‼️WARNING‼️: You're about to read my FAVORITE chapter... proceed with caution.
"That girl's pretty," Yazan murmured as they walked through the street. Amani turned to find him watching a group of girls standing by the water fountain. Beside them, Yasmeen sat on a brick on the floor, fiddling with something in her sandal. "The one with the sandal."
Amani nearly choked on the chocolate in her mouth. "Yasmeen?"
He shrugged. "Sure. If she's the one on the floor."
Beside them, Reema's wide eyes spun to find Amani and after sharing a look of pure shock, they both exploded into a fit of laughter. Yazan glared at the two of them. "What?" He asked.
"You could say your sister stole that girl's man," Reema snorted and Amani slapped her arm, forcing her to lower her voice before anybody else in the street heard her loud announcement. "If your sister hadn't stolen his heart, Muhsin might have had to marry her."
Yazan snorted. "She's too good for him, anyway. Only thing that guy's got going for him is his looks. I would rather talk to a fish than him," he pointed his index finger into his mouth.
"Someone who isn't awestruck by Muhsin?" Reema asked. "I never thought the day would come."
"He's boring," Yazan reached into his chip bag. "Talks at the same level, uses dictionary vocabulary, and doesn't even meet half the room's eyes like he's all petite. You should be careful Amani, he might turn out to be abusive."
She punched his shoulder. "Your little dislike for Muhsin is getting old, honestly, Yazan. Maybe you should try being like him. At least then you'd start respecting the people around you more."
"Yeah, sure, I'll cower at the slightest bit of eye contact from a girl. You know, he could just be marrying you because you were there, right? The only girl who showed interest in him."
Reema shook her head. "Far from, Yazan."
"Muhsin's braver than you and all your friends."
"Don't talk about my friends."
"Or what?" She asked.
Yazan looked forward and paused in his tracks. "Is that your fiancé running toward us like some long-legged bull?" He pointed forward, the question on his lips genuine as if he worried he may be imagining the sight.
Amani turned forward just in time to see his side profile as he flew past her. Her emptied chocolate wrapper fell to the ground at the wind he blew at them. She spun to watch his back.
Reema hummed. "Is he running to the hospital?"
"We're going to the hospital," Yazan pointed out.
"Then what's that way?" She asked.
"His house is but...," Amani began. "We should follow him."
Yazan huffed. "What? Why?"
She raced after Muhsin, Reema followed, and though unhappy and reluctant, Yazan chased after the three of them. As she approached the familiar neighborhood, Amani heard the chaos in the distance.
Fayza was in the hospital, so there was nobody for him to run to this way. She stopped when she turned the corner near his home, seeing the two occupational vehicles parked beside his house and the soldiers streaming through the open door.
Yazan caught up to her just as Muhsin jumped up the three front steps, seizing the back of the soldier's uniform and flinging him away from his door. "What the-?"
She didn't hear her brother continue and took off after Muhsin.
From within, a familiar voice screamed.
Muhsin raced in and a few moments later, two other soldiers were forced out of the front doors. One was pushed back with a force that threw him onto the jagged ground past the freshly washed steps of their home.
"Get back!" Their neighbor shouted, racing up the steps as Muhsin appeared, shielding a crying Amjad behind his back.
"Breaking into a home with only children," Muhsin spat. "I should be shocked, but your cowardice has become old news. I should cut off your hand for touching my brother."
One of the soldiers spoke as the others struggled to help their comrade of the ground. "We should kill all of you for what you've done," the familiar voice spat. When Amani stopped a few feet from them, she recognized the soldier with the scarred nose.
Fayza had left a mark on him.
"You've been trying for centuries, haven't you?" Muhsin challenged. "But we still stand and your weapons are useless."
Yazan tugged Amani. "Get back, it's not safe."
"We don't need weapons to do what we need to. Just like we killed your father, we did the same to your sister with only our hands," he snorted. "You are the weak ones. If you were wise, you would fear us."
