Farouz

    We learned to work together, we both knew that a few sentences in the park weren’t going to fix everything. But now we worked together for it, and we were happy. I wanted to go somewhere, get away from our responsibilities and have fun together. But Dina stood her ground, she wanted everything to go back to the way it was. I went back to work and she continued with her life, and we met in the middle. Everything was good, alhamdulillah. Of course, there were nights when I felt the need to pray more and stay up reading Quran, and asking for forgiveness for what I did. On those nights, when Dina woke up to find me praying or reading Quran, she would wait until I could stop, and she’d get me a glass of water and kiss my cheek, “you need to sleep,” she’d say, “care for yourself and Allah will forgive you.”

    There were also nights when she couldn’t sleep. She grieved for my sister, Dina told me one night that she’d picked a name for her. Helal, it meant crescent moon. “Because she was a light that came out of a dark situation.” Her grief kept her up sometimes. There were nights when I’d stir and not find her next to me, I’d find her sitting at the foot of the bed, going through the clothes that were meant for her. One night, when I woke up and found her, she said, “we should donate these. There are families in muslim countries that can’t afford this. We need to donate them.” So we did just that, because she said that it would make her feel better.

    Dina’s psychologist helped her so much, her life seemed to flip around. She had more life in her, and she sounded so wise when she spoke. My wife’s finals were coming in about a month, and she had started an internship as well. She was busy and always bustling around. “I’m almost done,” she singsong and danced around me, “I’m graduating this May.”

    “Are you? I forgot, you never talk about it,” I teased.

    “I am,” she giggled, “and Ramadan is also in May! Our first Ramadan together, aren’t you excited?”

    Dina looked up at me through her lashes and bit her lip excitedly. She looked so sweet, then her fingers started fiddling with my collar. Almost instinctively, my hands went down her back and I leaned into her. My wife met me halfway and kissed me with a feverish passion and confidence that was new and welcome. She became a lot more confident after the whole ordeal. Dina no longer waited for me to make a move, if she wanted something she went for it. And that made me absolutely crazy for her. “So,” I breathed when she pulled away, “what’s after graduation? Have you started looking at graduate schools?”

    She arched her eyebrow, “not...really? I had planned to take some time off when we still had Helal. When she passed, I never really looked at schools. I think I might still take the year off.”

    “Why?” My response surprised her, “I mean, we have the money alhamdulillah. Why not just go for it?”

    My wife chuckled and moved closer, her hands pulling at the waist of my sweats, “I don’t know! I could get a job, or do some projects. Or we could have a baby, or I could do some more paid internships, maybe we could travel? I know you have work but we could figure something out.” She reached up and kissed my lips, then quirked her head, “what?”

    I opened my mouth to speak, but then shut it again. After taking a calming breath, I said, “did you say we could have a baby?”

    Dina’s face flushed, “I mean I’d be lying if I were to say I haven’t been thinking about it. But I’m not crazy, we haven’t even been married a year, and we’re both not in the condition to parent right now.” She smiled when she saw me relax, “calm down! I’m not saying let’s go make one right now.”

    Leading her to the couch, I said, “we should talk about this though. We always dodged the whole baby conversation.”

    “Well,” she took my hands in hers, “I do want kids, Farouz.”

    “Good!” I laughed, “I do too. But I think we should wait until you finish school. It would be really hard for you to go back when we have a kid. Of course if that were to happen, we’d make it work. I would take care of him or her when you needed to study.”

    “Then we’ll wait,” she nodded, “but… you want kids?” Dina laughed.

    “Of course I do, I want kids with you. Because I love you.”

    She scooted closer, “I love you more.”

    “Do you?” I nudged her back, and Dina fell onto the couch and let me climb over her, “lets make a baby right now.”

    Dina giggled, “but didn’t we just agree–”

    “Then let’s pretend to make a baby, yeah?”

    She bit her lip and nodded, “mmhm, I can do that.”

    “Can you?” I spoke, my lips grazing hers.

    Her arms wrapped around me and she closed the gap, “oh yeah,” she mumbled against me.

Dina

    Amity lifted my knitting needles and glanced at me through the yarn, “you’ve become a grandmother. Where has my best friend gone?”

    I snatched back my supplies, “leave me alone! I’m knitting a scarf for Farouz.”

    “It’s April.”

    Rolling my eyes, I said, “yes, but I thought I’d finish this one so I could start on one for my best friend.”

    “Aye!” Amity high fived herself and bounced on her dorm room bed, “that’s me!”

    We settled into a comfortable silence, I went back to watching my lecture and assumed Amity was studying as well. “Hey,” she spoke, “how’re you and Farouz?” When I turned around, she wiggled her eyebrows at me suggestively.

