Measure Success [Hakim Ziyech]

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Establishing (Some) Ground Rules

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Summer 2009

Berkane, Morocco

Souhaila had a clear plan in her head for when she'd see Hakim Ziyech again.

They'd greet each other and then she'd announce it, confidently and calmly. She'd tell him the only way she could see their "relationship" working out. She'd had a little less than a year to think and prepare it all. She'd needed the time.

Especially, after the talk, she'd had with Hafsa and that had brought this on in the first place.

Not that Souhaila complained. She was glad for her sister's advice and opinion, no matter how off the latter had been at certain points. It wasn't Hafsa's fault she just didn't know him as well as Souhaila did.

Anyway, Souhaila was relieved to have had that talk with Hafsa, she'd actually been thinking for a while about how to approach the subject with her. She didn't like keeping things from her sister.

But turns out, Hafsa Hayat wasn't as oblivious to her little sister's endeavours as said little sister would have liked to believe.

They'd talked a lot about Souhaila's situation.

Souhaila's situation, of course, being Hakim and his not-so-subtle affections for her. And hers for him. Because in front of Hafsa, she didn't dare to rebuff the fact that she held affection for Hakim.

The conversation had started with an overdramatic "We need to talk," when they were both working their shifts at the bakery on the 31st of December and mostly selling cakes since more and more people had started to celebrate New Year even though there weren't even any fireworks in Morocco.

Then came a long speech that Souhaila was only allowed to butt into a few seldom times and that displayed just how much time Hafsa had taken to think her words through before she'd said something, which was quite uncharacteristic for her.

The most important parts had gone something like this.

"If you were hiding it from me it can't be anything good." Well, Hafsa hadn't said that when she found out that Souhaila had been hiding her Jonas Brothers phase from her.

Souhaila was quite sure that she'd seen Hafsa's picture of Kevin in their wardrobe just last week.

Hafsa was totally generalising!

"This is so haram, Souhaila." Obviously, but Souhaila would like to think that they weren't actually doing anything haram, right? Like they didn't do haram stuff so surely it wasn't that bad.

Except for the hand holding that one time.

Oh, the hand-holding! That had been definitely haram.

Souhaila really should've prevented that, shouldn't she? She had been weak...

"You're going to get hurt." Well, she'd already established that she wasn't. It was going to be a hurt-free business. But Souhaila hadn't said that. Not when Hafsa had looked so genuinely worried.

As if she knew something Souhaila didn't or couldn't see.

"He's from a very different background than you. He hardly even speaks Arabic" That one was so typical and just plain biased. What was wrong with him being different from many other boys around them? Souhaila happened to like that about him.