The Perfect Girl

21

"She starts breathing fast,
Cause she thought it was past,"

After that emotionally intense experience, I'd basically decided I had to stop this.  I was scared, because whatever it was that I had been expecting from this, that sort of a feeling was not it.  I had not expected to feel so weak.  It made me nervous, and I didn't like it.

But then, of course, Khalid just couldn't make it easy for me.

He proposed.

It was such a casual thing, too. 

I'd come home one day to find everyone waiting for me in the living room. 

I'd sat down, and Abu said, "Pumpkin?"

And I was like, "Yeah?"

And he was like, "Guess what?  Khalid just proposed."

And I was like, "What the actual hell?"

And he was like, "He proposed.  What's your answer?"

And I was like, "Uh..."

I didn't answer right away.  I asked for a few days to come to a decision, but in the end I did exactly what I hadn't been planning to. 

I said yes.

***

The engagement party happened not long after. 

I don't honestly remember much about it.  It was a lot of lights and there was too much glare for me to properly make out the details.  And besides, very soon after, Shuayb had his wedding, which was much more emotional and important.

The engagement didn't mean anything much to me, not because Khalid didn't mean something to me, but because the engagement wasn't the Nikah.  It was only the celebration to let others know what I already did, that Khalid and I wanted to get married.

The wedding was much more memorable. 

We had the Nikah fairly quickly, but we held off on the Walima.  I was still studying, and I just wasn't ready for that.  I'd be graduating next year, and the both of us agreed that would be a better time to have it. 

For now, we were married, at least Islamically.

And everything was very strange. 

We moved into a small apartment close to my university.

We'd already discussed leaving this apartment after I was finished studying, because it really wasn't what either of us wanted.  It was clean and functional, but it was a little too prim for my tastes.

I didn't want a big place, but I also wanted it to be a home, not a hotel. 

I also wanted to live nearer to my parents, who, rather conveniently, lived very close to Khalid's, so there was no argument about the general area that we wanted to buy a house or apartment.

Even though we'd had these talks, though, we still hadn't quite mastered the art of actually talking.  We spoke too politely, too carefully for a married couple.

In our defence, our lives had changed very dramatically very quickly.  We'd gone from not being able to touch each other to living together.

The conversations before marriage, though, helped to cushion the shock of it.  Slowly, we began to slip into a comfortable sort of rhythm.

I was looking back at all of this, marvelling at how fast it had all happened, as I stirred a cup of tea.

It was evening, and Khalid had yet to come back from work.  I'd been studying most of the day, because I'd decided to take a few summer courses to speed my education up.  I was working at an animal shelter on the weekends, and I was actually quite enjoying it.

I really liked animals, especially cats.  I'd always wanted one, but Ami was allergic and I figured I loved my mother at least slightly more than I loved cats, and so I'd never had one.  But cats had always been friendly with me almost immediately, and, as stupid as it sounded, I liked feeling like there was something good about me that they could see that humans simply couldn't.

I heard the door click as it opened.

"As salaamu alaikum!"

I turned myself around on the counter-- my habit of sitting on counters was not one I had grown out of-- and smiled at Khalid's approaching figure.

"Wa alaikum us salaam."

He eyed me, smiling a little at my body perched on the counter.  Suddenly, I felt self conscious about the way my thighs flattened against the counter, how large they looked. 

I hopped off.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Just making tea," I said, adding milk to my cup, "Do you want?"

He considered a moment, "Yes please, that would be great, actually."

"'Kay."

I poured water from the kettle into a mug, dropping a teabag in.  It was finished a few moments later, which was good because my cup was just the right temperature by then. 

"How was work?" I asked.

"It was alright," he paused, "My mum invited us and your family over tomorrow for dinner.  Are you free?"

"Yup," I said.

"Do you want to, like, do something together tomorrow?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, sure," I smiled, "So long as it's in the afternoon.  I need to sleep in this weekend."

Tomorrow was Saturday, and Saturday had always been a recovery day for me.  I didn't sleep enough during the weekdays, and so on the weekends I crashed hard.

"Me too," he murmured, then yawned.

I laughed, "I can tell.  Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"Basically," he shrugged, "it's just work and stress and stuff.  I'm exhausted."

He sat down on the edge of the sofa behind him, not exactly an ideal resting place, and, for some strange reason, I mustered up enough confidence to sit right next to him.  We were quiet, and then he finished his tea and got up to put the cup in the sink. 

A part of me felt disappointed, even though I wasn't exactly expecting anything.  The silence made it feel like I'd done something wrong, like maybe he didn't like that I'd sat so close to him.  Despite my attempts at countering the insecurities, I couldn't help the thought.

But then, he came back, said, "You want to move onto the actual couch so one of us doesn't fall off?"

I tried to smile, nodded.  He walked past me, sat down.  I just inched over so that I was seated on the couch as I should be but so that there was still a good amount of space between us.

He looked confused, "Aren't you going to come here?"

"I--uh--" I stuttered.

He smiled an amused smile, "Come here, Hiba."

I sat down next to him, the hole that fear of rejection had burned in my gut filling with a softer, sweeter feeling I couldn't name. 

He put his arm around me, holding me close, turned his head to drop a kiss on my cheek that pleasantly surprised me.  He smelt good, and I couldn't help enjoying being this close to him, wanting it forever, and I hated how vulnerable that made me, to depend on someone.

As salaamu alaikum.  I changed Hiba's age, she is now 21 instead of 19.  Also, I feel kind of bad about this chapter, so PLEASE BOOST MY CONFIDENCE!!! 😫