“We’re great,” I couldn’t help but smile, “why’re you asking.”

             My best friend laughed, “you have that glow,” again, she wiggled her eyebrows, “naughty naughty.”

            “Studying with you was a mistake,” I huffed, my face heating up, “as it always is.”

             Amity sighed, “no! Tell me all about it, I’m so glad you guys are back. A true power couple!”

Busying myself with the scarf, I said, “we talked about having kids.” She visibly perked up, “we agreed to wait until I finished grad school, and since I missed the deadline for this upcoming semester I’m going to go for next semester.”

“You both agreed?”

I nodded, “yes, Amity. We both agreed. It makes the most sense.”

“Well good, I’m glad. But I really can’t wait until I see little Dina’s running around oh my God!” she fell back onto the bed, “the cuteness!”

My phone rang before I could say something back. Farouz’s name and picture filled up my screen, “Salam,” I answered, “how’s work?”

“Wonderful,” he yawned, “how’s your study date?”

Amity made kissy faces at me like a child, “as productive as usual.” He laughed, knowing exactly what that meant. “You sound tired, long day?”

Farouz groaned, and I could see him throw his head back and rub his tired eyes. “It’s been a busy day, but thank God for the gift of a career. It was a good day alhamdulillah. I miss you though.”

I turned away from Amity, and she raised her eyebrows teasingly, “I miss you too,” she snickered at my reply.

“Well how about you come downstairs so I can take you to dinner?”

***

    “Amity really hates me for cutting our study group short,” I joked as I closed the car door, “this better be worth her wrath.”

    Farouz leaned across and gave me a soft kiss, “it will be.” My husband drove off, his hand found mine and his fingers intertwined with mine, “how was your day?”

    I told him about my internship with a publishing company, and how I got to vote on whether or not a story got published. Then I had a meeting with my book buddies group, and we had started planning a party for our third graders who we’ve been reading with since I joined the group. After that I went to lunch with Amity, and then we went back to her dorm and tried our best to study.

    When I finished talking, Farouz was beaming, “I think my favorite moment this semester is when I came to pick you up from that book buddies meeting and I met your reading buddy. What was his name? Zion? He was something else!” Farouz laughed, “I can’t believe you were reading Harry Potter.”

    “It’s a children’s book, Farouz,” I laughed.

    He hummed and kissed my hand, “I’m still proud of you.”

    “What about you?” I asked, rubbing the back of his hand, “you said you had a long day?”

    Farouz nodded, “yes, but I’m thankful for it. I really love my job, Dina, and the people I work with are amazing.”

    “How’s your secretary?”

    Farouz pulled into the restaurant and gave me an excited smile. “Don’t move,” he gave me another cheesy grin and then came around and opened the door for me, “m’lady.”

    “Ooh so fancy,” I looped my arm through his and we walked towards the restaurant, “I wish I was wearing something better than this.”

    My husband stepped back to look at my patterned pants and blouse, “you look amazing, as usual.” He said, placing his arm around me, making sure not to tug on my hijab. “Also, I couldn’t find a table at any of the top notch restaurants. So we had to settle for Olive Garden.”

    “What’s wrong with Olive Garden?” I asked, feigning offense.

    Farouz gave the hostess his name and took my hand, “nothing, I know it’s your favorite restaurant. That’s why I called here.”

    I sat on the chair he pulled out for me, “can I start you off with any drinks?” the waitress asked.

    We ordered our drinks and I turned to Farouz, “so, best thing that happened at work today. Shoot.”

    “I alphabetized the files for my patients. Kassandra had really messed that stuff up.”

    “Why didn’t you have her fix it?” I asked, flipping through the menu.

    Farouz busied himself with his own menu, “she had to quit,” he mumbled.

    I froze, “what? She quit? Since when?”

    He shrugged, “this morning. It’s no big deal really, let’s talk about something else.”

    “No! Tell me what happened, did you upset her? She’s been working with you for so long!”

    My husband shifted in his seat, “I was the one who suggested she quit.” My jaw dropped, and I urged him to continue. “I’ll tell you later, don’t let this ruin our night.”

    I tilted my head, “Farouz, spill.”

    He studied me, then sighed. After the waitress delivered our drinks and took our orders, he said, “I’m telling you because there isn’t anything to worry about. She, uh… came onto me a couple times.”

    “What?” I gaped, “she hit on you?” My husband chewed on the inside of his cheek and nodded, studying me to see my reaction. I didn’t even know how I felt about that, Kassandra never really was on my good side, but she was good at her job, I had to give her that! She helped Farouz a lot and was very professional, or so I thought. Farouz and I held each other's gazes for a while, then I started laughing.

