When she told Reema of the news, her cousin's glow powered into a blinding illumination and she raced around her new house in excitement. "My baby cousin is going to marry Muhsin? Muhsin is going to marry my baby cousin?" Reema squealed. "Say wallah. Amani, I can't believe this. I'm so excited I might die. My heart," she gripped her chest and dropped onto the pink couches.
Amani laughed. "Calm down. For all you know, you could be pregnant already," she teased the girl.
But Reema seemed happy even through her words. "God willing, I might! Then I would have two times the good news. Tell me again, he had already bought the ring for you? How did it look?"
"How the ring looked is not important."
"Of course, to you it wouldn't. You're already head over heels for this man, aren't you? I told you. The moment you even considered his handsomeness, I knew this was going to happen. Not so far as an engagement but I knew you would develop feelings for him! Nobody can get close to Muhsin and not fall helplessly in love with him." She threw her head back and stretched her body over the sofa.
Amani pushed Reema's foot away from her. "He's the one that proposed to me, you know."
She shot up. "So you're saying he's the one who has fallen hopelessly in love with you? Oh, that's so romantic, I want to scream with happiness and vomit at the same time!"
"Relax, I hardly think Muhsin's in love with me, Reema."
"Why not?"
Amani snorted at the absurdity of the thought. Muhsin, the boy who had never even touched her, could be in love with her? "Well, because that would be crazy. You can't fall in love with someone so quickly," she reasoned.
Reema narrowed her eyes at the girl. "What if it wasn't?"
"What?"
"You know, the Realm of Souls."
Amani blinked. "The realm... of souls?" She repeated slowly.
Reema nodded excitedly and leaned closer to Amani, the sparkle in her eyes warning of the explanation to come.
"It's said that, before we were born, our souls lived in the Realm of Souls. While we were there, we met our soulmates but became separated once we arrived in the physical world. That's why your heart feels at ease around certain people because you knew their souls in that realm. What if Muhsin is your soulmate and you guys met in the realm before finding each other here? That's why you fell into each other so quickly and comfortably. Because your souls recognize one another!" She exclaimed.
Amani raised her eyebrow at her cousin. "I've never heard of that before. Are you sure it's an actual thing?"
Reema punched her shoulder. "Of course it is. I know more than you. You were uneducated about nearly everything before you came here. The Realm of Souls is a real place. Once we die, we wait there until our time of judgement."
She laughed. "I haven't heard anything about this."
"Ask Muhsin. He'll explain it better to you."
"I'm not going to ask Muhsin."
"Why? He's your future husband, after all."
"Oh, be quiet," Amani scoffed.
"You can go to him with anything."
Then Amani remembered the dream she'd had the previous night. She paused to consider whether she should speak of it or keep silent, but Reema's curious eyes tugged the words from her mouth. "I had an odd dream last night. Muhsin was in it. Fayza, too."
Reema's expression brightened. "Odd in what way?"
Amani tried to remember what had come before the image that had startled her out of her sleep. "I was with Muhsin in their house, I think his mother and brothers were there but I didn't see Fayza. I don't know why but I kept looking for her until he found me searching and asked what I couldn't find."
"What'd you tell him?"
"Nothing," Amani replied honestly. "It was like I couldn't tell him that I was looking for his sister because I didn't want him to realize she was missing. So, I said nothing."
Reema frowned. "But where was she then?"
Amani hesitated, trying to keep the image from returning to her mind as she answered. "She was in the cemetery. I think she was in a grave, but she wasn't dead. I could hear her laughing from the street. When I saw her... her eyes were open and so was her mouth. She was just laughing. It was unsettling."
Her cousin shifted away. "That is unsettling."
"Do you think it means something?"
"I hope not," Reema murmured.
"Me too."
"Can we go back to talking about happy things? Like the fact that I'm married now or that you'll be married soon, too!" Reema smiled again and Amani laughed at how quickly she was able to flip between topics. "Do you know how many girls have offered themselves to Muhsin for marriage and you're-." Then she gasped. "What if you get jinxed and you get sick or, worse, something happens to keep you guys from getting together? That would be horrible. You need to pray every day to keep away the Evil Eye."
