The graveyard was silent the following night because Amani was too absorbed in her own thoughts. Rather, she was too absorbed in thoughts of her conversation with Auntie that morning. Now that she wasn't in danger of being detained, they had quickly returned to their normal conversation topics.
That morning's normal conversation topic had been none other than the boy who'd gladly walked out the moment she told him she didn't want to marry. She'd been angry at him. Along with that, Auntie had the audacity to try reasoning with Amani over her mistakes.
"My love, marriage is here unlike the marriage you are used to. Once a boy asks for your hand, he's only motivation is to inform you of his interest. You are then granted a time to make your decision while speaking to the boy. If you are not interested even after your time of speaking, you can reject him. If you are, then you decide what you want to do in the time following."
Amani wrapped her arms around her legs and pressed her lips into her knees. That wasn't what a marriage proposal was. She refused to believe there could be another definition for it. A marriage proposal came at the end of all of that and only prompted two answers: yes or no. It was not as complicated as what her aunt was describing.
"This way he is making his mother and I aware of his plans to approach you. He is not hiding behind closed doors with you, my love. He is honoring your time and identity. He is holding your honor above his own desires."
That was trash.
Absolute trash.
If he had been honoring her time and identity, he would have come to her before he went to his mother and her aunt. He would have made her aware before he made them aware. He would have put her before either of them.
Amani wasn't the one in the wrong.
He'd gone about it the wrong way and he'd made her react the way she did. Perhaps if he had allowed her more time to think, if he'd showed her a morsel of stable attention or care, she would have been flattered by the step he'd taken. But Amani didn't even he'd been thinking of her in such a way until her aunt told her.
She was justified in her anger.
She was regretting it.
"I'm not," Amani snapped at her grandmother. "There's nothing to regret. I'm not here to marry. My father would just love that, too, wouldn't he? If he sent me here to tear me away from one guy and I found another one here. He'd actually love that."
He would. He'd probably love Muhsin.
"I didn't ask you. Actually, Sity, this is a conversation between me and myself. Mind your own grave, please," she frowned.
The statement hadn't been wrong, though. Her father would love how proper, lowering-his-gaze, and everything-unlike-the-white-guy Muhsin was. It was just another reason to leave this place.
Was she leaving, though, or running away?
"OK," Amani stood up. "You really need to respect personal space, Sity. In my own mind? Really?"
Amani hated it, but her grandmother was right.
"I'm leaving," Amani raised her hand to silence the voice interrupting her thoughts as she stomped away. "I can't even have privacy in the graves, now? This is insane."
As she left the graveyard, Amani came to a sight by the water fountain that made her stop in her footsteps. Her frustration sank through her feet to be absorbed into the ground beneath her the same way every emotion seemed to sink painfully through her every time her eyes landed on the same boy. The one who'd been a fun pastime to her until heartbreak showed her how much more he'd become.
Filling his own cup with water, he lowered himself to the ground to water the growing plant beside her. The plant she'd shown him. The one he'd told her was a grapevine.
Her grapevine.
Why was he watering it?
Amani moved like a storm, her feet quick and powerful as she made her way over to him. He heard her and had only begun to rise when she snatched the cup from his hand, tossing it to the ground in the middle of the dark street. Muhsin's eyes followed the brown cup as it bounced on the dirt, spilling the water he'd just filled across the soil.
"What do you think you're doing?" She snapped, feeling her body grow warm with the diffusing heat of her fiery rage.
He didn't meet her gaze, as usual. "I was only watering-."
"You don't get to water this plant. This is my plant."
Muhsin's expression didn't change. He didn't frown or furrow his eyebrows or even tilt his head. He just continued looking down. "I didn't realize it would upset you," he spoke softly.
Amani scoffed. "Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the first time." She crossed her arms and waited for him to leave. He'd taken himself so quickly out of her life. He had no right meddling about in the places that mattered to her. It was cruel.
He was being cruel.
"I apologize," he lowered his head so his hair fell over his eyes the same way he always did to alienate himself from those around him. To push others back. They weren't worth enough to even see his eyes.