    His face was instantly masked by confusion, “you’re not mad?”

    “Mad?” I shook my head, suppressing my laughter, “no, I’m not. I never really liked her very much. And I trust you.”

    He smiled, “good. But I am down a secretary now so don’t get too happy. I was thinking of hiring another one because there was so much work. Went from wanting two to needing one.”

    I placed my hand on his, “hire Amity,” I said, not giving it much thought, then I straightened up, “oh my God! Hire Amity!” Farouz nodded his head at me, urging me to go on, “she loves all that secretary stuff! Organizing and talking on the phone and keeping people on track! Oh my goodness, this is a great idea! She worked for her dad, you know her dad is a dentist? She worked at his office all throughout high school! She’s really good at this stuff.”

    My husband squinted his eyes, deep in thought, “I mean,” he took his hand back and ran it through his hair, “she sounds great. I would definitely entertain the thought but what about patient confidentiality? Would she be able to not tell you about the cases?”

    I rolled my eyes, genuinely offended, “wow! You really think she’s that shallow?”

    “No!” he rushed to fix what he said, “okay that came out wrong, sorry. I mean sometimes I struggle with not telling you. But these are people’s lives you know? And she won’t just file papers and make appointments. She’s going to be working with a psychologist, she’s gonna see some stuff. There will be days that take an emotional toll on her. Life isn’t good for a lot of the people I see, and she’ll be part of that. So not only does she need to be ready to have some hard days, she would be the first face they see, she needs to be something good in their day, you know?”

    He continued to talk, about how the secretary’s relationship with the patients is as important as his own. As I watched him talk, his hands moving and his eyes shining with passion, I didn’t have the heart to remind him how rude Kassandra was to me. That didn’t really matter though, I have no doubt that she was amazing with all of his other patients. He wouldn’t have kept her for this long if she wasn’t. Farouz has such a strong love and passion for his job, I could sit here and listen to him talk about it for hours. He always got carried away when we were talking about his work; even on his hardest days, he enjoyed what he did. And he should, he worked so hard to get where he is. Alhamdulillah, God did not let him down. For the longest time my husband’s work and studies are what kept him going, so I loved them just as much as he did.

    Dinner continued without a hitch. He talked about his work and I talked about my internship. I really loved the publishing company I was working with; when I told him that I was hoping to get a job there, Farouz beamed. “My wife the publisher,” he kissed my knuckles, “I love that picture, a little business woman.” He had the same enthusiasm when I told him about the student organizations and how I also wanted to work with kids after college, because I loved reading buddies so much. Farouz laughed when I told him about the kids I worked with and seemed as excited for me as I was; if not more.

    I liked us like this; a power couple, just like Amity said. We’re both busy with our lives, stuff we’re passionate about. Yet we enjoy it all together. Alhamdulillah, we’re happy.

    “Have her come by for an interview,” Farouz said as he unlocked our front door. I didn’t know what he was talking about, “Amity, have her come by for an interview. I can’t just hire her because she’s my wife’s best friend.”

    “Of course not,” I tried meekly to hide my excitement, Amity’s been looking for a job for so long! “That would be nepotism.”

    He made a sound he always makes when I say something wrong, a noise somewhere between a laugh, exclaim, and scoff. “It’s not nepotism,” he chuckled, “she’s not related to me.”

    “Well,” I rolled my eyes as I closed the door and started taking my shoes off, “you know what I mean.” Farouz laughed, then he walked up and lifted me off the ground with no warning, “what’s happening now?” I giggled as I felt him kiss my neck.

    “Oh, our date isn’t over just yet.” Farouz hummed against my collar, then his lips trailed up my neck, leaving little kisses. The playful mood we were in was instantly replaced by something completely different. He kissed my lips hard, his tongue tasted like fresh lemonade. I ran my hands through his hair and he sighed at my touch. My husband pressed me against the door and his teeth nibbled on my lip. Farouz knew exactly what he was doing to me. I pulled back and left small kisses down his jaw and his neck, I kissed behind his ear, his favorite spot, and his head rolled back, “I love you so much,” Farouz groaned.

    My fingers started at the buttons of his black shirt, “show me,” I replied.

   
Summer's here! Inshallah I'll be writing more, especially after Ramadan! Ramadan Mubarak to all my Muslim readers!

I saw that this story made it to #11 on Islamic love story! I would love to get it back there, if not higher! So please comment, vote, and share as much as you can! Thank you so much for sticking with me through college, I love y'all x.

Nehal