A Muslim's Romantic Journey

Chapter 27.

Safia’s POV

When my exams were over, it felt like a huge burden had been removed from my shoulders. Yusuf helped me a lot. He was like a personal tutor. He helped me with all the things I struggled on in Arabic. If I passed with good grades, I owed it to him.

It had been two months since we found out about his arthritis. He was coping a lot better. He was taking medication and he was going for physiotherapy. Sometimes he got a little annoyed and upset, but I made sure not to get hurt or offended with his attitude towards me. I was being as empathetic as I could. He had to always be cautious and I knew a lot of the time, he didn’t let me know if he was in pain. He pretended to be fine when he wasn’t.

We made little jokes about his ankle to lighten up his feelings towards his condition. Yusuf had one year left of his plumbing course and Maryam kept saying “You’re limping your way to success.” Yusuf rolled his eyes and laughed it off. He had his own way of getting back at her for the teasing. Summer had officially started and I always made sure there were ice cubes in the freezer. Yusuf would take a couple and drop them into the back of Maryam’s top. Then Maryam would dance around and shake it out, making Yusuf double over with laughter.

It was right after my exams finished, when I officially moved in with Yusuf and his family. It didn’t feel so strange because I was spending most of my days off there anyway. I went to see my family at least once a week. I was a little sad when moving, but Yusuf was there for me. He made it all better.

We had also talked about our little holiday. The honeymoon in Turkey used up a lot of our money. I had learnt Yusuf was also saving up for Hajj. He was keen in saving for the future, even if he only saved a little bit for everything. Every payday, he would divide his money into small portions and write down how much money he put into everything. He had a little diary with a list of things. I saw ‘wedding’ which had been crossed out. He was wise with money although he didn’t earn a lot. It was something I admired about him. Yusuf told me about his fears of how he would perform Hajj with his arthritic ankle but I comforted him by saying Allah would give him strength. Learning from Yusuf, I had started saving too. Instead of spending all my money on food, I started saving and contributed it towards the trip we planned of one week in Morocco, using up all of Yusuf’s days off from work.  I was super excited.

It wasn’t long before Amy was back. I’d found out the reason for her return was her mum’s deteriorating health. I’d visited her mum a few times and it was always so lovely to meet her. Although she wasn’t very happy with Amy converting to Islam, she was more accepting than the rest of her family. Eventually her dad came around and accepted it but she had told me he had later stopped talking to her. Her sister and her brother in law weren’t very keen on it either.

Hamza and I collected Amy from the airport since none of her family could, or wanted to, get her. As soon as we saw each other, we ran in full speed and gave each other a huge bear hug in the middle of the arrivals section of the airport. I was so happy to see her! We kept blabbering on about everything and anything. Hamza took Amy’s luggage for her and dragged it to the car like a gentleman because that’s what I told him he had to do earlier. I saw the way Amy and Hamza looked at each other. It was one glance but I could feel some sparks between them. I had made up my mind; I was going to set Hamza and Amy up. We dropped Amy straight to her mother’s house and she promised she would visit the following week.

I got Amy to come for a visit at my parents’ house because Hamza was there. Also, it felt more comfortable to sit and chat with her there. I didn’t mind Yusuf’s/my house, but it just wasn’t as homely and warm as my parents’ house.