She watched him walk over to pick up the cup, dusting it off. He was wiping his thumb over its base when he spoke again. "I heard you were leaving," he whispered, like he wasn't even sure whether it was something he could say.
She wasn't. Not yet, anyway. But Amani wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing she would still be placed under the torture of walking his streets any longer. "What does that have to do with you?"
The corners of Muhsin's lips twitched but Amani couldn't see if he was smiling or snarling. It was Muhsin, she knew it could never be the second one. The dim light didn't mask his sigh the same way it masked his expression. He continued watching the cup for a moment longer as if he didn't recognize his own property in the dark.
Then Muhsin did something so exactly himself that filled Amani with the same heartbroken frustration he'd been making her feel on the daily since their conversation in the bakery. He turned around and began walking back home, not uttering a single word in return.
Amani's exasperation reached its peak and she was blinded by emotion for a moment. A moment that, once she recovered from, she saw Muhsin showered with dirt a few feet in front of her. It filled his hair, stained his neck, and clung to his beige shirt. He'd paused in his path away from her, as shocked as she was.
But definitely not as angry as she was.
"You know what I hate about you, Muhsin?" Amani trudged around him, fueled by whatever negative emotion she felt in the moment. When she saw Muhsin, there were so many of them caught in the blend, she couldn't possibly decipher which took control now.
His expression still looked like he was processing the fact that she'd just showered him with grime.
Amani didn't care. "You don't care."
His gaze carefully slipped up to meet hers.
"Everyone says you're great. Everybody loves Muhsin because Muhsin is so respectful and polite, but it's because you don't care. You're not respectful, you can't be bothered enough to be disrespectful. You're just... you don't care about anything, about anyone!"
He hardly blinked, looking deep into her soul. If she wasn't drowning in her rampage, she might have been affected. "Is that what you think?" He asked.
She shook her head. "It's what I know. This is the way you are. It's why you never look at anybody, never give anybody the time of day, never bother at all. That's how you function. Like nobody else matters to you because nobody else does. How-how am I supposed to agree to a marriage proposal from a guy I don't matter to? Someone who doesn't care about me?"
Muhsin remained silent.
Amani hated it. She hated when he stayed silent. She hated when it felt like he had nothing to say. It no longer seemed cute, it seemed like he didn't think she was worth enough words.
"I'm right," she nodded, feeling her bitterness blur with misery. "Aren't I? You never actually wanted to marry me. I was just there. The foreigner who's convenient for you. That was it?"
"Convenient?" He repeated like he didn't understand.
Amani's words left as a surrendering breath. "I was there." She avoided his gaze, knowing the pain of the thought would get to her if she continued looking at him. Her feet shifted a step back.
Muhsin took that step forward. "You think you were convenient for me?" He asked. "The girl I know nothing about. The one whose family isn't even here for me to know. The girl who can leave town to some country across the ocean at any moment. And now, the one the occupation is hunting down. In what world could you believe that to be convenient for me?"
She shook her head. "Just tell the truth."
"If I wanted convenient, I would have married the first girl to offer herself to me."
"Then why did you propose to me?" She exclaimed.
"Because I want you!" He declared. Amani lifted her gaze to his, doubting the integrity of his words until she saw his expression. Desperate. "Why would I propose to you, Amani, if not for you?"
She looked between his eyes. "Then why didn't you tell me that?"
For the first time since she'd met him, his features allowed Amani to identify the deeper emotion hidden past. When he looked at her, she saw a pained longing through him. It was as if he let himself come down to her level for a moment so she could truly see the human within him. "You said you did not want to marry. That was your answer," he stated. "There was no reason for me to give after that."
"But I was so angry at you for all of it. For not fighting for me."
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile he didn't quite allow to reach his lips. "Who would I have fought? I could not fight you."
Nothing could keep her from smiling after that. Not when his gentle tone was like honey to her ears. Not when his eyes were looking at her like he was ready for every other emotion she would have thrown at him. Amani, with her wide grin, clasped her hands behind her back and peered up at him. "Maybe you should propose to me again then? Or ask me to reconsider my response."
