The Ummah: The outbreak

Chapter 9

***Author's note: Sorry for the delay guys, college ain't no joke***

I spent my first night in the white house crying my eyes out. I waited until the president had retired to his room, went to mine, and sobbed into my pillow. I had held it in through the whole trip to Washington, but now I had to let it out. I missed Muhammad terribly. I didn't know what to do or think except for being miserable. This was all a mistake, one huge mistake...

Don't say that, came a distant voice from inside my head. And then I began to think about all the good things that came from this. I was free... And now the president wanted me to be his girl friend. And I was alive. If I would have stayed in that house, stayed a muslim, I would have been dead too. So I told myself to be grateful...

Grateful to who? I asked myself.

Allah...

My face felt hot with shame. I quickly tried to think of something else. 

Sleep. Yes, sleep. I hadn't realized how tired I was. I flipped over my pillow to the dry side and slid under the covers. I immediately fell into a dreamless sleep.

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When I rose the next morning, the clock on the far left wall said 11:06am. For the past few months I had woken up way earlier than that in order to avoid my landlord. I rose from my bed and dragged myself to my bathroom. I glanced at myself in the mirror as I walked past. I looked an absolute mess. And what would I wear when I finished showering? This was insanity, I'd never looked so ragged in my whole life. No wonder the president felt the need to take me in, I was a salty looking bum. I took off my clothes and slipped into the shower. In order to keep my mind from wandering back into any bad thoughts, I thought of old songs... Songs that Moe and I used to sing to each other. 

More specifically, the first song he sang to me the night he asked me out. I was at my friend's cousin's wedding and the guys were all up dancing while the ladies sat and watched, since we couldn't dance in front of men of course. My sights, though, were set on Muhammad specifically. I had seen him from a distance many times when my brother would bring him over before we moved to our new house, but he had never seen me because I wasn't to show myself in front of men outside my family. 

That day I wasn't feeling well because of cramps, so I decided to go out into the cool air in hopes that the stinging of the cold would relieve some pain. It didn't. But I stayed there anyway, staring up at the night sky. I had never seen stars in real life before and tried to imagine how they'd look if I looked at them with my own eyes.

"They're beautiful aren't they?"

I jumped out of my skin just about and looked around to see where the voice came from, blushing fiercely when I saw Muhammad standing over me.

He turned to look behind him, then smiled down at me.

"What are?" I asked him.

"Deez nuts."

I rolled my eyes and he laughed, sitting down beside me.

"I noticed you staring awful hard in there mate. You got beef?"

I smiled a little. "I wasn't even looking at you, I was looking at my husband."

His face turned serious. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't know... Who is he?"

"I was joking, April fools."

"Its October, idiot, you had me praying for my life bruh!" he laughed. "What was your name again?" 

"Husniyah," I replied.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "That name sounds familiar... But can I tell you something?"

"What's that?"

"You're hot."

"Hell is hotter." I replied with a wink.

"I'm serious... Do you have kik?"

"Are you Yemeni?"

He nodded. "Yeah, partly, why?"

I smiled. "I can tell. Yeah, I have kik."

After I had keyed my username into his phone, he began to sing in a hushed tone, but he was being dumb, doing little dances with it and pointing at me, then between one of the verses, he gave me a 3 second kiss then continued singing. He must've chewed too much qat because he was being really bold...

I put my face under the water as the lyrics played in my head. "You look like a movie... You sound like a song... My god this reminds me... Of when we were young..."

I stepped out from under the water and began to sing out loud, my voice hoarse from the oncoming tears. "Let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time that we might be exactly as we were before... Before we realized..."

I slid to the shower floor and hugged my knees to my chest, letting the water from the shower mix with my tears.