Muhsin shaved that morning. He spread the cream over his jawline, lower cheeks, and upper neck with the thick brush. The straight edge blade slid smoothly over his skin. The cream rolled with it to reveal the clear skin beneath. He began at his cheeks and finished at the center of his neck.
He patted the aftershave into his skin once he'd finished.
Then he moved to his bedroom to find Ezzo snoring over the edge of his bed. Muhsin picked the sleeping boy up and adjusted him over the pillow. He fixed the blanket over his chest then lowered the fan's strength so it didn't blow cool air over him.
He chose his white thobe for the wedding. It slid easily over his head and fell to his feet once he'd put his arms through. Muhsin clasped the cuffs and fastened the three buttons rising to his neck. He ran his hands over its front. The iron's warmth remained attached to its material. He made sure he'd unplugged the hot device.
A small box rested in its pocket. It was opposite of the key.
Muhsin ruffled the remaining dampness from his hair. Then he ran the comb through both sides at angle away from his face. The strands that had rested over his eyes fell near his temples to reveal his face. The white bandage over the fresh stitches above his left eyebrow called attention to itself once it no longer hid behind his hair.
"My love, you are dressed already? Your sister still has not finished her shower." His mother entered.
He placed the comb down and turned to her. "I should check on the bakery before the wedding. We can't leave its door closed or the air will become stale and the dough will expire."
She pressed her lips into a thin line. "Why do you not allow yourself even one day off? We have a wedding today."
"I'm not opening the bakery, only checking on it." Muhsin closed the outer windows to dim the lighting of the room.
His mother noticed. "You did not sleep last night."
"I slept."
"For how long? An hour? Two?"
"Alhamdullilah, I feel well rested."
She repeated his praise. "If the nightmares have returned, we can go see the Sheikh again, my love. You slept well after we saw him last time, didn't you? I can call him tomorrow."
Muhsin shook his head and walked toward his mother. "There have been no nightmares. You know I would tell you if they returned. Don't worry." He held the back of her head and pressed a kiss to her forehead on his way out.
"That is why I am worried. Because I know you would not tell me if they did return. Don't forget you are my son, after all. I can read you better than you read yourself."
He smiled as he opened the door. "I do not doubt it."
"We will see you at the wedding in one hour!" She called after him as he made his way down the stairs of the building.
The sun was at its brightest before it set. Muhsin lowered his gaze to the floor when he stepped into its light. He only saw the feet of those maneuvering out of his way on his way to the bakery only a few feet from the gate of the house he'd just left.
The key in his pocket unlocked the door. All the voices and footsteps in the street drowned out the peace inside the bakery. It returned once the door fell to a close. Muhsin occupied himself checking the temperatures of the storage units and taking the inventory that his sister should have yesterday. Inventory was never taken if it was her turn to take it.
He'd come to expect that he'd have to do it.
Anything else would be a shock.
He was in the back when the door opened and its bell jingled.
"The bakery is not open today." He raised his voice just enough to know it would carry to the front then resumed counting. The silence that returned allowed him to incorrectly assume whoever had entered had left. But that was proved wrong when a soft voice called out.
"Muhsin?"
His numbers fled from his mind at the voice. He'd heard it before—in the street—but it hadn't been remarkable enough to remember who it belonged to. All he could tell was the gender of the girl who'd closed the door after herself.
He kept the clipboard in his arm when he stepped out. It was a good place to rest his eyes. "How can I help you?"
"Muhsin."
She said his name again.
He didn't like it.
"It's me. Yasmeen."
The name did not call upon a face in his mind. Muhsin was left with another question that he would not ask. He did not need to know so he simply would not.
A loud laugh came from the street. It was muffled. That was when he realized the door had been closed. Muhsin kept his gaze low as he stepped around the customer to prop it open. He remained beside it once it allowed the sounds of the street in. If the voices outside entered the bakery then the voices of the bakery were heard outside.
"I apologize." He bowed his head. "But this is not proper."
"I need to tell you something."
He stepped aside. "I'm quite busy."
"It's about Amani."
Amani.
He nearly looked up at the mention of her name. Muhsin pressed the point of his pen into the paper directly beneath the date instead. They should not be talking. But he stayed silent.
"I heard you're thinking of proposing to her—the foreigner." The girl stepped toward him and lowered her voice. The pen began tracing over the Arabic numbers he'd neatly written down. "I can't let you do that, Muhsin. You should marry someone better than her."