He nearly smiled but didn't quite. It made her heart skip. "Will I receive a different answer?"
"I don't know, will you?" Amani pouted and lifted her arms in an exaggerated shrug. Every movement of hers felt light under his gaze. "You'll just have to ask and see."
Muhsin narrowed his eyes at her. "OK. You should know that I have never proposed to anybody before, much less asked them to reconsider after receiving such a painful rejection."
"Liar! You seemed fine."
"I do what I must do."
Amani imagined that was what he'd say, but it didn't make her happy. Whatever the emotion the thought of his behavior stirred in her, it weighed her lips down and drew unhappy dimples between her brows. "Is that why you were going to walk away from me just then? And why you've been ignoring me?"
With his hands behind his back, Muhsin lifted his head to nod but paused at her second question. "It is why I was going to walk away, yes, but not why I haven't been speaking to you."
She dropped her head curiously to the side. "Why then?"
"Because my proposal insulted you, I understood that, and-"
"And my rejection insulted you?"
He shook his head. "...and you were no longer mine to look at."
Amani's heart listened to the words then bounced back with its hand on its chest, flabbergasted. Once it had realized the words spoken to it, it rolled in on itself and flipped with happiness. "No longer?" She asked, but the question only left her lips as a weak whisper.
Muhsin's smile slipped away when the realization of what he'd said slipped into place in his mind. His question spoke itself in words and in the inquisitive perk of his eyebrow. "Hm?" He hummed.
Amani's grin grew to such a width, she was sure it would reach ears and she would fade away so only her crescent smile would remain in the night. "You're looking at me right now."
"Am I?" He asked.
"Muhsin, you know what that means, right?"
He turned his gaze over her head and walked past her. "Yalla, let me walk you home. It's getting too late to be standing in the streets like this." Amani rolled her eyes at him as he lifted his hand to brush the dust from his hair, but enthusiastically followed the boy. "You need to be more careful. The Occupational Forces are after you now and they'll jump at the first chance."
Amani shook her head. Her steps felt lighter when he led them. "How can I be worried when your sister acts as my guardian angel? She's iconic, mashallah, don't you think?"
"That is not how I'd describe Fayza."
"The Occupational Forces are practically terrified of her."
Muhsin didn't agree. "If you are terrified of something, you stay away from it. You do not intimidate it. Their definition of fear is unlike ours. It points rifles and bombs at my sister and I do not intend to allow another member of my family to be killed by their fear."
Amani shrunk back.
Fair point.
When they arrived at her house, she stepped in front of Muhsin and squinted her eyes to see his shadowed features. His gaze was low, sweeping over the ground beneath them like he'd never seen such leveled flooring before. For some reason, Amani no longer found his lack of eye contact irritating. "So, what happens now?" She asked. "Are you going to propose to me again?"
He took a breath. "That is what you asked me to do, is it not?"
"Yes, but will you actually do it?"
"I do what I must, Amani."
"You keep saying that," she narrowed her eyes at Muhsin. She'd heard it twice in their single conversation and Amani didn't like the idea that there might come a moment when what he needed to do could be something that hurt her. A second time. "It's becoming ominous," she mumbled to herself.
Muhsin opened the door because she never locked it after herself. "It's not intended to be. I'll see you around, foreigner who believes herself to be convenient for me. I need to wash the dirt from my clothes before the prayer."
She glared at him. "You never sleep?"
He shook his head and clicked his tongue in a gesture that he definitely didn't intend to appear as flirty as it was. Amani smiled. She couldn't keep herself from watching Muhsin walk back the way they'd come, his head lifting to admire the stars above them.
She pondered to herself in silence as he reached the end of the street. It wouldn't be entirely bad to marry someone like him.
It wouldn't be bad at all.
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Am I the one who has something wrong with me or was the part where she threw dirt at him as worthy of obsessing over as I did because, guys, I was going crazy😭😭😭