Amani knew how her cousin would likely react so she watched her closely as she spoke the words. Reema was emptying the box of the freshly cut leaves when it seemed to click. It was information unexpected in such a way that she didn't gasp or freeze in shock. No, Reema only continued lifting the last few leaves from the box before wheeling it at Amani's head.

She cried, ducking in surprise.

"Say wallah!" Reema bellowed, sprinting after the girl. "Say wallah and swear on my life that you've just gone and done this Amani. Do you realize how serious this is?"

Amani laughed. "Calm down."

"No! I can't calm down! How am I supposed to remain calm at news like this?" She questioned. "Amani... this is serious. This is serious and you are laughing at me even though I seem to be taking it more seriously than you. This is a marriage proposal."

"I'm fully aware of how serious it is," Amani clarified.

But Reema didn't believe her. "I don't think you are. Muhsin was supposed to be something fun to fill your boredom with, not someone you would ask to propose to you a second time. Are you going to accept his proposal this time? Do you plan on marrying the boy or just tossing him around for your own entertainment?"

Amani shook her head. "It isn't like that."

"Amani," Reema took a long stride to arrive in front of her, her expression not betraying an ounce of amusement. "This is his life you are playing with. I understand that you are not from here so you see the town as some imaginary land that you'll never have to return to again once you leave, but it's very real. Muhsin is very real."

"I know that."

"You don't," Reema laughed. "You don't, Amani, because you would not be doing this to him if you did. You said you were not here to marry and now you have asked him to propose to you a second time. You said he was just fun for you and this is not fun. This is somebody's life you are ruining in your desire to make up for everything you missed when you left the place you came from."

"I'm not trying to make up for anything, Reema. I actually like Muhsin," Amani replied, feeling the conversation taking a turn she knew she would not like. "I'm not that cruel."

Reema sighed, pushing her hair from her face with her palms to reveal the true level of her exasperation. "Maybe you do, bas tell me then, baby cousin. If he really asks, will you marry Muhsin?"

Amani opened her mouth to reply then paused. "That's why I'm getting to know him. That's how this works, isn't it?"

"But would you marry him? Would you wear his ring on your finger and give the rest of your life to him? Would you actually marry him?" She pressed.

It made Amani notice something in her cousin's mind that made her fall silent. "You think I'm lying," she whispered, seeing the reality of it in Reema's eyes. An answer wasn't even needed to confirm the truth in her statement. "You think I'm just playing him, don't you?"

She began to reply but Amani interjected.

"Tell the truth, Reema."

Then she paused and the word on her lip changed. "Yes, I do, but it's only because that's what you've been telling me. You said he was a challenge. You said you would not like him and that you had your person back home. What then?"

"What then what?"

"When it's time to go back, you'll leave Muhsin."

"This isn't about me leaving. This is about you not trusting me enough to think I would genuinely consider his feelings like some kind of psychopath or sociopath—whichever it is! Just because I told you about someone back home does not mean I think Muhsin is a figment of my imagination. I'm fully aware of his being real and I'm also aware of what I've asked him to do. I'm not ignorant to how things are done here just because I've been raised in another country."

Reema noticed Amani's wounded expression. "That is not what I meant," she attempted to reason.

But Amani was already grabbing her books on her way to the door. "No, I understood exactly what you meant, Reema. I'm a heartless foreigner who doesn't take anything seriously." The door closed between them before Reema could say anything more.

She stomped her feet into the ground to bury her frustration into each step. As she neared the end of the narrow alley, Amani leveled her footsteps and took a deep breath. She wasn't afraid anybody would see her unhappiness except the girls who always sat near Reema's street—Yasmeen and her friends. They would jump at any chance to make her life difficult. Amani would not allow them.

"Can I have five please?" She slid the money to Farouq.

"Taboon?"

Amani nodded. Of all the people in this town, Reema knew her better than anyone. How could she think something so lowly of her? Perhaps if she'd kept her updated of the news, but even that wasn't a reasonable enough justification for what she'd said. Why would she-.

"Amani," Farouq repeated, his eyes hooked onto her patiently.

She hummed. Had he been speaking to her?

"Did you want a paper or plastic bag?"

"Are they hot?"

He shook his head. "Not really. They were made an hour's-third ago so they're still a bit warm, but some are a little colder. The warmer ones are smaller but thicker so the size isn't very different either. It really only depends on what you're using it for. Do you know?"

Amani watched him, his explanation four sentences longer than it needed to be. She blinked because she'd blanked out after his initial answer then felt guilty for it. "I'll just take a plastic one then," she lowered her eyes to the bread. "I mean, a paper one. Paper's better." She nodded to herself; paper was better.

"Paper it is," he reached beneath the table.

"Do you think I'm a kind person, Farouq?"

The smile he'd had when selecting the breads he'd give her stiffened when Farouq lifted his gaze to look at her. "What? Well- I don't know you very well."