Amani shook her head. "You're getting too excited, Reema. The only person I can think of who might give me Evil Eye is Yasmeen."
Reema gasped again. "I forgot about her. Oh my goodness, Amani she's going to die when she hears about this? Muhsin getting engaged to the girl she's been trying to ruin since she arrived. She'll die. You should stay away from her until everything is firmly in place."
"Do you think I seek her out?"
"No, but now you need to make sure she can't seek you out either. Don't walk in the streets alone. Someone should always be with you. That's the best-."
The ringing phone interrupted their conversation.
Reema picked up quickly. "Hello? Oh, hi Auntie! Yes, she's right here. We were just drinking tea and chatting." Amani waited for her cousin to get off the phone so their conversation could continue. But the way the color drained from Reema's face almost made her wish the phone call would never end so she would never have to hear the news that made her older cousin so petrified.
She eventually uttered the final reply and placed the landline back onto the table beside them. Her eyes were wide and nervous when she turned to Amani.
"Is someone dead?" Amani tried to joke. Though, at the way Reema was watching her, it didn't seem so impossible.
"That would have been better, wouldn't it?" Reema whispered.
"What is it?"
"Your father called," Reema began slowly and Amani immediately felt her chest tighten. A hand had broken through her ribs and violently gripped her heart to keep it from beating as it needed to. "He decided, Amani. You... you're going home."
***
Amani sat on the floor of the empty street, gently wiping dirt from the leaves of her growing grapevine when familiar footsteps approached behind her. She didn't turn to see who it was.
She knew who it was.
"Fayza said you wanted to see me," Muhsin spoke. She liked the way his voice always sounded so clear in its isolation when they met in the empty streets. "Is everything OK?"
Was everything OK?
Now that she'd received word of the decision she'd been waiting for since her first day here, Amani felt like she couldn't breathe. She'd been wanting to go home so why was her father's agreement seizing her breath and setting her heart alight?
She'd promised herself to Muhsin. In all her excitement, she'd forgotten about the request she'd made over the phone nearly two weeks ago. If she left, she would leave him behind.
"Muhsin," she tried to begin. How would she even say it? How could she tell him that, after he'd proposed to her a second time, after he'd shown her the ring he'd bought her, after she'd said she wanted to marry him too, after he'd let himself be vulnerable with her, that she was going to leave?
He stepped around her when he heard her tone. Amani kept her eyes glued to the plant in front of her as he kneeled down across from her until the light revealed her expression to him. "What's the matter?" He asked, his eyes beginning to knit in worry.
"I don't know what to do," she kept her gaze low.
"Look at me."
"I think I'm a bad person."
"Amani." He said her name with such delicacy, such warmth that the girl nearly allowed herself to feel better at the sound of his voice. But he didn't know what was in her mind. She doubted his kindness would continue once she told him the truth. She wished she didn't have to, but she couldn't be selfish this time.
He was the one person she couldn't be selfish with.
Muhsin was already searching in her expression when she met his gaze. His eyes were filled with even more tenderness than his tone had been and Amani found herself hating the person she'd been when she requested to leave the town because she hadn't been thinking about the boy in front of her. He'd come to find her hours past midnight only because she wanted to speak to him. He hadn't questioned it.
How could she abandon him?
The corners of his lips twitched with hints of an empathetic smile. "Shoo feh?" He asked again, not knowing for a second what his question would bring onto himself.
She hated herself.
"I'm going home."
"OK," Muhsin nodded through the confusion she saw on his features. He didn't understand. "Let me walk you."
Amani shook her head. "No, Muhsin. I'm going home." He paused in the way he'd been rising off the ground and slowly came back down. The smile he'd formed on his lips for her fell. Amani saw the breath hitch in his lungs as the realization clicked in his mind of what she'd truly meant. His eyes shifted between hers for confirmation, reassurance, denial, anything.
