she recited ayat-ul-kursi, and started walking.

After quiet minutes of contemplation, she decided to call Ahmad. He was not bound to help her, but maybe he knew someone who could come wait with her so that she would not be alone out there. It was in that moment she realized how ready she was to trust whoever Ahmad trusted enough to help her. Was it because she trusted him and his judgement? When did that even happen?

Ahmad was quick to pick the call, they did not communicate much via phone, but whenever they did, Ahmad had always been a quick responder.

“Everything fine?” He sounded alert, there was a background noise that faded to silence at the sound of a door closing. He must have excused himself from the gathering of his friends. Yusra felt like she was intruding in on his time, but she did not have any other choice.