**Winner 2024 Amby Awards**
Fiza has everything planned-medical school, a respectable future, and an engagement she never wanted. Determined to escape a loveless match, she creates a checklist to find the perfect husband her father will approve of.
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Alan
The final year of our MBBS hit us like a truck. Our schedules became brutal leaving little room for anything else. Classes Monday through Saturday, and then, as if some sadist in the administration thought we needed more, two hours of "Integrated Medicine" were tacked onto our Sundays. It felt like we were just scrambling to keep our heads above the water, with no time to actually dive deep and understand any of it.
Fiza kept redrawing our study timetable, her brow furrowed in frustration as we fell further behind our goals.
"Why don't you just do the whole thing on google calender. Then you can swap it around easier." I told her one day, pulling out my phone. "See," I showed her the app. "You can hit edit and choose colors too..."
"I can't see the whole thing at once to plan it out," she said shaking her head.
"I think you're just making an excuse to sniff those highlighters," I teased.
She laughed, swatting at my forearm.
Our lives had narrowed to reviewing class notes and battling the dense pages of the Davidson textbook. But for me, the hardest part wasn't the workload.
It was her. After the disaster of the family vacation, Fiza had built a wall. She was careful not to cross any line that wasn't strictly "friendship." A casual touch was avoided, a lingering look was cut short. It was driving me insane.
How could she do this? How could she pretend nothing had happened between us? This was the same girl who had always insisted she couldn't separate physical touch from love. And now she was acting like we were just study partners. Meanwhile, I was drowning in my love for her.
One afternoon outside the library, I noticed that Fiza seemed upset. Her lashes stuck together like she had been crying or maybe it was bad mascara. But then I noticed her eyes were scanning the same paragraph over and over.
"Princess," I said softly, reaching over to stroke her thumb with mine. "Look at me. Tell me what's bothering you."
She met my gaze, but pulled her hand away. For a second, the walls were down. I saw the exhaustion, the sadness. Then she just shook her head. "I just haven't been in a fight with Farzana for this long," she murmured.
I rolled my eyes, frustrated.
"Growing up we fought all the time, but we've never gone this long without talking," Fiza said, her voice soft with a confusion that grated on me. "But I just can't forgive this. Not this."
"Fucking bitch," I uttered under my breath.
"That's my sister you're talking about," she scolded, a flicker of defensive fire in her eyes.
I struggled to keep my voice even. "That stunt she pulled was just cheap, Fiza. Calculated. It wasn't some silly mistake."
Fiza nodded, looking down at her textbook. "I know. But I feel like a part of me is missing. Farzana was always impulsive. She would get in trouble all the time and I used to think it was for attention. But this... I just don't know anymore..."
