Bending Edges

Eight

Dakota

I walked in and immediately spotted Moona sitting in the little spot of the empty coffee shop. Oh my gosh, she's here! I took a deep breath and hustled to her table.

"Hey, Mamoona! Wow, it's crazy meeting you here," I said sounding more excited than I expected. Damn it.

Mamoona face lit up. "Yeah it is, you're not working?"

In her hand was a red card that she was fumbling with. "No, day off today" -I played with the tip of my hair- "can I join you?"

"Sure. I was just studying," she said.

I sat in front of her, in between us was her books and laptop that was sprawled across the table neatly. "What are you studying?"

"Medical," she replied almost sadly as her eyes traced the sketch pad to the side of her immediately.

I raised an eyebrow, "do you like med school?" trying to sound as innocently as possible, even though I know the answer to that.

I saw the sorrow through her eyes; she almost looked as if she was bored. "You don't have to love a career to pursued in it," she replied as she slightly bit her lip in the awkwardness of it all.

"I did it for my family. We have a high status in the city's Muslim community. I will let them down if I am not up to their expectations," she elaborated.

"What do you want to do?" I questioned as I leaned back into my chair and crossed my arms, making myself comfortable in my seat.

"I love to design clothes. Just something about it gives me a rush, I-" she blushed quickly, suddenly shy of the idea of revealing so much about herself to a stranger like me. I suddenly felt a pang of guilt for pressuring her like that. I mean, who am I to her to ask her these types of questions? She barely knows me and I barely know her, I shouldn't pry like that. But before I could take back that question, Mamoona surprised me even more than she already did. Instead of shrugging the question off, or giving me a nervous smile and moved onto another subject, she explained her whole situation as if coming clean. The situation with her father wanting her to go study medical, the acceptance letter from Kristen Aura, and being pressured to getting married soon, making her feel guilty about attending her cousin's wedding (hence the red envelope) alone.

By the time Mamoona was finished, I was staring at her more than I want to admit, but my eyes can not leave her face. I was awestruck.

"...And so I need to bring someone to go to the wedding with me," she said after a while, her eyes trailing to meet mines. I looked away, slightly flustered that she had caught me staring.

Without taking any time to think my idea through, I sprung up like an old couch spring and exclaimed, "I could go with you!"

She stared at me for a moment, then she cracked into a smile which nearly shook my heart. "My dad wants me to bring a Muslim man to the celebration," she said softly, her eyes lowering to her hands. "Thanks for the offer, though."

"The more the reason why you should bring me instead," I stated matter-of-factly, "think of it, you have to show your dad you are capable of choosing how to live your life."

Mamoona looked unsure. "I don't think that's a good idea," she sighed, "this is bigger than just me and-" I was pretty sure she wanted to add something else but she stopped. I tilted my head for a second before reaching for her hand. "Listen to your heart, Moona."

I immediately regret that one bold decision to take her hand. Again, we were strangers, acquaintances at most. Once more, Mamoona surprised me. She didn't pull back. Instead, she stared blankly at me as if thinking about the pros and cons our little plan would have, but finally gathered herself and replied, "alright, let's give it a try,"

I smiled as I finally -reluctantly, may I add-, pulled my hand back, but that does not help the fact that Mamoona still seemed fairly uncertain about the whole idea of bringing a complete stranger to her cousin's wedding, not to mention it is a non-Muslim girl, such as I. Had I mention that there is more to me than just being white and a girl?

"It's very traditional though and you need a dress... Oh, this is all so last minute," Mamoona sighed as she broke my train of thoughts.

"When's the wedding?" I asked absentmindedly.

"Two and a half weeks. On April 17th," she replied shrugging, "so our time is pretty tight," she grimaced.

I waved it off, "That's still plenty of time to go dress shopping."

As I said that, I see Mamoona's eyes lit up in inspiration. It was indescribable, like a rare firework that only comes once during 365 days in a year. I liked it.

"I'll make you a dress!" she said quickly, already pulling her pencil out of the case I just realized was on the table.

I leaned forward slightly, "seriously? You weren't bluffing when you said that you can make dresses?"

Mamoona scoffed playfully at my remark as I smirked to tell her that I was just pulling her leg.

"That'll be amazing, thank you!" I laughed, Mamoona nodded as she got right to work drawing in her sketch pad.