She lowered her gaze and whispered. "It's okay."

Farouq's gulp was loud. "From what I know, from what I've heard, though, you seem quite nice. Not to mention, you did help Fayza a few days ago. I don't think an unkind person would have done such a thing. So, I do think you're a kind person, Amani."

Amani smiled at his response and, when he saw her teeth, the corners of Farouq's lips lifted in a courtesy simper. "Thank you," she whispered in appreciation of the boy's empathy.

"You're welcome," he bowed his head.

"But I still want to," Amjad whined.

"Then go and bring your brother then," Muhsin nudged his brother forward as he arrived at the bakery, his eyes shifting between Farouq and Amani for the briefest moment before he greeted his cousin. Amani waited in silence but he didn't acknowledge her.

She hadn't expected him to.

Farouq nodded. "I'll be back with your change. There's money in the register right?" He turned to Muhsin and, when he nodded, Farouq disappeared through the heavy bakery door.

"Hi Muhsin," Amani whispered.

He bowed his head to acknowledge her.

Amani narrowed her eyes at him and leaned an inch forward so he would hear her clearly. "You can answer, you know. The streets are busy. Nobody's paying attention to us."

Muhsin shook his head. "People are always paying attention."

"Who?" She scanned the street around them. Even Yasmeen wasn't sitting in her usual spot against the house a few steps down the road. As far as she could see, nobody saw them either.

"You told your cousin," he began reorganizing the bread to make room for the fresh ones to be baked.

"What?" Amani's lips curled in confusion. But the questions fell away when she turned her head to find Reema standing on the roof of her home, leaning over to watch the two of them. At the sight of her, Amani frowned. Reema tried to lift her hand in a regretful wave but she'd already turned away from her, feeling her anger rise again.

Maybe Reema had been searching for her to apologize. Knowing her, that was likely what she'd been attempting with that wave, but Amani rolled her eyes at the thought of it. Perhaps Reema actually didn't trust her and wanted to examine the way she interacted with Muhsin because she thought Amani wasn't to be trusted. She thought Amani was some-.

Amani flinched when an abrupt pain echoed in her abdomen. She began lifting her hand to muffle the neurological cry but it fell silent before she could move much further than the table. Had it been a month already?

"Are you alright?" 

When she looked up, Muhsin's eyes rested on her for a brief second before dropping back to the bread in his hands. She smiled at his concern. "I'm always alright when you're talking to me."

His brow lifted a centimeter and Muhsin pulled in a deep breath to diffuse whatever affect her words had. It made her feel lighter that she had any affect at all on him. She doubted if Muhsin would answer at all but, before he had the opportunity to prove her wrong, Farouq had returned with her change.

But a little head knocked into his elbow and the money fell to the floor as both brothers wrestled for dominance. "Here you g-oh."

"You always go first!"

Muhsin dropped the bread onto the table and quickly reached for his little brothers. His hand, much larger than either of theirs, closed around Amjad's arm and tugged him back. "Hey," he separated the two as their hands violently swung for each other. "What is it? Why are you hitting your brother?"

"He punched me first!" The little one yelled.

Muhsin looked between them. "Punched?"

"Kidb!" Amjad shouted.

"Amjad. Don't call your brother names."

The little boy reached his foot across to kick his older brother but Muhsin lifted him away by the back of his shirt until his feet kicked into the air. "Khalas, both of you," he held their arms and kneeled between the brothers. "Ezzo, why did you hit your brother?"

Ezzo pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. "He called me selfish. I'm not selfish," he whined.

Muhsin turned to Amjad. "Why did you call him selfish?"

"Because he is!"

"Stop it!" Ezzo cried.

"Amjad," Muhsin repeated, his tone stern enough to flash the older brother the warning he nonverbally needed. "I told you to go take your brother so you could play together in the playground, but now you have made him cry. Look at him. Are you going to be happy while you're playing now knowing you've made Ez-Eddin cry?" The boy remained silent so Muhsin asked again. "Are you?"

He sighed and, finally, Amjad shook his head. "He's the one that kept saying he wanted to try the slide first even though I like it more."

Farouq snorted and Muhsin's warning gaze flashed at his older cousin. Amani smiled at the way it was perfectly applied to both Amjad and Farouq because they both turned away. "We just came from the slide, Medo. If your brother tries it first, will you be unable to try it ever again or will you only have to wait a few minutes?"

"But I don't want to wait," he whined.

Muhsin narrowed his eyes at the boy. "What is the ayah that you learned yesterday? That Immyshowed you."

Amjad mumbled something unhappily.

"So how should you act with your little brother?"

"Patient."

At the word, Muhsin smiled. "Good job. Yalla, kiss your brother's head and forgive one another." Amani watched the boys hesitantly approach one another. Amjad kissed Ezzo's forehead but, when he heard his sniffles, embraced the smaller frame of his brother.

