Muslimah in love

17. Into the night

Exhausted by the excitement and socializing, I was glad to finally walk through the front doors of my parents house. It was only 9pm but I wanted to wash up and get into bed. But obviously the 'getting into bed' part was going to be lot more complicated than that. My supposedly other-half was going to be present, sleeping in the same room as me.  Weeks even months had gone by since we slept in the same bed.

'I'll put the kettle on,' Mum said as I stepped onto the stairs case with Zaid following. I turned to look at Mum.

'Don't worry, nothing caffeinated but some hot chocolate with whip cream, you used to love it.' My mother knew me too well.

'I still do,' I smiled. 'But i feel so stuffed. I'm going to have to pass. Sorry.' Mum nodded understandingly.

'Zaid? Would you like some? I make the best hot chocolate.'

'Ok, sure. Jazakallah (may Allah reward you).'

'I've never seen you drink it. It's always tea, cappuccino or coffee.' Zaid said quietly as he followed me up. Thinking about it now, it had been ages since I had enjoyed a hot chocolate. My life was a always a constant go: work, cooking and cleaning; and thus required caffeinated drinks, and a vast quantity of it.

'Yes, that's true.' I opened my door and closed my eyes for a brief moment as I remembered my old life. I turned on the lights and stepped in. Everything was the same as the last time I had left it.

'I never realised how feminine your room is?' He said looking around. It was true gathering my pink, white and purple themed room. Everything from the pillows to the fairy lights was a reminder of my teenage life. I hadn't really decorated it since I was 16. I felt slightly embarrassed. I left home at 18, returned four years later and then left again a year later and moved into my current home.

'Welcome to my world, my old world anyway.' I said. 'Shall I give you a tour?' I said acting like tour guid as I took my killer heels off. Ahh, it felt great.  Zaid raised his eyebrows in question.

'I'll take that as a yes.' I walked over to the right side of the room where my wardrobe took up the whole wall.

' Let's start with my lovely wardrobe who does an excellent job of storing clothes. Next to it, is my mannequins. You see when I was 15, I thought I wanted to become a fashion designer. Then I quickly realised that I was absolutely terrible at art and sewing was so boring, so that came to an abrupt end.' I remembered fondly of the memory of forcing my mum to buy me fabrics of soft cotton, silk, sequences and beads. I came home, and realised that tailoring was not a talent of mine so everything except for the mannequins was sent to my neighbour a few doors down who was an excellent tailor.  

'This is my vintage dressing table which dad got me for my 17th birthday.'

I walked over to the secluded corner of my room where I used to study. This part of the room was in an open box design, with three walls and in it was my desk and fluffy chair, along with the big iMac desktops that had been popular. But the best part was the book shelves on all three parts of the walls and held hundreds of books. It was like my personalized mini-library.

'This is my wonderful Cream Chateau French Style chaise lounge and there is my study corner, and as you can see the numerous books that I collected, read once and stacked. Oh, and this is my favourite shelf which holds all the must reads and some of the ones I actually read more than once. If you're bored, now you know where to come.' Zaid watched me in silence, his arms folded and his expression seemed amused or befuddled, but there was a small smile playing on his lips. This was weird and I was acting even weirder but I was enjoying it.