The Easiest Target

So Wrong

Athan had seven hundred dollars in his wallet.

Who the hell carries around that sort of pocket change? I nearly scream when I count it. Is this a lot of money to normal people? I hide it. I'm going to get mugged if anyone sees it.

I sign myself up for self-defense classes in a Muslim-friendly dojo. They ask for the signature of a parent because I'm seventeen. I take the form, go hang out at Dunkin Donuts for half an hour, forge my mother's signature — cuz who ever checks? — and return.

That evening, my trainer says I'm too flimsy to ever do any damage. She has me start on weight training.

By the time I leave, my limbs feel like spaghetti.

At Athan's house later, I step out of the closet that night dressed, packed, and ready to leave. 

Athan is taking his jacket off in his room.

I never once had it in my heart to ask people for anything — especially not my parents because I could always see how little they had and how much they struggled. But I feel the need to make Athan regret marrying me ASAP.

"I'm going to the apartment in Brooklyn Heights," I tell him, walking slowly towards the door.

He closes it. "We need to be together, Hadeel," he whispers. "Can you just tell me what she said?" he begs.

"Step aside or I go tell your mother you're still dating Carla."

He glares at me. "You're gonna be a two-year-old about this?"

"I'll be one, if it gets me what I want."

He tries to touch me and I smack his hand away so hard he looks shocked. I don't know why after all the avoiding he's done.

"I'm not letting you live anywhere alone," he says belatedly.

"Then get me a cat."

"What do you want me to do, Hadeel?" he pleads, raking his fingers through his hair. "What do I do? Please, stay. My mom is finally so happy."

My eyebrows furrow. "Your mom...?" He glances away from me and my heart drops.

"A-aren't you happy?" he changes the subject. "You can study now. I take you to school and bring you back. I'll pay for whatever college it is you want to go to."

My heart sinks lower. "That's what this was about ...? Making her happy?"

He says something but all I hear is the blood roaring through my ears, my mind replaying all of the moments he was kind to me — all of the words and feelings he made me feel in our apartment after the wedding.

I step away from him, a sickening feeling in my gut. "Who did my dad engage me to?"

Please say some disabled man twice your age like he said before. Please. Please!

His lips pucker like he's about to say what? Then he's just gaping at me, trying to remember what he told me. "A-an old man in ... Yemen with three wives ...."

It's all a lie. He lied to me! One of the most intimate moments I've ever had in my life was a lie! And I believed it.

He shakes his head. "Stop, alright? Just stop," he whispers. My knees give out. "Hadeel!" he gasps, kneeling in front of me.

I grip the carpeted floor, trying to catch my breath and stifle my tears but they pour out, humiliation setting in my veins like an insatiable fire. I cried in his arms! I thanked him! I'm so stupid. How did I not see it? This is what he wanted. He told me what he wanted from the very start: a marriage for show. A marriage to show his mother he was tamed.