The Easiest Target

I Don't Understand

Athan let go of his worry about keeping everything clean and perfect since I came along. Living with him has brought to light the truth of just how much he actually studies. He spends hours into the night hunched over text books outside of class, opening one after the other. It's the only time I see him at peace. When I ask why he doesn't get a desk to study at, he nonchalantly says his uncles don't like knowing he studies so they break every desk he buys.

Most of the time, he'll study in the kitchen while I cook.

I don't feel his eyes on me. Or maybe I'm used to them being. I'd rather he be here, though. It's better than being alone in such a big house. Especially when his mother's husband or twin come barging in whenever they want. He'll stuff me in a closet or make me run to his room and hide until he can get rid of them.

He'll come find me hours later, hug me and tell me to quit being a baby if I cry. Once he got a red eye. Another time a split lip. I don't know what's going on and I don't want to know. I just hold him tight and cry because I know he can't cry — no matter how hard he's shaking. He'll just chuckle it away and pry me off. And then he'll be as cold as ice to me the next day.

***

We don't go to school for two weeks on top of the Christmas break. I spend less time in his room — which I guess he notices because he starts doing that, too. Whatever room I find myself in, he'll come find me there, too — even though he stays relatively silent. The third day of doing this I hear him snoring in the small majlis outlooking the garden. I stop drawing and stare at him as he sits slouched across from me, his tablet fallen to the side. His cheeks are flushed, his chest rising and falling quickly.

I grip my pencil tight, hugging my sketchpad with a suffocating sadness burning up my throat. How can someone so beautiful be so cruel? I venture closer, sitting on a small side table, and start sketching him. Everything from the smallest hairs of his eyebrows, to the ombre of the dark brown that lightens to almost blond as it gets farther from his scalp. I don't know if he shaves or not, but I don't see any facial hair.

I tap my pencil to his sketch, a bitter smile tugging onto my lips: I don't know if my own husband shaves. I rub my eyes hard, swallowing the sorrow that comes. I look up to continue sketching and feel my whole torso constrict under his gaze.

He holds my eyes for a while and I feel myself starting to peel and crack under his scrutinizing gaze. But that's when I also realize he's sick. He's too sick to be hostile right now. His lips twitch into a smile he can't hold. Then his eyes turn down to my sketch. "Clichè much?"

"I like drawing beautiful people," I say in a low voice.

"Am I beautiful to you?" he asks.

"You are."

"Then why do you avoid me?"

I can't stop myself from shaking. I shrug a shoulder up. "You ... make me feel ... inhuman ...."

He sits up slowly and I feel like I shouldn't move even though I really want to. I keep my eyes on his hands, wary of them. "Do you hate me?"

Yes. I do. Every inch of you. And I can't say that. "No," I force out.

He takes the sketchbook from my grasp and starts flipping through the portraits I've done. He stops on Kate and our eyes lock. "Why'd you draw her?"

"She's beautiful."

He smiles, like he's proud I can see it to. Then he finds Carla. His mother. A couple of guys at school. My baby brother Omar. He keeps flipping until he finishes, stopping on the last page, bulging and rippled, the drawing on it distorted and incomplete. Barely more than a skeleton. His fingers trace the ripples on the page where thick tears plopped out of my eyes any time I even thought of drawing Tokyo.