Muhsin's face stilled. "What did you say?"
"Move!" Amani pulled herself away from Yazan. She pushed through the soldiers and hurried up the steps to tug Amjad away from his brother as Muhsin took a step down the stairs, forgetting he'd been holding the boy entirely. His eyes had shifted to something unforgiving when he watched the soldiers. A switch flipped within his mind at the armed man's words.
"Are you okay?"
Amjad nodded, hugging Amani tightly.
"Have you buried her yet or shall I bring my men to finish the job?" He snorted in amusement. "Your sister was difficult to put down but, once she fell, she could not rise. It was quite a sight, you know. Fayza Awad on the ground and unable to protect herself. I am shocked she has not been taken by your God yet."
Muhsin stepped onto the floor, moving slowly toward the man who spoke. Amani's heart swelled in her chest, growing three times its size and beginning to ache against her ribs and heart. "You do not believe in our God?" He asked.
His calm tone sent shivers down Amani's spine.
"You would be a fool to touch me now," the soldier said. Every person in the street was quickly growing aware of the shrinking space between Muhsin and the green men, even them.
Muhsin smiled. "Then why don't I send you to meet him."
Amani's hands flew over Amjad's eyes as his brother gripped the soldier's neck, throwing him onto the floor and jumping over him. In a moment, all the soldiers' rifles pointed at him. In only a second, all the men in the street threw their bodies in front of him and wrestled the soldiers away from Muhsin.
Between them, Muhsin's hands shattered the protective shield on the soldier's helmet and his tightened fists rained down on the man who'd been stripped of his weapon. "How does it feel then?" He shouted at him, his words jolting with the fury of each blow. "How does it feel to be on the ground and unable to rise, ya kalb?"
"Go inside," Amani quickly pushed Amjad through the front door and away from the violence unfolding before his eyes. "We have to find your little brother. Where's Ezzo?"
Amjad cried. "They're going to kill Muhsin like they killed Fayza. They're going to kill all of us," he trembled in fear, holding his face in his hands so the tears slipped over his knuckles.
"No, Amjad. That won't happen. Muhsin will- ah!" She cried out when a powerful force suddenly pulled her head back. Amani fell onto the floor and reached to grip the hand that dragged her by the hijab on her head. Her feet kicked into the ground, desperate to get up so the scarf would not be torn off of her head in the center of the town.
"Amani!" Amjad cried.
But she was hauled down the stairs and into the street. A sharp pain shot up her back when she dropped onto the rocky land. Amani held tightly onto the wrist of the man that flung her over the ground as if he was trying to tear her cover off of her and deface her in front of all the men fighting in the street.
"Let go!" She yelled. "Let me go!"
"Let's see if he wants you after everybody else has seen you," the man spat, his accent nearly perfect. As if because he knew more about them than the other soldiers, he knew exactly how to win.
He tried to tug the material back, but Amani let her body fall with the pull so it remained on her head and tried to keep his hand from moving any further. "Muhsin!" Amani screamed for the boy on her left, knowing her place on the floor wouldn't allow her to protect herself as she needed to. She closed her eyes and screamed. "Muhsin!"
"Amani!" Yazan shouted from her right but it didn't process in her mind that it was her brother's voice until a loud gunshot rang through the air. Only then did all the fighting and commotion cease. Only then did the hand trying to rip her hijab off fall away.
Amani tugged the material back to her forehead and spun around to find the soldier stumbling back, his hand on the blood pouring from his chest. He'd been shot. Slowly, the man looked toward his shooter.
She followed his gaze, twirling to her right to see Muhsin holding the gun and standing in front of her brother. Over his shoulder, Yazan's eyes were wide with horror, caught on the man who fell to the floor behind her. Muhsin breathed heavily, his grip on the weapon firm at his side. He'd shot him.
