Mohabbat-e-jinn

The first thing people noticed about me was my face.

At least, that's what they told me.

"You have such big eyes."

"You look like a porcelain doll."

"How are you this pretty without even trying?"

I had heard those words so many times that they had stopped feeling like compliments.

I was the bubbly girl.

The loud laugh in the corridor. The one who could start talking to a complete stranger as if we'd known each other for years. The girl who took too many pictures, sent ridiculous voice notes at two in the morning, and somehow knew everyone's birthday.

I had friends.

A lot of them, actually.

From the outside, we looked like one of those friend groups people secretly wished they belonged to. We took pictures together, went out together, shared clothes, shared gossip, shared little secrets that were apparently supposed to last forever.

And I loved them.

I really did.

But there was something I never told them.

I knew none of them would choose me first.

Not when it actually mattered.

If two people had to make plans and there was only space for one more person, I knew who would be invited.

If someone needed to tell their biggest secret, I knew whose name they'd call.

If everyone in the group had to choose one person to sit beside, I already knew where I would end up.

Somewhere in the middle.

Never at the beginning.

Never at the top.

Never first.

It sounds stupid when you say it out loud.

I knew that.

But when you've spent your entire life craving something, even the smallest reminder that you don't have it can hurt more than it should.

And I had been craving it since I was a child.

To be someone's first choice.

Not because I was prettier.

Not because I was funnier.

Not because I had done something to deserve it.

Just because—

me.

I wanted someone to look at a room full of people and still search for me first.

Maybe that's why I was always trying so hard to make people laugh.

Maybe I thought if I became interesting enough, kind enough, pretty enough, funny enough...

Someone would finally stay.

I didn't know then that this feeling had started much earlier than my friendships.

It had started at home.

Our house had always been loud.

Not the happy kind of loud.

There were no children's screams, no music playing through the rooms, no parents laughing together over dinner.

Our kind of loud was doors slamming.

Voices rising.

Arguments that started over something small and somehow became about everything that had ever gone wrong between my parents.

Money.

Relatives.

Old misunderstandings.

Things said years ago and remembered perfectly.

Sometimes I would sit on my bed with my knees pulled against my chest and listen to them argue downstairs.

Sometimes I'd put my pillow over my ears.

It never helped.

Their voices always found me.

And whenever things became unbearable, I had one place I could disappear to.

The bathroom.

I would lock the door, sit on the cold floor, turn the tap on and cry as quietly as possible.

Then, after a few minutes, I'd look at myself in the mirror.

Red eyes.

Wet cheeks.

Messy hair.

And I'd whisper,

"Stop crying."

Sometimes I'd even smile at myself.

"You're fine."

I became very good at lying to myself.

By morning, I'd walk out of that bathroom as if nothing had happened.

That was the strange thing about me.

I could be falling apart at night and still be the loudest person in the room the next morning.

Nobody ever noticed.

Or maybe they noticed and simply didn't know what to do with it.

I didn't blame them.

I didn't know what to do with it either.

There was one thing everyone in my family agreed on about our house.

It wasn't completely normal.

People had been saying it for years.

There were stories.

My grandmother had heard footsteps when everyone was asleep.

An aunt once claimed she'd seen a shadow move across an empty hallway.

Someone else said certain rooms felt strangely cold at night.

And eventually, the word started getting passed around whenever relatives visited.

Jinn.

They said our house had jinns.

Plural.

I remember hearing the word for the first time when I was little.

"Don't scare the child," my mother had said.

"I'm not scaring her. I'm telling you what people have seen."

"Nothing has ever happened here."

And that was the end of the conversation.

Nobody moved out.

Nobody called anyone.

Nobody seemed particularly frightened.

Because whatever was supposedly in our house had never actually done anything.

So, as a child, I decided there was nothing to be afraid of.

If there really were jinns living somewhere inside those walls, apparently they had better things to do than bother us.

For years, I forgot about it.

Until I became a teenager.

And discovered something much more interesting than being afraid of jinns.

I became fascinated by them.

It started innocently.

