Accepting You

Chapter Two

Asiya wanted to have one of those laissez-faire attitudes. Attitudes where girls didn't have to try to not care about things. They just didn't.

They didn't even have to shake things off, like Asiya's mother often advised, because things just slid off them the way water slid off glass.

Asiya hadn't even mastered the ability to shake things off. Things stuck to her and refused to let go. Asiya always felt like she was thrashing around, trying to swat off her feelings as if they were bugs crawling over her.

Shaking things off made Asiya feel out of control, even though by doing it, someone was asserting control and choosing what affected them, as though their problems were food options at a buffet.

Asiya had tried to work on it over the Summer.

Having a younger sister being raised by parents who were letting go of their strict parenting style made that easy. Kulthum was always looking for buttons to push, and Asiya seemed to have some of her favourites.

But Asiya still had a long way to go. The sides of Asiya's mouth were tracing the edges of a scowl as she raced towards Sarah's car. Sarah's behaviour wasn't sliding off Asiya. Sarah's actions were clinging to Asiya like tape.

Sarah hadn't been waiting for up to ten minutes. She and Asiya had never agreed or discussed continuing their pre-summer carpool arrangement, and if even if they were continuing it, Sarah had arrived at Asiya's house late.

"What the hell Sarah!" Asiya snapped as she slammed the car door shut. Miles to go. "Do you have to wake up the entire damn neighbourhood?"

Asiya threw her bag onto the floor behind her seat before pulling her seatbelt across her body and continuing. "You didn't even tell me you were coming! I bought a bus pass! We didn't discuss anything!"

"I didn't think we had to. I picked you up every day last year. It's our routine. Someone would've thought you would be grateful I'm here!" Sarah spat.

Asiya inhaled slowly and exhaled quietly. Stay calm, she said to herself.

"I am. Really. Thank you," Asiya softly said, hoping to stop Sarah's temper from boiling over. "But all that honking? You weren't exactly on time, you know."

"I know." Sarah's words came out lazily as she combed her hands through her dark, curly hair. "But I'm the driver. I can be as late as I want. You're the passenger. You can't."

"You didn't even have to wait. I was barely five minutes," Asiya lightly argued.

"Yeah? Exactly. Five minutes too late. Late is late, and you're not helping your people beat those time accusations by being so," Sarah snorted.

Did she mean that playfully?

Asiya made her brain snip off the sharpness of Sarah's words. Sarah was making a joke, a bad joke at the very least. Wasn't she? Sarah wasn't stereotyping her.

"You're here now, though. That's what matters," Sarah said as she turned the key in her ignition. "And we're friends, so please remember that we're carpooling tomorrow, yeah?"

Asiya nodded. Friends.

Perhaps when they were younger, they were. Perhaps when their similarities went beyond their postcodes, like when they watched the same shows, enjoyed the same foods, both wore the hijab, and both had living fathers.

Perhaps when it didn't feel like Sarah had turned every interaction of theirs into a competition, and Asiya didn't mentally turn every interaction into a comparison.

When they didn't have the looming threat of securing their futures hanging over their heads. When they were less stressed, things were less strained, and their relationship felt normal.