Muhsin gripped both boys' necks firmly and pressed his lips to each of their temples. "You're brothers, the both of you," he whispered so quietly Amani nearly missed his hushed words. "Nobody else will protect you like one another, you understand?"

"I'm sorry," Amjad nudged the little boy. "You can go on the slide first, okay? You don't have to cry. I'll even let you go on it twice."

Farouq chuckled, shaking his head as he counted the money he'd picked off the floor. "He's got a way with them, doesn't he? That's how you know he'll be good to his children, too. Here you go."

"Go play, yalla," he pushed both boys away.

As they ran past her, completely forgetting their clashing emotions just a few moments before, Amani remembered her own brothers. One Amjad's age and the other nearly six years older than him. They always fought the same way and she'd always been the one to calm their arguments. In her focus on her own worries here and the reasons she'd been sent away, Amani had forgotten to remember both boys. Now, with the memory of them, she felt her chest ache and her eyes become wet.

"Hey...," Farouq's voice trailed. This time, when she looked at him and Muhsin, they were both watching her. She saw their knit brows through the cloudiness of her tear-filled eyes.

Muhsin's eyes shifted between hers. "Amani?"

Farouq turned to him.

She tried to blink the sentiment away but they only rolled down her cheeks to allow more to take their place. "Something's...," she wiped her eyes but the feeling of her fingers over her eyes only reminded her more of both boys.

She missed her brothers.

All of a sudden, she missed them so much it broke her.

"What is it?" Muhsin took a step around the table.

Amani shook her head and moved away. "Something's in my eye. I need- I should wash it out." In her hurry to return home, she left the change in Farouq's hand and the bread on the table. She wouldn't realize it though. She would be too lost in her thoughts of her brothers.

When she told her aunt, Auntie understood and, instead of telling her it was only a matter of time before they were reunited, she called Amani's father. He didn't answer the first ring. But Auntie tried again.

He answered on the third attempt.

"Shoo feh?"  His first question.

"Baba," Amani spoke into the phone, actually speaking to her father for the first time since he'd walked her to the airport's security check. Before then, every conversation they had was between her aunt because he'd been too angry with her. He hadn't expected her voice. "Can I talk to Habib and Yazan?"

Her father was silent.

Then the phone moved.

"Amani!" Habib exclaimed. The youngest was excited to hear her voice because he'd thought his sister had traveled by her own will. And Amani's weak hold on herself broke. She dropped her face into her hands, her eyes shielded beneath her hand, as her youngest brother's voice poured through the phone.

"Finally, you call me. You took forever. Yazan said you forgot about us, but Mama said you were busy. I told him that you only forgot about him because I'm your favorite. Ever since you left, he doesn't talk to me very much but I sleep in your room sometimes. Or when Harry bothers me at school, Yazan yelled at him. He said he would beat him up if he said I have four eyes again just because of my glasses...."

Auntie wrapped her arms around the girl as she held her breath, trying to keep her suffocating sobs from releasing a single sound that her brother might hear. She wanted to speak up and answer him but there was no way to do it without revealing her cries.

"Is that Amani?" Yazan's voice asked in the background.

She lifted the phone away from her ear when her lungs contracted to pull in the breath she'd been trying to hold. Yazan and Habib had been the last two on her mind ever since she left. She'd forgotten to remember them and now it hit her like a runaway train how much she'd abandoned the boys. Not once had she considered how her sudden disappearance would affect them.

Habib, whom she'd spent every weekend watching cartoons on the television with while they snacked on the popcorn mix they'd come up with that day. Chocolates, gummies, chips, and popcorn all mixed into the same bowl. Then hot chocolate and kosher marshmallows. Then lollipops. Then hours of feeling sick to their stomachs.

Yazan, who hardly spoke to anyone because he was in the prime of his puberty ages and took life too seriously. They fought more than anything but they were the most reliant on each other in the entire house. It was a relationship where they threw everything they could find at each other then grew ridiculously protective the moment anyone else interfered or hurt them.

"You're ugly!" Yazan shouted into the phone.

"You're the ugly one," Habib called back.

"You look like me so you're ugly too then."

"That's not true. Amani and I are twins!"

"That's why you're both ugly."

"And you're stupid."

"I know what three times four is."

"I'm only eight. At least I read books. You just play on your PlayStation in your room all day so it smells bad, right Amani? You didn't forget how stinky his room is already, right? It smells even worse now. When are you going to come back? I got us marshmallows from the store but Yazan keeps trying to eat them."

Amani handed the phone to her aunt and raced to her room. She'd never had to run away crying in her life but she'd had to do it then because the sob that prepared to rip through her throat would expose her to everyone on the other side of the line.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang and Muhsin's voice could be heard from her open balcony doors in the street below. "She forgot these at the bakery," he'd said to her aunt. "Is she alright?" He'd asked.

Amani spent the remainder of the evening in her room, hidden beneath her blankets, and thought only of her brothers.