One night, I was lying in bed, scrolling through videos with my brightness turned all the way down.

I had already watched makeup videos.

Then celebrity interviews.

Then random conspiracy videos.

Then somehow—

"Aashiq Jinn Story — True Incident."

I stared at the title.

"What even is this?"

I clicked.

That was my first mistake.

Because after that, I couldn't stop.

One story became five.

Five became ten.

I started watching them late at night with my blanket pulled up to my chin, completely ignoring the fact that I had to wake up early the next morning.

The stories were always different.

A mysterious man appearing in dreams.

A girl hearing someone call her name.

A supernatural being becoming attached to a human.

A jinn protecting the woman he loved.

Forbidden love.

Possession.

Obsession.

Promises.

I knew most of these stories were exaggerated.

Some were obviously made up.

But I didn't care.

It wasn't really the jinn that fascinated me.

It was the love.

The idea that someone could become so attached to one person that the entire world seemed to disappear around them.

No hesitation.

No competition.

No wondering whether you mattered.

You just—

mattered.

Completely.

I started imagining things.

What if someone knew every version of me?

The loud one.

The annoying one.

The emotional one.

The one who cried in bathrooms.

The one who laughed too loudly when she was nervous.

The one who pretended not to care when someone forgot about her.

What if someone could look at all of that and still say,

"I choose you."

I think that was what I wanted.

Not a prince.

Not some perfect man from a fantasy.

Not even a jinn, really.

I just wanted to be chosen.

My friends thought my obsession was hilarious.

One afternoon, one of them caught me watching another jinn story.

She stared at my phone.

Then at me.

Then back at my phone.

"Again?"

I laughed.

"What? It's interesting."

"You're actually obsessed."

"Maybe."

"What if a jinn actually falls in love with you?"

Everyone laughed.

I laughed too.

"I'd marry him."

"You're insane."

"At least he'd choose me."

I said it jokingly.

At least, that's what I told myself.

Nobody noticed that I didn't laugh as loudly after that.

That night, I went home to another argument.

I didn't even know what it was about.

Maybe money.

Maybe family.

Maybe something that had happened months ago.

It didn't matter.

The moment I heard my parents' voices rising, something inside me sank.

I walked past them without saying anything.

Went upstairs.

Closed my bedroom door.

And sat on my bed.

My phone buzzed.

The group chat was full of messages.

Plans for the weekend.

Pictures.

Jokes.

Someone had sent a selfie.

I stared at the screen.

Everyone seemed happy.

Everyone seemed connected.

And suddenly I wondered something I had wondered a hundred times before.

If I disappeared from that group tomorrow...

How long would it take them to notice?

I hated myself for thinking it.

So I put my phone aside.

I didn't want to be sad.

I was tired of being sad.

I wanted to be the girl who didn't care.

The girl who could walk away.

The girl who didn't need anyone.

But deep down, I knew the truth.

I wanted someone desperately.

Someone who would stay.

Someone who would notice.

Someone who would choose me without making me beg for it.

I reached for my phone again.

Opened YouTube.

Typed the words I had typed countless times before.

Aashiq Jinn Story.

A video appeared.

I pressed play.

The room was dark except for the light from my screen.

I listened to the narrator describe a girl who believed nobody would ever love her.

And then, somehow, someone did.

I smiled.

"Lucky girl," I whispered.

The video continued.

I watched until my eyes became heavy.

Then I locked my phone and placed it beside my pillow.

For a moment, I stared at the ceiling.

The house was finally quiet.

No shouting.

No doors.

No voices.

Just silence.

I closed my eyes.

And, like I had done so many nights before, I made a silly little wish.

Not seriously.

Not believing anything would happen.

Just a thought whispered into the darkness.

"I wish someone would choose me."

I smiled faintly.

Then I added, almost as a joke—

"Someone who would never leave."

I turned onto my side and pulled the blanket over myself.

I had no idea that some wishes should never be made out loud.

Especially in a house that had been carrying secrets long before I was born.

And I certainly didn't know that one day, I would regret those words.