Oh.
This was Abu Rayan's daughter.
"It is not wise to speak ill of people you do not know."
He saw her nod in the corner of his vision. "I know. I should not have done what I did before. I was mistaken about what I saw, but Muhsin." She took another step toward him. Muhsin avoided her when he returned back to the counter. He stepped behind the register so she could not follow him there. "There are things you don't know about her. She is not someone for you to marry."
"Like I said, I'm busy."
"She's been with men before. Not in the graveyard like I thought, but in the country she came from. She confessed it to me when she first arrived here. I didn't want to tell anybody but, when I heard of your plans, I knew I needed to tell you. I couldn't let you be tricked by someone like her. It would not be fair."
He shook his head. It should be a lie. Another rumor.
But an image drew itself into his mind that made him hesitate. The way Amani had looked at him when they spoke about the reason she'd been sent here was different. The way she'd held back information. She would have told him something like that.
The girl gasped like the words hurt her. "Amani, she does not devote herself to one person. She sees relationships like these as nothing more than fun. That's the reason she began speaking to you at all, because you were a fun pasttime. I'm sorry but... I heard her say it. You can't propose to her, Muhsin."
He placed the clipboard down and closed his eyes. He hated the way his name sounded from her. "The bakery is closed. You have no business here."
"Girls like her do not want to marry. I'm not sure what lies she has told you but I care about you. That is why I came here to tell you this before you made a mistake like that."
"Get out."
She continued as if he hadn't spoke at all. "I only want to protect you from her, Muhsin. She's not-."
His palm stung from the force of its contact with the counter. The wave of shock it sent around the bakery drowned out the girl's voice. But he realized that she'd gone quiet when it passed. "I said, get out."
He heard her whimper before racing out.
Farouq's head appeared in the large window. He saw the girl run out of the door and turned to see Muhsin inside. A question asked itself on his features.
Muhsin sighed. "Astaghfirullah."
"What happened?" Farouq stepped in.
He felt the pounding of his beating heart in his temples and gripped his head in his fingers. His stitches ached. "Nothing," he whispered. Muhsin sat on the chair behind him.
"Are you still bleeding?"
It was the first of many questions he would receive that day. Many curious glances that tried to pretend they were not eyeing his bandage or cooing at his colorless skin. Many worried accents lifting the ends of every conversation he had on his way to the wedding. They were only the first of more that would come once he stood between the crowd of attendees.
He would stand in the back.
His head hurt.
The blaring music was loud so he felt every beat become trapped in his skull and reverberate against his brain. It bounced back and forth before joining with the next beat of pulsing music. He only saw enough of the bride's arrival to know the color of her dress. The dancing and changing lights burned holes in his pupils. Muhsin lowered his gaze onto the floor and closed his eyes. Farouq had been sitting beside him but was gone when Muhsin finally turned to him.
He squinted against the bright flashing lights to scan the decorated field in front of him for his cousin, mother, or siblings. He would leave. His head hurt.
Muhsin found none of them.
He found one familiar face near the stage but it did not belong to any of his family members. It belonged to a girl whose wide smile was brighter than the lights that blinded him. She held her cousin's hands and twirled to the music. His heart caught in his chest at the sight of her happiness. It quieted the screaming music and outshined the painful flashes. He should not have been looking at her.
Was it true?
Was he only a challenge to her?
Perhaps that was why she'd approached him the way she did. When she spoke like she knew exactly what to say. When she looked at him in a way so he'd think there was nobody else she wanted to look at other than him.
There was nobody else he wanted to look at other than her.
Was it all a game?
Her eyes caught on his when she twirled again. It seemed like her excited smile had been directed at him for a moment. But it began to slip and her dancing came to a slow stop. He saw something different build into her features. It was the same expression she'd worn after rejecting him in the bakery the first time. Just before he'd walked out.
It did not make sense to him.
How could she allow herself to look at him like that if she only approached him as a challenge? How could a person pretend so well?
Muhsin flinched when someone shouted in the microphone. He forced his head down and left through the entryway the bride had arrived through. He pressed his hands into his ears until the music faded in the distance. His family was still at the wedding so he needed to remain somewhere near.
The olive garden was only a few acres of land from the party. He could steal hear the faint echo of music and cheers in the distance when he arrived in front of the single light of the horse's stable.
