I never had it easy.
From watching my parents succumb to the horrors of a car accident to craving the healing presence of the man I love-my entire life-I had navigated through this messy maze I call my life with a shard of hope in my heart.
Every da...
"Do you have any reason to feel like you need to wear it around him?"
"He can stare at me all he wants, and there's nothing I can do about it."
"I don't think all he's going to do is stare at you." Vajeeha pointed out, and at the moment, Mubaraka despised how much her sister was making sense. "Wahdan didn't meet my eyes for two days."
Mubaraka turned around, the heavy jhumkay on her ears dangling. "It's been years!"
"2 years and 2 months." Vajeeha mumbled, trying to work her way around the heels that refused to be strapped on. They were Wahdan's choice, after all.
Mubaraka rolled her eyes, and then, in a contradictory tone, exclaimed, "Exactly. I'm surprised I wasn't aware of that information considering how much it's thrown around. How much I have to hear of it every single day."
Vajeeha tossed the heels to the side, an exhausted sigh escaping her lips — this was an impossible task. She stood up from the bed and gathering the pleats of her skirt and walking up to the bride sat before the vanity, she placed both her hands on Mubaraka's shoulders and manoeuvred the girl to look her way.
"When this day is over and done with, and you're in his house, in his room, and the world around you seems to have halted, every moment of heartache and toil that it took to get you where you will be will seem minuscule, almost negligible when he's finally there with you. And you'll realize that today will just be the first of many more days, many memories to come, and you'll treasure it with a heart so open that you're going to grab your phone, startling both him and yourself, and at 2:15 in the morning, I will receive a text that says, 'Bhabhi, you were so right'."
"Wow," Mubaraka muttered. "All that just to boost your ego? I wonder where you're getting that from."
"Don't speak of my miyaan that way," Vajeeha warned, her tone teasing.
Although the happenings of her own life had encased her within themselves so perfectly the view outside had been blurred for her, it had not passed Mubaraka's notice that after the onslaught of the additional member of their family, Vajeeha had gradually started to ease into their lives, often times completing both hers and Wahdan's sentences before either of them even conceptualised them. As if she had belonged to them all this time. It warmed Mubaraka's heart in ways that always ended with fervent dua'as.
