Accepting You

Chapter Forty Seven

When Aminah and Kulthum arrived to take Asiya to visit her parents, Yusuf placed his hands around Asiya's face, pulled her into him and leaned his head against hers.

She closed her eyes while Yusuf kept his open.

Yusuf's eyes tenderly traced the faint contours of Asiya's skin as he studied her.

It seemed his nose would fit perfectly into the curve just above the bridge of Asiya's nose, right in between her eyebrows. Still, Yusuf was scared to test that theory because their feelings towards each other felt mismatched.

They remained in that position for a few minutes, foreheads touching as though their thoughts were being passed through the barriers of their skin, bodies unmoving as they absorbed and understood the words their lips couldn't say.

"Hello!" Kulthum honked from the car. "Did you call me to be a taxi driver or to watch a movie that looks like it's about to be rated R?"

The couple smiled at Kulthum's comment before breaking away from each other.

"I love you," Yusuf said as he squeezed Asiya's hand.

Asiya gave Yusuf's hand a squeeze back. "I know."

"I'll be back," Yusuf said as he walked her to the car.

"I know."

Yusuf opened Asiya's car door. "I'm going to fix this."

Asiya released Yusuf's hand and slid into the car.

Yusuf leaned over her in the doorway. He looked at Asiya with hopeful eyes and waited for her to say I know, to tell him that she was confident in him, that she believed him and believed in him, but she didn't, so Yusuf closed the car door and watched Asiya wave goodbye through the back window.

Once Kulthum's white vehicle was a speck in his view, Yusuf jogged into his car and drove straight to his mother's house.

Talking to his mother was relatively easy.

The conversation they had weeks ago after Yusuf announced his intentions to marry Asiya and the ones they had been having in between had loosened Yusuf's lips and unblocked his mother's ears.

Hannah nodded eagerly and agreed that sort of treatment wasn't right, and she promised to help Yusuf achieve his goal of stopping aunt Hina's actions and interference.

Now it was his aunt's turn.

His feelings were fuel because the car's speed steadily increased the closer he got to aunt Hina's house. Yusuf unannouncedly wove between lanes, aggressively overtook drivers ignoring their frustrated finger symbols and narrowly skimmed past orange lights.

When Yusuf arrived at his aunt's house, his memory of the journey there was blurry.

He stomped up the walkway before knocking harshly on the door. He waited, and when no one answered, he knocked harder, causing his knuckles to vibrate.

After the third knock, the door opened.

"Sarah?"

"Hey. Salam." Sarah moved her hand, giving Yusuf a small wave. "Auntie isn't here right now. She just popped to the corner shop to get some stuff for today's event."

"What a coincidence," Yusuf drawled sarcastically.

"What are you doing here?" he questioned, baffled that his overprotective, selfish aunt had left someone that wasn't family unattended in her home.

Sarah folded her arms and flicked her head backwards, causing her hair to whip over her shoulder as she leaned against the doorframe.

"I'm helping auntie...You know we're meeting with Rahimah's fiancé's family, right? Rahimah?" Sarah shook her head in disappointed disbelief. "Rahimah...your cousin? Today's her dua-e-khair Yusuf."