Accepting You

Chapter Sixty Two

Asiya's leg had begun to shake the minute her mum started reversing the car into the driveway.

Once her mum had parked, Asiya pushed the button of her seat belt, tore it off, jumped out of the car before anyone else could and sprinted into the house.

"Where's Yusuf?" Asiya questioned her dad urgently.

"Upstairs," her dad replied. "What's the matt–"

Asiya couldn't have been any faster if she had tried. She practically teleported onto the first floor of her house.

Her room door slammed against the wall as she exploded into it.

Asiya threw herself onto Yusuf, who was adjusting the collar of his thobe in the mirror, causing him to stagger backwards.

Asiya pushed all her energy into their hug and squeezed Yusuf so tightly that she could feel his bones rubbing against his skin.

Yusuf had always made Asiya feel as though she was his everything. As though the pages of his story only had sentences that started and ended with her name.

Asiya wanted to go back and give Yusuf the same privilege. She wanted to pull on the hands of time and overwrite her story like it was an old cassette tape. Asiya wanted her pages filled with Yusuf's name and all her sentences to be punctuated with it.

But that wasn't possible. So, she tightened her arms around Yusuf, hoping that eventually, maybe, by some scientific miracle, Yusuf would physically feel how potent Asiya's love for him was and believe her when she said it had always been there.

That was the truth because Asiya couldn't pinpoint the exact moment she had fallen in love with Yusuf.

Even if she could become the author of her life and edit that detail into it, Asiya didn't know what chapter to start from.

It was as though Asiya's love for Yusuf had snuck into her heart and buried itself deeply, silently making a home for itself. It had always been there, but just like a fly on the wall, it attracted no attention until it was touched or challenged.

"I love you," Asiya proclaimed.

"I love you too," Yusuf chuckled. The words rolled off his tongue like they were shaped like spheres.

"No." Asiya placed her hands on Yusuf's cheeks. "I. Love. You," she repeated with more force and ferocity.

"I. Love. You. Too." Yusuf copied Asiya's bullet point rhythm with a smile. "What's wrong?"

Asiya dropped her hands from Yusuf's face and held them at her chest. "I realised...I've never told you that I love you. I've never said it back."

"Yes, you have." Yusuf looked up as he thought. "You've texted it to me before. At least once or twice, I think."

Asiya weakly punched Yusuf's arm. "Yusuf! A text message is not the same! That doesn't count!"

"It came from you. It counted to me," Yusuf said.

"You know what I mean, Yusuf," Asiya said lowly as she shut her door. "I love you. I swear. I've loved you for ages. I'm sorry I've never said it to you or said it back when you have."

"It's alright," Yusuf said as he folded his collar.

"How are you so okay with this?" Asiya asked.

If their roles were reversed and Yusuf confessed his realisation to Asiya, she would be simmering with self-doubt and hurt. It would take her days, possibly weeks and a few counselling sessions to get over it.

"Like I said, you've said it to me before. You've said it so many times, just not with your words. All those moments counted to me," Yusuf replied.

"All those moments...they've been enough?" Asiya questioned Yusuf quietly. She couldn't let go of enough of her breath to push more volume into her voice.