Samiha's P.O.V
The next morning, I woke up at eight in the morning, feeling extremely terrible about shouting at my sister. So what if Arif talked to her sometimes? It didn't mean she was happy with him either. I knew she wasn't. She had it as hard as I did. I was thinking about going to apologise to her when I realised she must have already gone for uni.
The whole night, I just thought about the deal with Saamih. I knew he meant each and every word he said. If I didn't try and improve my relationship with Asif, he would definitely tell dad and that would only mean one thing - trouble. I knew he made the deal because he was worried about us and that is why he wanted to use that threat against me, because he knew I wouldn't want him to tell dad so I would have no choice but to improve my relationship with Asif. Besides, I had to keep my promise to my mother-in-law
to at least try and change Asif. So with as much courage as I could gather, I decided to make a start and shook the sleeping Asif by his shoulder.
"Asif, wake up. Come on, get up!" I called, while shaking him. He stirred a little but didn't wake up. I shook him a little harder and called him a little louder. His eyes shot open and he sat up straight immediately.
"Huh? What happened?" He said, startled.
"Nothing. But I think you should wake up. It's eight fifteen now. You should get up early. It's not right that you wake up at noon everyday," I said, trying to keep my voice as even as possible, because there was no doubt, I was scared.
"Are you kidding me?" He said slowly, clearly agitated.
"No I'm not. You need to wake up, right now," I said.
"Who are you to tell me that I need to get up, and that too, right now? I thought there was some emergency and you tell me nothing happened and you're waking me up right now?" He snapped at me.
"I'm your wife, Asif. And yes, I'm waking you up right now. Have you ever reflected on your life? Sure, you're practicing, but then, what kind of a Muslim doesn't do any meaningful work? And wakes up at noon every single day of their life?" I asked, trying my best to keep calm.
"Sure I do meaningful work! I...uh...I play football! And practice fencing! Those are sports and participating in sports is sunnah," he said, indignantly.
"Yeah and other than that? At least, if you don't want to help your dad at work, then wake up a little earlier and do something else!" I said.
"Look here, Samiha. I get that you're my wife, but you're not going to start lecturing me, understand?" He told me.
"Listen Asif, I'm just doing my duty which I should have started doing much earlier. Your mum has some expectations of me, and as much as I don't want to speak to you even right now, she's a lovely person whom I don't want to let down so please don't make this difficult for me," I told him.
"So now?" He questioned.
"So now you'll just wake up, and do something constructive. Allah hates laziness!" I said.
"Fine," he muttered and rolled his eyes. He then grumbled under his breath what I thought sounded like "I can't believe I'm actually letting my wife order me around!"
"Yeah, and its for your own good," I retorted. He looked surprised as he probably thought I couldn't hear him.
"Whatever," he snapped and I flinched. It was going to be hard sticking to the deal with Saamih. Improving this relationship seems impossible. But at least he listened to me. He could have totally ignored me if he wanted. He got out of bed, grabbed some clothes from one of his walk-in wardrobes and entered the bathroom.
Once he entered inside, I opened the closet where my stuff was and started rummaging through it to find my own clothes. All of a sudden, an envelope met my hands. I removed it and opened it, taking a card from inside it. It was an invitation for me to attend the wedding reception of my friend and work-mate before I resigned, Anna. But she had written to Mr. and Mrs. Asif Hamid which meant that she wanted me to attend with Asif. I'll just go alone. I don't want to ask Asif, and even if I do, he'll probably turn me down, I thought. I just placed the invitation card on the dresser so that I don't forget about it.
Asif came out of the shower dressed in a black, collared thobe, looking drop-dead gorgeous. His hair was messy and wet, making it look all the better.
"You gonna gawk at me all day or go shower yourself?" He asked.
"Oh please, I wasn't gawking at you! I was just wondering why you're wearing a thobe," I replied.
"I'll go to the masjid for Dhuhr," he answered.
I couldn't help but feel genuinely happy.
"That's great! See, when you normally wake up at noon, you never get Dhuhr at the masjid and you end up praying at home. But because you woke up early today, you can go there to pray!" I said, happily, but holding back a smile.
"Yeah. Well, sorry for...you know, getting angry at you. And thanks for waking me up early. Please do that from now on," he said, looking at anything but me. It was like the apology, gratitude and request all in one statement really seemed to hurt his ego! I held back a chuckle at that. Well, that was a step towards improving him.
As soon as I knew Samaah would have come home, I immediately ran towards her room, and we ran into each other in one of the hallways.
"Where are you going, Samiha? I was coming to look for you in your room!" She said to me.
"And I was coming to look for you in your room," I replied.
"I'm so sorry for yesterday, Samiha. I didn't realise how much trouble you've been going through. And I didn't know that even the little communication that is there between Arif and I is all thanks to you. I'm so sorry," she told me, looking visibly sad.
"It's okay, sis. I'll never hold anything against you. And I'm so sorry for shouting at you," I said. She leaned over to hug me and I held her tightly. I then grabbed her arm and dragged her to my room. After Salaah at the masjid, Asif never came back home, but my mother-in-law was overjoyed about the fact that I had woken him up and because of my little lecture, he had decided to go to the masjid.
Once in my room, I sat down and Samaah sat opposite me.
"Samaah, you won't believe it! I woke Asif up today! At eight fifteen in the morning!" I told her.
"No way! Tell me everything!" She replied, excitedly. I then narrated all the events of this morning, including the part where he shouted at me, and how I responded, and the part where he got ready to go to the masjid, and the apology, gratitude and request that he found very difficult to let out.
"Wow, that was interesting! I can't believe you guys finally talked properly!" She said, once I was done.
"Well, now you have to tell all of this to Saamih. He might not really believe me you know," I told her.
"I will, don't worry. But he would still believe you. He knows you don't lie," she said.
"Yeah well, you're going to tell him either way. Anyway, listen, today as I was looking for my clothes, I came across this," I said, getting up and taking the invitation to Anna's reception from the dresser. "Anna's reception is tomorrow night. I'd completely forgotten about it."
"Let me see," Samaah said, taking the card from my hand and reading it. "Samiha, even Asif is invited!" She looked at me with wide eyes.
"I'll go alone. He'll definitely decline if I ask him. I'll just tell Anna that my husband couldn't make it," I told her.
"Hmm, so anyway, what are you planning to wear?" She asked.
And so, we continued chatting for the rest of the afternoon. I was so glad that I had made up with Samaah, as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
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I'm working so hard on this story, guys so even though I've barely any reads, I've hardly any votes and not even a single comment, I still tell everyone to please give this story a chance.