“What happened again?”
He huffed.
“Are you here to yell?”
“No.”
“Then are you here to talk?”
“No.”
“Then you just came to stare?”
“Hmm.”
“Huh?” Those rumpled blues widened.
“I mean…” he stepped closer. “I wanted to unwind before I went to sleep.”
Amaal pouted in deep thought. Even her mouth was extra round in half-sleep.
“How are you good at being half-asleep on your feet and still making complete sense of my words?” He wondered aloud.
“I am very good at a lot of things,” she crossed her forearms on the windowsill and leaned out. “What about you?”
“I am not good at things.”
Her playful face fell. “That can’t be true.”
He nodded.
“You mean to say,” she yawned. “You are not good at anything you do?”
He shook his head.
“Politics?”
He shook his head.
“Jammu?”
He shook his head.
“The… that-which-cannot-be-named things?”
He paused. He was good at maintaining the militia. But not at what he was doing with it currently. And so, he shook his head.
“Choking people by just holding their throats?”
A snort left his nose — “What?”
“You did it with that man in Jammu once, remember? Awaami’s youth leader… I forget his name. Right after we won? That night, remember?”
Samar felt his lips curl despite everything. He nodded.
“So you are good at choking people,” she pointed. “You are also good at curing them. You diagnosed my malaria when all signs and the season were for typhoid. And that stupid doctor said it too.”
Samar felt a full-fledged smile push up his mouth at the memory. Her face grew brighter, fresher — “And, you are very good at taking care of your people.”