Muhsin breathed, his voice and expression controlled. "Don't touch our children. Don't touch our women. If a single droplet of blood falls from either, rivers of yours will flow in the streets. Do you understand now?" He asked.
"You shot a soldier," someone behind her spoke. The thick accent exposed who was speaking. "You have brought a hell you cannot imagine on yourself and your family."
"I'm not afraid," Muhsin answered.
Once the soldiers left, Yazan raced toward his sister, embracing her like he would fall through the ground if his hold was not secured enough. Amani flinched in surprise. "It's alright," she patted his back, watching Muhsin hand the weapon to an older man over his shoulder. "I'm fine. It's not my blood," she motioned to the drops behind her.
Yazan pulled away to face her. "I shot him. I pulled the trigger," he blinked, his widened eyes not yet processing what he'd done through the shock radiating throughout his mind. But the utter terror in his gaze told of his honesty.
"What? But Muhsin was the one with the-."
"He took it from me. As soon as-."
Muhsin's hand dropped on Yazan's shoulder and he lowered himself onto the ground beside them. "You should go home, both of you," he looked between them. "Tensions are high. Give it a day or two and everything will be back to normal. For now, stay away from this side of town, OK? You, especially," he turned to Amani.
"We were going to the hospital," she answered.
"Don't go there either."
"I will," Amani spoke firmly. "I've been going and they're not going to stop me. They wouldn't have stopped Fayza."
"You are not Fayza, Amani."
"No, I'm not," she held his gaze. She was Amani and, whatever that was supposed to mean, it wouldn't keep her from the hospital. It wouldn't keep her from Muhsin's home. Try as they wanted to, they would not graze a hair of her head. Not when she was Amani and he was Muhsin and Fayza was his sister.
A few hours later, Amani stepped into the hospital room where Muhsin sat on the couch at the side of the bed, gently humming to the rhythm of his Koran. When he took a seat beside him, he finished the page then closed the book.
Muhsin's eyes were heavy as he rested his temple against the arm he placed over the back of the couch. "You never listen, do you?"
Amani's gaze lifted to his bruised and cut knuckles. She wanted to reach out to take them in her hands but a voice in her mind—that very much resembled that of the man sitting in front of her—told her it would be improper. "Your hands are hurt," she pointed out.
"But my soul is healing," his tone hid teases of humor. "The soldier who hurt my sister is in the same state she is, Fayza is getting better, your brother does not despise me, and I am marrying the girl who flew thousands of miles to land directly into the center of my messy life," Muhsin joked. One corner of his lips lifted so slightly, Amani wondered if it was just the shadow of the lamp hovering in the room's corner.
"I've never seen you fight like that or look like that."
"Did I scare you?" He asked.
Amani shook her head. "You can't scare me. I'd have to think you were a threat to me to be afraid of you," she explained. "You may have scared Amjad, though. He was worried they would kill you like they killed Fayza, apparently."
Something shifted in Muhsin's gaze, like the words wrapped a weight around his ankles and he was watching her through the ocean he was quickly sinking deeper into. "Amjad said that?"
"He's old enough to recognize the seriousness of the threat now. I think you should try to be more careful, for his sake, Muhsin. He's a little troublemaker sometimes and pretends like he's theman but he's just a child. As far as he knows, you're the only father figure he has." Amani surprised herself at her words. Amjad reminded her of Yazan, just a younger, less emotional version.
Muhsin's gaze lowered into their laps in thought. "If anything happens to them... to me, they're all I think about. I try so much to protect them—Fayza, Amjad, and Ezzo—but it's difficult to control spirits like theirs."
"That's how siblings are," she empathized.
He shook his head. "How will I live if a day comes when I worry this way about my own children? Afraid that I might be taken like my father or they could be hurt like my sister. I would not be able to breathe. I can hardly live now," he whispered.
Amani looked between his eyes at the tired desperation she heard in his tone. "Now is not the time to worry about that," she lowered her voice to match his. "Who knows? Maybe by the time we have children, the revolution will have begun and finished and we will be free."