He stayed silent.
"Baba called. He's letting me go back. He wants me to give him a date and said he'd buy a ticket for the flight," she continued.
Muhsin continued watching her.
She tried to search for any hints of processing in his expression but he'd become unreadable. Amani hated that she couldn't see what he was thinking. That he'd made his features firm before her. "Can you say something?" Her voice was almost pleading.
Muhsin took a breath. "Have you chosen a date?"
It hadn't been the response she'd expected.
Amani shook her head. "No... I don't know."
"You should decide soon."
"What?"
"It may become expensive if you wait."
"Muhsin."
"I'm not sure what this has to do with me."
"It has everything to do with you," she rose when he did. He took a step away as if he was already walking away but her words kept him in his place. "You asked me to marry you. I would have to stay but my dad just said I can go. I don't know what to.... I needed to see you, to talk to you, you can help me."
Muhsin lowered his gaze, his eyebrows knit together at something she'd said in the midst of her explanation. "No, that is wrong," he announced. "I am not forcing anything on you. You can choose to stay or you can leave. You do not have to do anything."
Amani shook her head and moved toward him. "That's not what I meant. I just- What should I do?"
"I cannot tell you that."
"You can."
"I have no right."
"But I'm asking you, Muhsin," she followed him before he could step too far away. "Don't you get it? This is the same thing you did at the bakery when you almost ended everything—pretending like you can't be bothered. If it weren't for you, I would have left the moment I got the news, but I don't want to leave you so just- just tell me not me to leave."
She wouldn't have fought so desperately for this had he been anyone else, but she had no pride in front of Muhsin. She didn't need to. He would hold all her pride with him.
He pressed his lips into a thin line and sighed. "I lived before you entered my life," he spoke in a calm, measured tone like he was thinking carefully about each word before he spoke it. "And I'll continue living after you leave."
The breath that slipped through Amani's nose deflated her entire body of the strength she'd had a moment ago. She frantically searched between his eyes for another reason, for an excuse to his words. The pride she'd just spoken of—the pride she'd trusted him with—what happened?
Her eyes stung and she looked away when she felt tears beginning to build. Amani blinked them away. "OK," she whispered. She lowered her face and moved past him.
But Muhsin stepped in front of her so his shoulder blocked her path. "Bas," he interjected, looking down at the girl who avoided his gaze. "That doesn't mean I want a time to come in my life that is after you. If I were only to think of myself, Amani, I would pray day and night that you forget how badly you wanted to return and stay with me."
She wiped the wetness at the corner of her eyes and met his gaze. The subtle glare still hadn't left her features as he spoke.
"You were nobody to me only a few weeks ago, but you've come into my life and devoured all that I thought myself to be. Now, I find myself searching the streets for your sandals and worrying of your whereabouts when I haven't seen you. You're in every dream I've had, even the ones I don't allow myself to find you in, you're there. I can feel you there as if your energy surrounds me even in your absence. You've done to me what I never thought possible."
"But I can't allow you to give up what you want for me. I can't risk that, in the future, you might come to resent me for holding you here because I chose to be selfish. Bas you've come into my life and now I am terrified at the thought of you stepping out of it."
She frowned up at the pained crease between his eyes. "Then tell me to stay here. Tell me that you want me to stay with you. Be selfish about me. Maybe then I can let myself be selfish with you, too."
Muhsin's hand slid up his abdomen until it rested just beneath his heart. "Marry me, Amani," he whispered, desperate. "Don't leave me."
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I think I'm just going to upload this chapter for today cuz it was a whole rollercoaster and I don't want to overwhelm you guys 😭😭. Tell me why I was reading it so scared because I did NOT remember this happening, I GASPED actually💀.
Anyway, in the past week, this story has gone up by nearly 400 reads and... am I going to cry? no of course not that would be so dumb (I already did LMAO)
Thank you guys so much. Am I in love with you? 100% ♥️♥️