Muhsin took a seat on the bench beneath its window.
He pressed his head back against the wall and groaned. The effects of the pain medication had worn off faster than he'd expected. The only thing in his pockets was the bakery's key.
He'd forgotten to lock its door.
One more thing to worry about.
A twig snapped a few feet away. Muhsin turned toward the sound just as she stepped into the light of the orange lamp. "What's wrong?" Amani asked. She picked at her nails.
He looked away from her. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you. I saw you leave."
"You walked alone all this way?"
"Do you feel sick?"
"It's dangerous."
"Are your stitches hurting?"
"Go back to your cousin's wedding, Amani."
"No." She moved closer to him so he saw more than just her blurred silhouette in the dark night. He would not have seen her at all were it not for the light hanging over them. "Tell me what's wrong. Are you in pain? You took your medicine today, right?"
Muhsin dropped his head back again to peer up at the black sky. His lips parted in a gasp at the hot pain stinging his temple. He breathed a weak laugh. Nothing more could go wrong. "Why did you follow me here, Amani?" He motioned to the mud covering her sandals and dirtying her feet. "What do you want from me?"
Her eyebrows twitched in a saddened expression. But she wasn't sad. "What do I want from you?" She repeated. "I want to make sure you're okay, Muhsin. You don't look good. I'm worried."
His gaze moved onto the shadow of the large tree in front of him. "You're worried?" He asked.
"Yes, I am."
Muhsin laughed. She was spinning a tornado within him without even knowing. He wanted her to be worried but didn't believe she was. She'd said she was but he didn't trust her words because there was a chance they were false. She had given him what he thought he wanted but he was no longer sure now that he heard her speak it.
Amani moved closer to him. Her sandals squelched in the mud beneath them. "What... why are you laughing?"
"Should I believe you?" He asked. "Or should I not?"
He could feel her confusion growing. So was his. "Muhsin."
His entire body reacted to his name in her voice but the sweetness was painful in this moment. Muhsin reached forward to bring his head into his hands then decided against it. She was closer than he'd realized when he stood. Only a few steps separated them. Two of his. Maybe three of hers. "Please don't...."
Don't what?
Even he did not know what it was she was doing to him. All he knew was how he loved and cowered away from it all at once.
"You don't trust me?" She asked.
The loose dirt shifted beneath him when he turned to face her. He knew his expression betrayed him. He was the best at controlling his features in front of others. Years of practice had made him an expert. Why did he struggle so much before her? Why did she make easy things unnecessarily hard on him?
He read the longing in her eyes then wondered if he was only seeing what he so desperately searched for. "Should I?"
"What's wrong, Muhsin?"
Everything.
Nothing.
It was another thing he didn't know. "Amani." He began his question. The answer was scarier than the leering blackness of the night around them. "Do you want to marry me?"
Something shifted in her gaze. Anybody could have easily seen the flicker of hesitation in her eyes. Why was she so hesitant with him? Did she not know he'd stripped himself bare to her the moment he'd allowed their eyes to meet? That the fire she saw in his gaze was fueled by a never-ending pit of dread that she'd turn away from him again.
Amani's attention shifted between his and the night that had brought her to him. "Well, I don't- it's complicated, isn't it?"
Hardly.
He reached into his pocket for the small leather box. "I bought this." Amani glanced down at the ring. She tensed. "I thought we were on the same page. I thought you wanted me the way I wanted you. I thought it was perfect. You were...."
Her eyes were filled with fear when she turned to his gaze.
She wordlessly begged him not to do this.
But he needed to. He would not chase someone who would never belong to him. He would not hurt either of them anymore. This was the push Amani needed. She would decide whether it brought her closer to him or forced her away. Muhsin would accept it. He would respectfully bow his head to her decision as he'd done before.
His head hurt.
His chest felt tight.
"Forget any other excuses and just tell me, please," he met her eyes. "Do you want to marry me? Do you actually want to?"
She took a step back.
He wanted to reach for her.
To steady her so she'd stand firm in her decision.
Her voice quivered. "Muhsin."
"Tell me the truth, Amani. Tell me that you began speaking to me because you had nothing better to do and that you never meant for it to go this far. That your intentions were pure. Spare me any more of this feeling. I feel like I'm drowning. My heart's burning. Please... be honest. If I asked you to wear this ring right now, would you?"