A smile crept onto his features at her words. "Say wallah."
"It's possible. Things can change quickly."
"Not quickly enough."
"We'll just wait to have kids until after."
Muhsin raised an eyebrow at the comment as if Amani had told an audacious joke and the corners of his lips turned downward. "And how many years will you deprive me of our children?" He asked.
She nearly choked. "Deprive? You are the one who just now said you did not want to risk them being harmed by the occupation. I only gave you a solution to keep you happy. We'll wait to have them."
"How long?" He asked.
Amani shrugged. "I don't know. Until we're free."
"Amani," he whined.
She laughed. "Five years?"
Muhsin gasped, closing his eyes and holding his heart as if she'd just shot an arrow through his chest. "Qalbi," he croaked.
"Three?"
He opened his eyes to look at her.
"I don't want to have children the moment we marry, Muhsin," Amani explained. "Reema is pregnant and she's only been married for a few weeks. I do not want to marry and have a child exactly nine months after that first night. Once I give birth, khalas, that's it. There will be no takebacks. I need to be completely ready to start that chapter of my life when I do."
Muhsin's breathing had quickened, his eyes so sharp they nearly pierced through her skull, but Amani was too distracted to notice. "And do not silence me with that 'let's leave it to God and not discuss it' nonsense that all the men give these days. They just use that reasoning to trap their wives with children for the rest of their lives. We should actually talk about how we're going to do it."
He watched her closely for a moment of silence after Amani finished her part, something sparking within his eyes. "You are the one who will give the children. This decision will be yours, Amani."
She blinked at him. "Yes, but you'll still play a part so I need to know that we're completely on the same page."
Muhsin took a deep breath. "When you are ready to give us children, we will have children. Not before then. I understand your concerns. I do not want to bring a child into a world where one of us is not ready to bear that responsibility. I will take precautions. I give you my word," he placed his hand on his chest.
Amani grinned. "You are my favorite nonrelative man in this entire town, do you know that?"
His lips pulled into a smile at her words as Muhsin reached around for the Koran he'd placed on the table. "Here," he handed it to her. "Review what you memorized last. I want you to start going back to class. Don't get preoccupied with worldly things."
"Worldly things like my marriage?"
"We have not set a date yet. Your memorization is more important than I am," Muhsin shifted closer to her so his eyes caught the pages over her shoulder. "Yalla, let me hear."
Amani took a deep breath and began reciting each verse as she'd been taught. Carefully, she moved through each line and, when Muhsin quietly repeated a word she'd mistaken, repeated it before continuing on. He watched her place beside her silently, nodding his head every time she finished a section with no mistakes.
The moment their shoulder's brushed, he would shift away. But as she moved deeper into the book, Muhsin stopped lifting himself away. Her chest swelled with pride when she finished an entire page without a single correction from him. Then Muhsin's head fell onto her shoulder and she realized it was only because he'd fallen asleep.
"Muhsin?" She whispered, stiffening at the feeling of his hair on her jaw and the even rise and fall of his chest against her arm.
He did not reply, his exhaustion catching up with him.
Amani continued reciting, softening her voice to make sure she didn't wake him. Sometimes, she worried that he would stir at the hesitations between words she could not pronounce.
"Muhsin, I brought you some dinner...," Um Muhsin's words trailed once she'd entered and found Amani sitting on the couch. Her eyes caught on the sleeping boy resting his head on her shoulder. The sharp breath she inhaled was quiet in the silent room. "He is sleeping."
Amani closed the book and began to rise. "Come sit, amti."
"No, no, no!" She practically threw Amani back into her place. "Stay right where you are. He may wake up if you move. Let my son sleep. I have not seen him sleep like this in far too many years." Um Muhsin smiled, her eyes welling with tears as she lowered herself onto her knees in front of him. "Habibi," she brushed his hair from his face. "You rest now, my boy."
