The Easiest Target

Normal Girls

Something cold is crawling up the veins in my right arm. I tear my eyes open and look, my eyebrows shooting down. A nurse smiles at me. "Morning, sweetie. How are you feeling?"

I inch away from her and something yanks me into place: a restraint. I'm strapped to the bed by the arm and ankles. Oh my God.

"Where am I?" I bleat. "What happened?"

"You're at NYU Hospital, sweetie. Calm down. It's okay."

"Why am I — what happened?!"

The nurse holds my hand reassuringly. "You hit your head really bad. You should've come straight to the hospital with an injury to the head like that. You're lucky there was no brain damage after all the bleeding you had. Your brother's outside. I'll call him in and he can explain, okay? You'll be out of here by tonight."

"My brother?" I ask in doubt. But my brother is better than my parents or Azan. I don't have to listen to him. The nurse disappears and Azan walks in a minute later. I clench up like a clam, nausea sweeping through me.

"Ew," I whisper.

He frowns at me. "Quit saying that," he says through barred teeth. He glares down at me as he draws closer and I inch as far away from him as the bed allows. "You're a lot harder to deal with than you're supposed to be."

"Does that mean we're getting divorced?" I say hopefully.

He gives a sarcastic smile. "In your dreams."

"Don't worry about my dreams. Beautifully horrible things happen there." To him.

"You really hate me that much?"

"You've given me no reason to like you. You're deceitful, lustful, arrogant, sadistic. You're a ... ew."

"Don't frikin kid yourself. You hated me off the bat and you knew nothing about me," he scoffs.

"You're not someone I would've ever socialized with enough to have an opinion about you. Then you made me marry you. You made my parents believe we were in love. Why would a rich, asshole-playboy have to butt into my life? What the hell do you want from me? Don't give me any garbage about you actually liking me because you don't and everyone knows it!"

He stares at me long and hard then gives me a tight-lipped smile. "You'll thank me in the end."

He quietly goes around my bed and sits on the chair in the corner, staring down at the floor. For a long time I'm okay. But I glance at him and the guilt sets in. I hate myself for it. I turn my back to him, blinking away the stinging in my eyes. I hate not understanding things. Usually I'll just study or research until I do. It's how I learned about Islam and found it properly instead of just inheriting the culturally skewed Islam my parents practice.

But how do you research a person?

Why is he even here?

"Necklace or ring?" he asks out of nowhere

I roll over and glare at him. His usual posture is slouched and heavy, his eyelids barely opening with each blink. "If you have money to spare, donate it."

"Fair mahr?" he asks, getting up with a sigh. He leans his elbows against my bed and presents the phone to me. "Which charity would you like me to donate to?"

I stare at him suspiciously. "Something in Yemen ...."

"Oh — like send it directly to someone there? Gotcha," he nods. "How much? Ten thousand?"