Healing

13.

But I can't stop. I grab my purse and I start walking towards the door.

That's when I hear it. The breaking of glass and the audible sound of Omar swearing.

It's not your problem to fix and he's old enough to clean himself up. Keep walking ahead.

And so I do, but when I reach the door something in me screams to turn around. It wasn't like me to leave someone who could possibly be hurt.

I turn back around and jog to his place behind the counter. There were glass shards all around him, but he seemed oblivious to this as he was trying desperately to stop the bleeding of his arm.

I don't know what compelled me too, maybe it was the look on his face, but I turned on the faucet and grabbed a towel.

"Come up to the sink so the blood doesn't get all over the floor," I say softly.

He looks up, as if he had just noticed my presence, and much to my surprise he obliged without any retorts.

Taking his hand and putting it under the lukewarm water to clean it out showed that there were still some smaller shards of glass in his wounds. I turned to him to tell him as much only to meet him with closed eyes, as if looking at the blood scared him.

Poor guy.

"I'm going to go grab the emergency kit," I say, making sure to keep my voice calm and leveled.

He nods. I get the tweezers out of it and tell him that I'm going to take out some smaller shards of glass that are still in his arm. I make sure to put on gloves as well so that no blood can get on me.

And no skin contact can occur.

"It's only going to hurt for a minute. And then I'll start applying ointment and get to bandaging it. And you can close your eyes the whole time so you don't have to see the blood," I add on, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable.

He nods again and turns his head away.

"I'm going to start now," I say before I slowly take out the first shard.

He hisses slightly, and his arms flex.

I take out the next one, this time his only reaction is heavy breathing.

"Ok, this is the last one. There'll be no more blood after we bandage it," I murmur as I take it out and place it on the towel.

I place his hand underneath the water again, dry it, and get to bandaging.

"It's not that I'm scared of blood," I hear him say.

I look up, surprised he's talking, but his eyes are still closed. So I go back to work as he talks.

"When I was 7 my mom got into a really bad car accident and I was with her when it happened. And...oh God Cyra if you had been able to see it," his voice trembles. "There was just blood all around her. It was everywhere. On the car seat, the windows, my hands. I tried shaking her, screaming for her to wake up. But by the time the ambulance made it, it was already too late."

My hands are still now, unable to move. My mouth, unknowing of what to say.

"Today makes the 11th year of," he stops, unable to go on. His free hand goes to wipe his face.

He's crying.

And for some reason that was what I needed to be able to function again. My hands itched to wipe the tear away, so I busy them with the bandaging as I say, "You don't have to talk about it."

"I know, but I think she would have liked you," he responds with a smile, although his face is riddled with dry tears, as he eyes his now bandaged hand. "You hold a lot of the principles that she did. She was really caring of other people, even if they weren't the best, and she always looked at every situation in life through an Islamic lens."

I feel heat slowly warming up my cheeks again, this time in a good way. I awkwardly mumbled a thank you, my head bowed downward as I suddenly felt self conscious.

He chuckles to which my head shoots back up.

"What," I say as I eye him. His brown eyes glowed in the dimmed lights. He looked-

Lower your gaze girl.

I internally sigh as I bring my eyes back to the floor, which I seem to be doing a lot today, as he gives his response.

"I wouldn't have expected you to be shy when given a compliment."

"What do I look like to you, an evil lady who only likes torturing people?" I respond as I turn away from him only to be met with the mess on the floor which I had somehow forgotten about.

"Sort of." I turn back around to face him to give a retort, but he interjects. "Joking. Well, at least most of the time," he says looking at his hand.

I think for a moment before grabbing a dustpan and broom.

"How about you freshen yourself up and get out of that bloody apron while I clean up here."

"Didn't you say you had something to do?" he says as he watches me pick up the larger shards of glass.

"It doesn't matter. I mean, it wasn't that special anyway. I can finish up my shift here and close up. Do you think you would feel better if you hung out with Hasan or do you want to be alone?" I say not wanting him to feel like he had caused me to miss anything. Which he really hadn't.

"I'll think about it." He nods again and side steps to go the bathroom.

I sigh as I clean up. He definitely looked a lot more attractive than he had on any other day and his voice and personalty genuinely seemed enticing.

What a simp this man has made of me. I was used to lowering my gaze and ignoring anyone who I deemed as someone my nafs would try to coerce me into committing haram with.

And wasn't I mad at him a few moments ago?

I mentally slapped myself for the umpteenth time.

The love that I was feeling now wasn't the kind of love that they showed in the movies or in the books. It wasn't world changing or heart stopping. Instead, it felt like something had enveloped me in a cover of softness. Like I was constantly in a state of comfort. Was this it?

Here I was with a muscular, very good looking, male in the other room. Who had just opened up to me about his past.

The people at the time of the Prophet ﷺ had interactions with people of the other gender all the time.

But it was dignified.

And was what was happening now dignified?

Not in the slightest.

At least, not on my part. Maybe not in my actions but the seed of attraction had already been planted in my head and had already made its way to my eyes. It was only a matter of time before something else, something bigger, happened.

I would talk to my mom about him once I got home.

Nothing haram would happen & by الله I would make sure of it.

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I loved writing this chapter. Another bit of info you didn't know but whatever.

Have you learned anything new in islamic knowledge from this book thus far?

word count: 1,747

Date Posted: 02/16/2022