"His eyes have been heavy," Amani whispered. Ever since Fayza's hospitalization, Muhsin's eyelids seemed to grow heavier with every passing day she saw him. The delivery of his words slowed.
Um Muhsin nodded, carefully placing one of the folded blankets at the edge of Fayza's bed over her son. "He has not been allowing himself to sleep. I never even see him in his own bedroom. But your company has stolen his consciousness and now he can catch up on all the years he refused to sleep. Thank you, Amani."
She shook her head. "I haven't done anything."
Um Muhsin placed her hand on Amani's cheek, a gentle smile on her lips. "You have given my son the feeling of safety that I have been unable to return to him after his father's passing. Sleeping like this now, he knows he has left himself completely vulnerable, but his trust in you means that he can put himself in such a weak position while in your company. You are in his heart."
"Bas, he just fell asleep, amti. He was tired."
"It is never just sleep. A person would not sleep if they did were not confident in the security of their surroundings, my daughter. Muhsin has been tired for many years," Um Muhsin pulled her hand away and took a single step toward the door, her eyes returning to her son. "He has chosen this moment to allow himself rest. By your side."
Um Muhsin left them with a happy smile on her face. Once her footsteps could no longer be heard down the corridor, the silence of the night and emptiness of the hospital floor left Amani as the only one awake. Even Muhsin's awareness had gone.
Her attention slipped to the man sleeping on her shoulder, his hair brushing her neck with every breath. She flinched when his head slipped. Muhsin didn't stir when she pressed her hands against the side of his head, unable to support his neck at his proximity to her. Slowly, he sunk until his head rested in her lap.
From above him, Amani could finally see his features. Asleep and relaxed, his expression clearer than she'd ever seen. She gently ran her finger over his nose to admire the sharpness of his side profile. The subtlest of smiles drawing itself on her lips.
Sleeping like this, he was like a child.
Carefully, Amani lifted his hair away from his forehead to reveal the entirety of his cleared features. A weight swelled within her chest as if the entire world had been stolen from around her and placed within her ribcage. It grew, filling Amani so completely she felt the weakness radiating throughout her body even as she sat.
Just the sight of him was enough to drain her of every inch of strength within her bones. Just like Muhsin recognized his capacity for vulnerability around her, Amani's heart saw protection within the man in front of her.
She gasped, holding her chest at the strength of the emotion that had attacked and devoured all of her so quickly. There were no butterflies, no giddy nerves, there was fullness inside of her.
Muhsin had strode past her the first time she noticed him. He'd been the bakery boy who she sought entertainment in and been blindsided by a genuine marriage proposal from. Now, as he lay sleeping in her lap, her touch softly soothing his eyebrows, Muhsin had become the man she'd fallen heart and soul into.
And Amani was utterly, wholly, devoutly in love with him.
Muhsin adjusted himself, took a deep breath, and—when she began to pull her hand away with the restorative realization—lifted his hand to his hair. His wrist interrupted the path her arm had been taking and fell beside his head, capturing Amani's hand beneath his. As he slept, his fingers gingerly cradling her palm in his.
"What's this?" A quiet voice asked and, after a moment in her own thoughts, Amani realized it hadn't been her own. She lifted her gaze and, in the dimly lit room, their eyes met.
Awake, with a tired smile on her lips, Fayza peered at the two of them.
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I LOVE THIS CHAPTER. I know I already said it was my favorite at the beginning but you don't understandddd how much it's my favorite, like IM GONNA DIE BC OF HOW HAPPY IT MAKES ME!! Muhsin taking the gun from Yazan to take the fall for him. Muhsin and Amani's talk about their children! Imagine their children, IM SOBBING.
Also, SLEEPY MUHSIN!!!!! UMMMM easily this chapter trumps.
What do you think? Are you as obsessed with this chapter as I am????
If you do, make sure you VOTE!