Eighteen-year-old Hayat Amanullah has it all: a loving family, a carefree life, and a future at the Ivy League school of her dreams. But her perfect life shatters when her oldest brother suddenly dies in a car accident. The tight-knit Amanullah fami...
author's note: keep a pack of tissues handy for this chapter :)
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~ Yellow tulips: Unrequited/hopeless love ~
My gardening gloves are covered in mud when I get a text message back from Aneela.
Salaam! Sure, I would love to look over your scholarship applications. When do you wanna meet?
I dust my gloves off and hurriedly pull them off my hands. whenever you're free!
I'm free today! she responds immediately. If you're okay with that.
I text her a thumbs-up and a time to meet, then busy myself with gardening again.
I asked Abeer if she could run to the store and grab sunflower seeds for me. I wanted to get back into gardening with something relatively easy. I was reading a chapter on sunflowers in one of the books Steph lent me, and I found all the pictures mesmerizing. The vibrancy, timelessness, and cheerfulness of sunflowers is something I think my family is in dire need of right now.
Plus, I know they're secretly Ihsaan's favorite flowers. He acts all manly and responsible now, but sometimes I think a man just needs to be given flowers. He'll never admit it, but I used to see the way he would happily tag along with me to the sunflower farms in the fall, asking the farmers all sorts of interesting questions about them.
I'm so busy working that I lose track of time and am momentarily thrown off by the sound of the doorbell.
"Hayat," my mom calls. "It's Aneela, beta."
"Coming!" I shout, shoving my gloves off and hurriedly placing my flowerpot to the side.
When I'm inside the house, my mom has already sat Aneela down and is asking her whether she would like something to drink. The way my mom watches her—all starry-eyed and laugh lines—is adorable. It brings a pang to my chest.
I wish I could see Arafat in this configuration—sitting on the sofa with his arms around the woman who would have been his wife, conversing casually with his mom and her. I wonder if he would have been shy around Aneela, if the love of a woman would bring out a whole new side of him.
My thoughts are shaken out of my head when Aneela stands to greet me.
"Sorry!" I say sheepishly, dusting myself off. "I'm a bit of a mess right now. Would you mind just giving me five minutes to clean myself up?"
"Of course!" she says brightly. "Auntie is such wonderful company."
My mom positively glows at the compliment. I rush upstairs and change out of my gardening clothes, splashing some cold water on my face to get rid of the grime. By the time I'm back downstairs, Aneela and my mom are at the dining table drinking apple cider juice and eating donuts.
