Two Hearts Apart

Chapter 18: Old flames and good friends

Two hours later Hafsah, Zahraa and Miriam sat laughing and talking animatedly. All the opened presents were neatly stacked in the corner while the discarded wrapping paper was strewn over the floor. The other women had all left more than an hour ago, and all that was left were the three old school friends who were jokingly reminiscing about days long gone. The subject of boys had begun when Hafsah, who had actually forgotten to ask earlier, finally enquired as to the whereabouts of her husband. "Where is Suhail anyway?" she asked her 2 remaining friends. "He really likes sitting at home, please don't tell me you guys have him gagged up in the cupboard or something!"

"No" laughed Zahraa. "He was so generous to accommodate our wishes, I think he was actually afraid at the prospect of all of us getting together- he made a quick break for himself and said that he'd go spend the day with his brother."

It was at this juncture that they began talking about Hafsah's past and all the crazy things that she had done.

"Remember that guy" laughed Miriam, just before you married Suhail, what was his name again, oh yeah Ikraam. He was crazy about you, he even wanted to marry you- but you said he was too annoying. 'Too emotional', if I remember correctly- that's exactly how you described him."

"Well he was too emotional" replied Hafsah defensively. "He would cry constantly- even for stupid things. And I know that all women think that they want a man who's in tune with his emotions- but I think that what all women really want is a guy who knows when to be emotional and caring, and knows when to be tough and manly. Ikraam was just too emotional. When you got a guy who cries more than you do- that's where you draw the line."

The girls laughed hysterically as they continued to reminisce.

"Well what about you Zahraa" said Hafsah, glad to change the focus onto Zahraa. "How exactly do you plan on getting married if you don't want to give anyone a chance? I know how you feel about dating, but really- you don't have to do anything."

Zahraa was tired of trying to explain it to them. Miriam seemed to share her ideas but when it came to boys she was far less strict than Zahraa. As for Hafsah, despite the fact that she had put all her wild days behind her, she could not fathom the idea that anyone could get married without dating. She was of the opinion that in order to get married you had to date so that you could get to know your prospective partner. Otherwise, how else would you know whether you wanted to marry him or not? Zahraa kept trying to explain the Sunnah way. She spent hours explaining to them that the whole concept of dating was completely wrong; that a woman should never even really be alone with a guy; and that 'getting to know someone' was just another word for dating- which in the correct sense of the word, was haraam. Zahraa knew that all of this was difficult for them to understand, especially when growing up in a society and in families where dating and hanging out with boys were generally accepted (parents themselves felt that the only way to ensure that their daughter get married was to allow her to date random boys) and so she explained it to them again like a patient teacher.

"There's nothing wrong with arranged marriages" she said calmly. "Its how they did it in the time of the Prophet (S.A.W). A guy will come and propose, I'll sit and get to know him- in the company or near vicinity of my mahrams, and then depending on whether I like him or not- things will progress from there. You know we can only really get married when Allah wills it to happen right? So it will happen when Allah wills it for me- its as easy as that."

With that she gave a contented smile since Miriam and Hafsah didn't have a reply. "Besides", she continued "You're one to talk Hafsah. After all your dating and all the guys you've dumped (to this she and Miriam both giggled) you still ended up marrying the one guy that your father brought. So what does that say? What good did all the dating do?"

About an hour later, after the three of them had chatted, teased and joked to their hearts content; Zahraa and Miriam (who had just finished getting the house back in order) were ready to leave.

"You know who I was just thinking about" said Miriam, clearly still enjoying teasing Hafsah. "Zaheer, from high school, do you guys remember him?" Hafsah dated him for like a second or so before chewing and spitting him out."

Hafsah was quick to defend herself. "Well you can't tease me with him," she said quickly. "Didn't he and Zahraa like each other or something? Weren't you guy's friends or something Zahraa?"

"Yeah, we were friends" replied Zahraa casually-"you were the one who dated him though (to which Hafsah scowled). We sms'ed each other for a while after school but I guess our lives just went in different directions. I think we were both just at different places at the time. After a while it all just stopped."

"My brother was talking about him the other day" said Miriam. "I think that they're facebook friends or something. You know all guys know each other and all of that."

"Anyway", said Zahraa "We better be going now. We'll leave you to get back to your husband and everything. I'm sure we've banished him for long enough."

Zahraa and Miriam then proceeded to gather all their stuff and, after all the greetings and departing words, (which lasted for like another ten minutes) they eventually left.

Later that night, before retiring to bed- when Zahraa was checking her emails, Yahoo so generously informed her that Hafsah had left a new post on Zahraa's facebook wall. The post said simply:

"Thanks Zahraa for the wonderful day. Good company and good friends are hard to come by. I'm glad I have you in my life!"

Zahraa followed the link that led her into facebook and replied to Hafsah's post.

" I see you're still hormonal Hafsah!" :) Just kidding! Glad you enjoyed it!!! Glad to have you around too..."

It was then, because of all that there reminiscing had stirred up, that Zahraa had a sudden idea. She clicked on Miriam's name and this led her into Miriam's facebook page. Then she went to Miriam's friends and looked for Ahmed, Miriam's brother's name. Then she was on Ahmed's page and even though he wasn't her friend, she could see a list of all of his friends. She clicked on the 'see all' link and was directed to an entire list of all of Ahmed's 258 facebook friends. She clicked onto page 5 and there at the bottom she found his name 'Zaheer Mohammed'. Finally she clicked on the link to his name and then invited him to be her friend. Well that was that.

After all this time she didn't even know what she would say to him. She didn't exactly have any intention to stir things up or anything, she was just curious to know how he was doing. After all, at some point in their lives they had actually meant something to each other. When she had completed it all she turned off her computer and went to sleep.