The Easiest Target

If Not Now, Later

AN: Trigger warning. Attempted SA in this chapter.

I get dressed and wait for the discharge papers to come until I knock out again. When I wake, I'm already in my bunk at the apartment. Home doesn't feel like an accurate word for this place anymore. My mom doesn't give me a second to question how I got here. She's already gossiping about it on the phone. Apparently Azan carried me here in his arms.

The wedding is pushed back three months because I'm, as my mom puts it, not pretty in my current state and not even make up can cover it.

My face is scarred, my arm is wrapped in a sling and a cast and my knees buckle every time I stand. They're bruised and black and scratched in ways I never thought could hurt so much without bleeding.

My cousins come over that night. I pretend to be asleep in my bunk so I don't have to interact with them. That doesn't stop them from spewing visceral hatred right into my spine. Especially Sumaya. "I'm Hadeel," she says mockingly, "and I got handed the hottest, richest guy in the city and I'm still gonna kill myself cuz I'm in love with my drawings."

"Sumaya," my aunt hisses.

"Leave her," Mama sighs, clearly frustrated. "She's not wrong."

"I have an idea, 'Ama," Sumaya whispers, rushing out from right behind me. "Since Hadeel isn't happy about it, let me switch with her at the wedding. We can get Hadeel to start wearing niqab. Azan won't mind. I'm prettier, anyway."

Mama laughs with the others. "He'll know something is wrong when he finds a moon in bed instead of the ghost he married."

My chest winds up tight, hatred weaving into the fibers of every muscle in my heart. She's never once defended me. She's never once praised my appearance despite having birthed me. I've heard her wish Sumaya was her daughter instead on so many occasions just because Sumaya's pretty. It's why her dad makes her wear niqab. But if you ask me, she's the ugliest human being I know. She bullied Toki to tears almost daily when we were kids. She bullied me for defending him. She bullies everyone she can and gets away with it because of her porcelain skin, silky hair, and light brown eyes. What a sick joke.

I lay in bed for two days before I become sick of listening to my mother blabber on the phone about how sick and unfortunate I am — how sad I am that my wedding isn't happening.

Uh, she needs to learn to read me better: if I wasn't so damn tired, I'd be dancing from joy that the wedding's delayed. That's more time for me to find a way out of this shitty situation.

My mother is a practicing liar. She prays five times a day, believes in the Prophet Muhammad and Allah, fasts all of Ramadan and ... lies regularly? It doesn't make sense. Every time I bring it up, we get into an argument so I'm done with trying to advise her.

It's funny how a couple of video lectures on her phone strengthened my faith in God when her faith was always and will always be completely socially and culturally based. That's why I know this will pass. This has to pass. And regardless of what hardship anyone is forcing on me, God will hold the people that hurt me accountable. Azan, my parents, Toki — they will all one day stand before God and I'll get to speak to a fair judge.

Knowing that ... makes it a little easier. It makes me feel guilty about pushing my mom, too. It's not like she has a say in anything. Sometimes I want to apologize, relieve myself of the guilt and responsibility I will bear in front of God for my actions — then she opens her mouth and I just want to shove her again — maybe shake her and wake her up to the fact that she's doing life so wrong. She's lived in a cage for forty years and she's hellbent on making me believe it's the best place for me to be, too.