A Muslim's Romantic Journey

Chapter 42.

Safia’s POV

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine! You make my happy!” I sang making my voice as high pitched as I could. “When skies are grey!”

“Safia are you singing?" Yusuf asked from the living room/kitchen. I paused half way through vacuuming the bedroom.

“You can hear me?”

“You’re singing at the top of your lungs, of course I can hear you.” Well that was embarrassing. I didn’t think I was that loud. I was pretty sure the sound of the vacuum muffled my voice but I guess not. I turned the vacuum off and put it to the side. “Were you singing about me?” Yusuf asked standing at the door.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He walked up to me and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me so he could kiss my forehead. “Found some time in your busy schedule for me then?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Our plan of spending Saturdays together was not really going to plan. He was out looking for work and I convinced my manager to let me work on weekends. That meant I could work on Wednesdays and Saturdays only. University was going to start soon so there was no point in getting another job. So knowing we couldn’t spend Saturdays together, he should have at least tried to make some time for me during week days. But he’d come home from work or training and barely talk. He hadn’t spoken to me properly the whole week and now, Sunday evening he was pretending everything was alright.

“Nothing.” I replied.

“Okay.” No! How many times does a man need to be told, that a girl does not mean what she says! He needed to at least try and get it out of me. Gosh being a girl was hard. I was going to sit and sulk for the rest of the evening, hoping that he’d see something was wrong and ask me about it.

It took him a whole hour of me sulking to realize that I was in a bad mood.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” What that really meant was: you not noticing that I’m in a bad mood because I’m desperate for your attention.

“There’s clearly something wrong. If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine.” What? No, it’s not fine. I sighed and didn’t reply. But when I looked at his face again, I felt so guilty. I was being such a brat that I didn’t notice how worn out and tired Yusuf looked. His head was down as he read the book in his lap. I went super close to his face and started analyzing him. He moved back and stared as if I was some strange creature. I was acting like one. “What?”

“Why are you always frowning?” I asked, frowning back at him. His skin was also paler than usual and a little dry. He also seemed to be getting wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. Did men in their early 20s even get wrinkles? “You’ve given yourself frown lines.” I didn’t want to say anything about the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes. They were sort of weirdly attractive.

“Have you given me a reason not to frown?”

“So you’re saying this is my fault? What did I do to make you frown?” I asked annoyed.

“You’ve been moody for the past hour.”

“You’ve been frowning for the past month.” I retorted.

“You know I’m a little stressed. You’re not making me feel better.”

“How? What did I do?” I knew he was stressed about our living standards. He’d gotten annoyed yesterday at the mildew growing on the walls but why was he taking that out on me? “I’ve not complained about anything once so why am I the bad guy here?”