The light above them reflected orange in her tears. "I don't know what to say. I'm scared."
Muhsin's eyes followed the tear's path before she wiped it away with the back of her hand. "Of me?" He whispered.
She shook her head. "I don't even know who you are."
He took a single step back.
The box snapped to a close.
"I didn't even know you existed until a few weeks ago," Amani continued. She spoke quickly as if racing. "I came here and I thought my life was put on pause until I returned. There was nothing here. Nothing for me to exist here for. Nothing worth it. All I wanted to do was go back to my family, but then you...."
Muhsin watched her. He waited.
"And you were just handsome at first. That's all I let myself see in you. I didn't even want to know your name because it wouldn't be worth it," she shook her head. "I knew who you were before I knew you. Then I knew some things about you but not enough to think of you as anything other than Bread Boy."
She fiddled with her dress. "But Bread Boy became Muhsin and Muhsin became a feeling in my chest. Not butterflies. Something whole and comfortable. You became whole and comfortable."
He waited.
He didn't know what for.
Amani picked at her nails. "I didn't come here to meet someone and get engaged and marry. Others have proposed but I told them no. No questions asked. I didn't want them." She spun to face him. "Bas I want you. That's what's scary. How much my life before you doesn't matter now that you're here."
Muhsin glanced down at the box between his fingers. He should have waited longer but he couldn't. "Amani-."
"So I'll marry you."
His eyes lifted to hers with a speed that traveled down his neck. The worries that echoed within Muhsin's mind fell silent. He searched her expression for the hesitation he'd seen on her before. It was gone.
Amani's expression was determined. Her lips were pursed. Her eyebrows were lowered in focus. She no longer fiddled with her fingers. She'd gathered her fingers into her palms to seal them firmly.
She'd made her decision. She'd taken the step toward him.
Muhsin's thoughts grew quiet as he admired the girl standing before him. He no longer had to watch her through a veil of insecurity because her answer had been spoken clearly. Her intentions had proven themselves to be as he'd hoped. He hardly noticed the smile growing on his lips because she'd stolen all his focus.
"Well, give it to me!" Amani exclaimed.
He blinked at her. "Give it...?"
"The ring. Why did you put it away?"
"I can't."
"You can't?" She repeated.
Muhsin shook the distraction from his mind to think clearly. "I haven't asked your uncle for permission to ask for your hand. I haven't told anybody. They need to be there. I didn't... I forgot."
She was nearly gawking at him when he turned back to her. Muhsin's features contorted in regret. He had shown her the ring in the middle of the olive garden's soaked dirt in the darkness of the night as the music of her cousin's wedding echoed in faintly in the distance.
How had he allowed himself to be so thoughtless?
Amani laughed. "You're telling me you just asked me to marry you and you didn't even tell your mother? You didn't get anybody's permission to do what you just did?" She wheezed. He watched the way she grasped her stomach and bent forward to laugh.
"Is it that funny?" Muhsin challenged.
She shook her head and gasped. "It's... unexpected. You, the Muhsin Awad, did something like this without thinking about it. It's not even something small like closing the bakery. You just impulsively asked me to marry you." Amani's eyes widened in shock at the realization and she was silent for a moment. Then she laughed again.
He cursed himself.
"I don't... I apologize. Amani, I don't know why I did that. This wasn't my intention. It should have been proper."
"Oh, boo!" She frowned at him. He liked the way she looked when she pouted like that. He looked away. "Do you think maybe you did it because you like me, Muhsin?"
He turned back to her. "What?"
Amani glowered at him. He saw the smile building beneath her pretend expression. "You like me. That's why you asked me to marry you all of a sudden. I overload your emotions so much that you make impulsive decisions when you're with me, right?"
He would have turned her down had he not been afraid it would chase the bright smile off her lips. "Is that what you think?"
"It's what I know. You like me just like I like you, don't you?"
Muhsin narrowed his eyes at her and took a deep breath. She pretended like she wasn't anxiously awaiting his response. But he saw the way she picked at her fingernails. He found it nearly impossible to take his eyes off her. "Right."
Amani beamed. The corners of his lips rose at the sight of her.
No, he'd been wrong.
It was impossible to look away from her.
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When I tell you, I was supposed to just be revising this chapter, skimming through real quick before I uploaded it but I got to the bakery part and couldn't stop myself from reading all the way to the end with DEDICATION. Mashallah😭