Accepting You

Chapter Fifty Nine

Asiya strutted past the pile of stuffed animals in the corner of the room and flounced herself onto sister Khaladi's sofa.

"No animal today, Asiya?" Sister Khaladi questioned her brightly.

Asiya crossed her arms across her chest. "No."

Asiya usually treated a stuffed animal like a stress ball. She would mercilessly knead, pinch, and squeeze them between her palms. Asiya would test their agility by distractingly swinging them with her fingers whenever the topic of their sessions became uncomfortable or awkward. But Asiya didn't pick one today because she had officially checked out.

"Are you sure you don't want one?" Yusuf asked as he stood next to the pile. "You haven't sat with the sheep yet," he said as he picked up the scrawny looking teddy by its tail and waved it around.

You're so lucky, Asiya thought to herself as she narrowed her eyes. You're so lucky it's Ramadan; otherwise, I would've snatched that sheep an–You're just so lucky it's Ramadan!

As though Asiya's narrowing gaze was tightening around Yusuf's neck, he dropped the sheep back onto the pile and sat next to her wordlessly.

Asiya lifted her right leg over her left and swung her elevated foot back and forth as sister Khaladi began to recite her disclaimers.

They had been coming here for weeks. The counsellor wasn't saying anything Asiya hadn't heard. Nothing said in this session would be worth her time because Yusuf would probably not say anything she wanted to hear.

Asiya believed Yusuf was innocent, even though he hadn't pleaded his case.

Accusations of zina didn't belong to him. Yusuf wasn't that type of person. He wasn't intentionally dismissive of other people's feelings. He would never disobey Allah. Her husband wasn't a cheat. Her husband wasn't the person people were describing him to be.

After a lot of reflection and silent tears, Asiya realised that was the aim of the rumours. The point of them had been to paint Yusuf in a different light that was so jarring it divorced him from who he really was and removed him from the traits that Asiya knew, so it felt like she didn't know him.

They had tried to divide Asiya's image of Yusuf into little pieces and glue them back together in her mind like he was a broken vase.

They had almost succeeded. Almost. If Asiya was pushed further, they would probably succeed. Especially because something was still nagging at her.

Asiya didn't believe Yusuf was a cheat, but like a previously broken vase, her eyes could still see and trace the lines from when her image of him had been shattered.

Nothing they said may have happened with Sarah that day, but something had still happened.

Yusuf wasn't a liar.

If Asiya had believed Yusuf was an evil person with bad intentions, she would've concluded the absence of his words to be manipulative. Asiya would've pushed him away harder, to the point he had stumbled out of the door. She would've kicked up a fuss whenever Yusuf tried to say anything other than what needed to be said. She wouldn't have lowered her defences whenever he came near her. Asiya would've erased the effects of his words that day when it felt like he had been on the cliff of a confession by moving his hands and demanding the truth.

Yusuf wasn't a liar, but the truth seemed to always be his hostage.

Asiya hadn't confronted him. She had already robbed Yusuf of telling her the truth on his own when she had met with Olivia. She wasn't going to rob him of more.

But Asiya had also teased the idea of divorce in her mind too many times to know she wouldn't go through with it. She had to ride it out. But her patience was exhausted.