AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you loved Imtiaz, you wouldn’t be looking at any other man days before your wedding.” She crosses her arms over her chest, and the chudiyan on her wrists clink together. “Do you even like him?”
I hesitate. “I like him enough,” I reply, though there’s no life in my words.
Hibba Baji’s jaw drops. She pauses, then cups my face. “Enough is not a good reason to marry the man, Maya,” she insists, her tone as gentle as her fingers on my face.
Somehow, the softness in her voice is worse than if she yelled at me. I push her away. “Well, what was I supposed to do?” I huff. “Ammi wouldn’t have let me go to Korea if I hadn’t agreed to get engaged first. And I felt so trapped at home, so alone, so...so lost, that I knew if I didn’t do something, I was going to lose it.”
The exasperated noise that comes out of Hibba Baji sounds like a choked wheeze. She draws a deep breath. She clasps her hands together, like she’s pleading with me to understand what she’s saying. “Maya, we’re standing here, in Pakistan, about to go celebrate your mehendi ceremony. And you’re not even sure if you want to marry the guy!”
“I never said that! Why do people keep saying that?”
“People?” she splutters. “Who else has said it?”
I grit my teeth. “Sarfaraz,” I answer reluctantly. “But he said that because we were trying to figure out what to do about the fact that we kissed—”
“You what?” If Hibba Baji’s jaw fell any lower, it’d hit the floor.
I clamp my mouth shut. “I wasn’t supposed to talk about that,” I whisper.
“Maya, your wedding is tomorrow, and you kissed another guy! And not just another guy, but your future brother-in-law!”
“Okay, in my defense, I didn’t know that when I kissed him.”
“That doesn’t matter!” Hibba Baji carefully covers her face so she doesn’t smudge her ridiculously expensive makeup. After she takes a few deep breaths, she lowers her hands, and when she turns her attention to me, pity deepens the lines in her face. “Maya, be honest with me. Do you love Imtiaz? Can you really see yourself being married to him, for the rest of your life?”
I open my mouth to answer, but all that comes out is a resigned huff. “It doesn’t matter now, okay? There’s nothing we can do. We’re in Pakistan, all our relatives are here, we’ve spent thousands of dollars, and I’m not going to be the reason Ammi bears any more humiliation.”
Hibba Baji stares at me for a second. “I know you want to protect Mom, but you can’t sacrifice yourself to do it.”
“This isn’t just about me,” I remind her. “I may not have romantic feelings for Imtiaz yet, but I have a lot of respect for him, too much to risk hurting his feelings or humiliating him. Besides, I made a promise to him and to God that I would. A vow of commitment like that means something to me.” I huff, tears brimming my lids. “Unlike our father, who made those same vows and then...left.” My eyes water, and I blink the tears away as fast as I can because I’m not wearing waterproof makeup. “I don’t know if I love him, but at least I can trust him.”
Hibba Baji has to work to get her tears under control, too. She steps forward and cradles my face. “I know it hurts that Dad left...so bad,” she starts. She uses the pad of her thumb to wipe at a tear threatening at the corner of my eye. “But just because he left doesn’t mean you have to overcompensate for it, and it doesn’t mean you’re doomed to bad things always happening to you.” She gestures to herself. “I mean, look at me. I’m happily married, with a daughter who brings me so much joy.”
“Yippie for you,” I grumble. “But you never had my track record, Hibba Baji. Guys have been falling at your feet for years. One of us had to bear the brunt of the nazar, and it ended up being me.”
Her face crumples. “Maya—”
“How did you do it?” I cut in. I shake my head in wonder. “How did you...walk around like everything was okay after Baba left? And how did you find someone who you could trust enough to marry?”
Hibba Baji draws a deep breath before answering, “I guess it’s the older sister thing. I had to keep it all together for you and Ammi.” She tilts her head to the side. “As for trusting someone... You just have to trust other people will still be there.”
My mind flashes to the hurt that cut my chest wide open when I realized that Sarfaraz knew I was his brother’s fiancée, but I didn’t know he was my fiancé’s brother. “But how do you do that? How do you know you’re trusting the right person?”
“You just...know,” she explains. “You have to make it a habit and a routine to trust, and then it happens naturally. There’s nothing wrong with routine.”
My throat closes up, but I choke out, “Do you remember the night Baba left?”
She blinks, shifting from foot to foot. “It’s not something I like to think about.”
“Well, no matter how hard I tried to forget, I never could.” I bite my bottom lip to keep it from wobbling. “Because it wasn’t anything big or loud or scary. It was just...any other night.” My throat thickens, and I clear it. “We ate dinner. I did some homework. And then I got ready for bed. He read me another chapter of Charlotte’s Web, kissed my forehead, said he loved me, and then turned the light off and left the room.” I choke back my emotion, thick in my throat. “It was our routine. It was any other night. And then I woke up in the morning and he was gone. How can I trust a man to stay when our own father couldn’t?”
Hibba Baji grabs my arms and gives them a firm squeeze. “Because that’s one man,” she declares.
“But what if it’s not?” I blubber. “What if it’s every man I come across? What if I’m doomed to meet people that can never stay in my life? How can you trust that the love you give people isn’t going to hurt you in the end?”
Hibba Baji pauses for a brief moment. “Maya, every action we take in the present is a gamble. We can never know what will happen in the future.” She tucks a strand of hair the stylist missed behind my ear. “But you need to stop thinking the worst will happen. Maybe the future holds something beautiful for you.”
“Or maybe I’m doomed to be cursed forever,” I grumble.
