In the process of finding me!

At the library, a young man stares at me while I stand on my toes, trying to reach a book on the highest shelf. He then walks towards me and stands close to me, he hesitates for a while, maybe trying to figure out what to say, then he asks, "Do you hate me?"

I take a full look at him, as he stands in front of me, head high with pride but shaky hands, wearing skinny jeans, white shirt, and a face full of awkwardness along with disappointments. I don’t know what to say, so when he finally notices the question marks on my face he quickly says, "I'm gay!"

"No, I don't." I tell him.

He waits for the whole truth, I wait for the next question knowing that there will always be another question coming when a woman wearing a black abaya (dress) with hijab answers a non-rhetorical question about her beliefs and culture without an explanation and ends the statement with a period instead of hyphens. 

"Does your religion provoke you to kill homosexuals? I mean isn't that what Mateen did? Wasn't Islam the reason he justified his act?" And with a broken voice, he asks me one more question before giving me the chance to answer, "Will he go to paradise for killing all those men just because they were gay?!"
The need to say sorry rushes to my lungs, but I simply ignore knowing the truth that I didn't have anything to with Mateen. Through the years of my life, I've learned to not say, "Sorry" in the name of Islam or representing Muslims, when it comes to what the extremists do wrongly in the name of my faith. Islam is one thing, and what the terrorists do is something else and it should not be justified with verses from the Quran. I've learned to be "Sorry" in the name of humanity, where neither your race or your beliefs are what till be accountable for the "Sorry" 

The empty corners of my heart are filled with pain and it hurt to know that the act of one person can turn a whole nation against you. This time for the sake of maybe changing his point of view on Muslims, I give him a long answer full of commas. I inform him about the peace in my religion, that killing in any reasoning is "FORBIDDEN" 

"There are some misguided souls who misinterpret the teachings of Islam and because of their violent as a terrorist, who manipulates and misguide the message of God to emphasize their sins do not represent the whole fundamental of Islam and Muslims around the world," I tell him 

Together we go over some verses from the Quran, he is amazed by the facts, as well as the fact that I carried the holy Quran in my purse, "No one carries the Bible except clerics!" he says and we nervously laugh. 

At this point, he tells me little about his life, how deeply he's disappointed about the massive shooting that took place in Orlando. I tell him about my theory of how I believe that the shooter himself was gay, after reading the CNN news and the fact that the shooter used a gay matching app couple times. I also included how I went on to read the way the shooter felt about two men kissing in the street and the emotions. "He was a gay extremist who acted out of jealousy if only one of them kissed him for the sake of their lives," I tell him, we laugh about my crazy theory, but this time we laugh long enough to make little of our pain fade away.

Laughing has ways of erasing the pain, and disappointments.

We sit between the shelves for a while talking bad about a dead man who deserves nothing but an eternity of hell, to feel better despite the fact that nothing feels better when talking about those kinds of people. When I stand up to leave, he says he's sorry about the way he approached me. I smile knowing that it wasn't hatred but a fragile pain and anger. Before I take off for good, I remember the name of the book he's holding, "Loving you is close to my heart then hating you," I tell him and when I notice the question marks on his face, "I simply love everyone who reads Kafka's books." He smiles.