Chapter 32

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Hidaya

"Honestly they were mean to me!" He laughed as he told me about how Mubarak and his other cousins bullied him for being chubby as a kid.

"Can you imagine! I wanted to play football with them but they told me to go do Yoga instead." He shook his head scrolling through his phone as I laughed my heart out.

"Nooo that's evil! Yoga?" I put a hand on my stomach as I laughed.

"Look at this, this is what I looked like." He showed me a picture of a chubby kid. Same beautiful facial features, a baby Ziyad.

"Masha Allah you looked so cute!" I awe over the picture smiling.

"Swipe left." He flashed a cute smile as he waited eagerly for me to see the next picture.

I swipe and see a picture of him and a baby girl I'm assuming is his sister. I look up at him and he explained.

"That's Noor at five months." He smiled cheerfully.

"You were both so chubby Masha Allah." I giggle looking at the pic zooming in on her face. I turn the phone to show it to him "she looks the same." I grin but his smile dropped a bit. I check the phone to see that I've accidentally swiped to the next picture and it was a picture of him and his dad. He looked a lot like him, a young Ziyad was sitting on his dad's lap laughing as his dad tickled him.

"I'm so sorry I didn't know..." I try to apologize.

"It's okay actually, I want you to know about him." He smiles softly.

I felt honored, he had never said much about his dad and so I figured he was still sensitive about it and never brought it up.

"This was when he got Amma a camera and he wanted her to try it out. I can actually still remember the moment, everything." He inhales deeply.

"You look a lot like him." I smile.

"Really?" He grins excitedly.

"Yeah." I laugh at his innocence.

"I'm honored, he was really handsome. It was like the older he got the more handsome he became." He heaved a sigh looking down at the carpet.

I scan his face not saying anything, I've always got to see his bold side, his funny side, calm side, but his emotional side I never got to see until today. He was opening up to me about something dear to him and it made me happy.

"Thank you." I say and he looks at me.

"For what?"

"....I don't know...I guess for opening up to me...but really, thank you." I pass the phone back to him and he nods with a smile.

My phone rings and I pick up, it was yaya.

"Oya your time is up." I look back to the main door about 20 feet away where he sat "reading" a newspaper when in reality he was just keeping an eye on us. I laugh and wave at him.

"Yes sir." I say. "Times up Mr Z" I look back at him and he groans.

"Fineeee." He covers his face with his hand. "Oh wait, I got you something." He stands up and walks to his car before I could speak.

"Again?" I say when he gets back.

"Yes!" He grins like an excited kid before revealing a jewelry box, he opens it to reveal a very beautiful silver bracelet with encrusted gems. He then flips the other side of it to reveal the word 'hayati' engraved onto it. My hand flies to my mouth as I admire it.

"It's....wow." I say at loss for words.

"Do you like it?" His eyes scans my face.

"I love it!" I exclaim.

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