Twice Shy

04 TWICE SHY

I have known Ilyaz for one year and ten months since our engagement. Eleven months and seventeen days since our nikkah. Nine months living under the same roof, and twenty three years since I met him for the first time. He is my husband, yet I have just realised I do not know who we are.

When you build a life with someone, so many of your building blocks prop up your partner, and you're propped up by theirs, until your foundations merge and walking away risks destabilization for you both. We have joint checking and savings accounts. Both of our names are on the lease, and it stands to reason that whoever bails forfeits the house. His parents have invested in me, grooming me into Mrs.Ali material. We have obligations together. Long-term plans. It's as if you take a string and tie it to our's veins, and whoever walks away bleeds out first. I can't cut this string between Ilyaz and I and float away free, because we have tangles.

When I look at our picture on the frame, I realise I have forgotten. How did we meet again, and how did it come to this? I can't remember any good memory with him and it's overshadowed by the immense dislike and suffocation inside me. Maybe we met in a rehabilitation therapy— which makes me scoff inwardly— we definitely look as if we need it. Maybe we met in a library, cliché enough but he fits the description of the boy you'd meet in a library, as you two reach for the same book on the shelves. Maybe we ran into each other like something out of a movie, and I collided into him unexpectedly. He smiled, untangling the fabric from his watch. All I know is that a few months ago I woke up from the longest slumber to discover I've been married to someone I can barely stand.

It would've made things easier if Ilyaz was just horrid and I had a reason for abandoning him that wouldn't bring me on the desi version of the Salem Witch trials for questioning.

When I peer outside to check the sound of tires whoosh over leftover rain, I'm relieved that it is not Ilyaz. Instead, I notice the flattened tires of my car fully pumped back to life. It's suspicious, it's either someone changed it for me or a jinn breathed life into it. Right now, the latter's more likely.

I decide to walk back inside then I notice the dampened towel sprawled over our bed. Forgetting to do the laundry is an innocent mistake, bragging about doing the laundry and not doing it is hostility. It's the last straw.

I press the same towel against my mouth, biting down on my screams in case our neighbours decide to report a murder to 999.

After my emotional dilemma, I stride to the bathroom. Opening the cabinet, my eyes catch the hair dye first, which I'd hidden aside and left untouched after Ilyaz expressed his strong distaste towards women with dyed hair. Ilyaz doesn't like his wife's hair any longer? Fantastic.

I spend two hours inside, scooping the red dye and running my fingers through black locks. After I wash it off, I look at the fogged mirror.

Once the fog clears, a new person stares back at me. She has brown hair, which I suppose is since the red didn't work because of the absence of bleach, but what I have is enough to tick Ilyaz off.

I'm in love with her.

I take the bright red lipstick out, again something I'd left untouched to suit Ilyaz's taste, and trace two interlocked hearts on the mirror, writing "Can't wait for 17th! #IlyIly,".

17th January is our Walimah, and I've never called Ilyaz Ily before, though I cannot remember why. I realise it's absolutely hilarious as my palms clasp against my knees and I lean back, the walls erupting in cackles.

Smirking as I appreciate this new entity that has possessed my husband's wife, I walk to the closet to pull out the most anti Ilyaz outfit I can find, which happens to be an XXL Real Madrid Hoodie. It's men's, which makes Ilyaz suspect it belongs to an ex lover of mine. Although it doesn't, the idea of unsettling him soothes my soul.