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If you try to hide something, it’ll always be discovered.
The next morning, Sarfaraz goes back out to help Kenan in the fields, and I sit down with Aqsa so she can go over my mehendi. I probably won’t have time to do it once I reach Karachi, so I figure it’s a good choice to take her up on her offer.
Aqsa gently applies the cool green paste from the cone to my skin. Her tongue pokes out the side of her mouth, her forehead scrunched in concentration.
“Where did you buy the paste?”
“Oh, I made it myself,” Aqsa responds without looking up. “The people in the village usually come to me when they need their mehendi done for an event.”
“That’s nice.”
She pauses to squeeze more paste from the bottom of the cone toward the top. “What is it like being in love?” she abruptly asks, keeping her gaze fixed on my hands.
I freeze. “What?”
Aqsa shyly peeks up at me from under her lashes. “There’s a boy who lives a few houses down from us. He’s the son of our butcher. He brings me flowers sometimes when he can get away from work.” She scans the living room, even though we’re alone. Still, she drops her voice low. “Sometimes he comes, and we talk in the backyard at night, but Baba and Mama don’t know.”
I can’t help but smile at their innocence. “That is very sweet.”
She blushes. “Thanks. But I don’t know if he loves me. I don’t know if I love him. We’ve never said it to each other. I don’t even know if what I’m feeling is love.” She leans forward. “But you must know—you said yours was a love match.”
“Technically, it was also arranged,” I correct lamely, but I know that’s not the answer this girl is looking for. I suck in a breath. “Being in love is...like walking through a field of sunflowers,” I begin, gesturing toward the door and the fields beyond. The lines in Aqsa’s forehead deepen with understanding. “It’s full of bright colors and beautiful scenery, and the stalks are so tall it feels like things will go on forever.” I scrunch my nose. “But sometimes you forget the stalks are clustered together, and you can scratch yourself, and you can trip over roots that burst from the ground. Sometimes it feels like you’re stumbling through the field, unaware of which direction you’re going in, and you get so scared and frustrated all you want to do is fall to the ground and weep.” My chest swells. “But then you remember you have someone holding your hand. Someone who also sees the bright colors and the tall stalks, and who also scratches themselves and trips. And suddenly you’re not alone anymore.” My lips quirk up. “They may get frustrated, too, and say mean things, but they’ll apologize by bringing peace offerings. They’ll protect you and hold you when you’re scared. When you break down in tears in the rain, they’ll cover your head and let you cry.” I blink out of my daze and make eye contact with Aqsa, who’s stopped her work and now stares at me with rapt attention. “And at the end of the day, you’ll emerge out of the field and remember that as long as you hold on to each other, you can get through anything.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Aqsa says. “Is that how you felt with Sarfaraz Bhai?”
I squirm. “Yeah,” I answer, my cheeks flaming.
We’re silent as she goes back to work. As she traces over my previous design, I try to quiet my mind, but all I can think about is Sarfaraz. How he thanked me for helping him when it was clear that he’s the type to struggle with showing appreciation. How he took me back to his hotel, so I’d have a safe place to sleep after getting sick. How protective his body felt pressed up against mine when Muhammad Moiz held a gun in our faces, and how my arm felt when it was linked through his. How safe and secure my hand felt in his.
When I think about him, I picture him in a field, fingers linked with mine, clearing the path in front of me before letting me go ahead. I bite the inside of my cheek, surprised by my own thoughts. When did his touch go from being uncomfortable to soothing? When did his smile change from irritating me to stealing my breath? When did the air between us start to shift?
I shake my head, trying to dismiss the images. I shouldn’t picture anyone in that field with me other than Imtiaz, because he’s my fiancé.
I guess more time has passed than I thought, because just as I think this, Aqsa grins triumphantly and leans back. “Alright, finished!”
I lift my hands to examine the design. It’s the same as the one I had before, but I admire the darkness of the wet paste on my skin, going down to my left wrist, over my pulse, where Sarfaraz’s name is sketched in Urdu—
Wait.
I bring my wrist up so it’s right in front of my eyes. But no, it wasn’t a trick of the light; Sarfaraz’s name stares back up at me. My pulse skyrockets, my heart leaping up my throat and threatening to spill out of my lips. “Why did you do this?” I wave my wrist in Aqsa’s face.
“The design was so faded on your wrist that I couldn’t tell what it was before,” she explains, the space between her brows pulled. “So I wrote Sarfaraz Bhai’s name instead.” She stands up. “What’s the big deal? He’s your husband.”
I stare helplessly at the design. Arabic doesn’t look like Western letters—it’s scripture, written from right to left. The scripture itself looks quite beautiful. I went to Urdu school when I was younger, so I don’t remember a lot, but I can recognize the letters and how they fit together to make his name.
But no matter how beautiful I think the writing looks, it is not good that Sarfaraz’s name is written on me. It’s a tradition in Pakistani culture for the bride to have the groom’s name written somewhere in her mehendi design, which he then is supposed to look for. It’s meant to be an icebreaker for the wedding night. But factor in that the name written on my skin is not my fiancé’s, and I’m about to enter some deep trouble when I get to my wedding.
How am I supposed to cover this up? I can’t scrape it off; it’s starting to dry, meaning the design is already seeping into my skin. All I can do is look up at Aqsa, who’s staring at me in confusion, and ask, “Does your mother have any chudiyan I can borrow?”
Salama’s brother’s house is the biggest in the village; its bricks are gray, like the others, but it’s nearly double the size of the other houses. The hallway is grand, with concrete flooring and a spiral staircase that leads to a spacious second level. The rooms aren’t clustered together, either, and I know if I poked my head through, I’d find huge bedrooms. It even has electricity and indoor plumbing. When I ask how he can afford all these things, I find out that Baqar Uncle owns the most land in the village. I guess I’ve had a warped impression of villages in Pakistan.
The party is in full swing when we arrive. Salama’s nephew Sajjid looks radiant in his white-and-gold sherwani. His new wife, who I’m told is named Naila, glows in her extravagant sea blue lehenga, though of course there’s only a sliver of skin visible between her top and her skirt. They sit next to each other at the front of the room, with guests going up to them every now and then to congratulate them and give them a gift.
Like we agreed, Sarfaraz and I stick to the sidelines. We make appropriate small talk whenever Salama and Kenan introduce us to anyone, but otherwise we try to blend into the background.
I nervously tinker with the chudiyan adorning my wrist. The bangles clink against each other, but they also slide down my wrist whenever I lift my hands, exposing Sarfaraz’s name. I can’t let anyone, especially him, see it. It’d be so weird. I’ve known him for a week, and now I’ve got his name inked into my skin, albeit temporarily.
“I can’t believe how easily these people have taken us in,” Sarfaraz mutters under his breath.
