Accepting You

Chapter One

Asiya's hairbrush smacked against the wall with a thwack.

Last night, Asiya's mum bulldozed her way in front of the television, concealing the cartoon from Asiya, to ask if she had sorted everything that she needed for school.

Asiya had swept her hand across her shoulder suavely. "I've got everything under control," Asiya had firmly said.

The statement was true at the time.

Asiya had triple-checked that her pencil case, textbooks, and notebooks were sandwiched neatly into her bag. She had scrolled through every sixth-form group chat to ensure she hadn't accidentally missed an assignment. She had bought a bus pass, set her alarms, ironed her outfit, and laid it on her bed.

She had planned to have everything under control.

She was in her final year of school, on the cusp of entering a form of adulthood through another institution– university–where reinvention was a rite of life as much as it was a desperate want.

This year would be her practice run before the real one, a prep course, and control was necessary for Asiya's plans to work.

Asiya's sense of control was easily lost, like a bookmark slipping below the borders of a page. The small things always nicked at it.

It was a small thing, the snoozing of one alarm that had caused Asiya to cross out multiple steps in her morning to-do list and crash through the rest. The smallest amount of pressure had made Asiya's concealer burst out of its packaging and stain her clothes.

Because of a small thing, Asiya was tearing through her room, emptying her wardrobe, rummaging through her drawers, and flipping open her school files. It was the reason why she was becoming late.

"Where the hell is my pin?" Asiya cried loudly as she tossed her pillows off her bed and lifted her duvet cover.

"Kulthum!" Asiya yelled as she yanked open her side drawer. Her hands scattered through her personal lost and found pile. Random paper clips, old receipts, cheap jewellery, bookmarks, and every other forgettable item that could fit were strewn in there, except for her black safety pin.

"Kulthum! Did you take my pin?" Asiya shouted as she pushed her head deeper into the drawer.

"Kulthum doesn't even wear hijab yet, Asiya," Aminah said from behind her.

Asiya pulled her head out of her drawer as Aminah stretched her legs over some objects, inviting herself into Asiya's room.

Asiya slammed her drawer shut and snorted. "Kulthum doesn't have a reason for half of the things in her room, but somehow, they still end up there. She puts pickpockets to shame."

Aminah rolled her eyes and sat on a blank space on Asiya's bed. "Kulthum is still sleeping," she said. "I don't know how with all this noise you're making."

"I'm just looking for my pin. Where the hell could it be?" Asiya stropped. Her hands flapped against her thighs as she childishly stamped her feet into the ground.

It didn't matter how hard Asiya tried, how many checklists she created, or how many times she mentally rehearsed her routines; something always seemed to slip out of place, making her plans feel as unstable as a Jenga tower at the end of a game.

Today, a missing safety pin. Tomorrow, she would miss her future if she didn't pull herself together.

This year was supposed to be a prep course, not a crash course. It was meant to be a solid, secure, and steady foundation—a starting point.

This was not the point Asiya wanted to start from at all.

"Why do you only have one pin?" Aminah asked while sweeping a slightly disapproving look over Asiya and her room. "That's abnormal for a hijabi."