Loves To Hate Her (a Muslim love story)

Chapter One

Didn't this book have 17 chapters? Wasn't the author dead because she kept promising to update but never did? WELL HELLO MY WONDERFUL READERS. It has been a very long time since I've posted anything and I want to explain why. I truly love this story and the characters, but I wasn't satisfied with it. I came to a point in my writing where I hated everything I wrote. I truly hated the way the plot was going in the last version of Loves To Hate Her. So after much thought, I have decided to RE-WRITE!

The plot will be entirely new, but the characters the same. I hope to make this story more realistic, relatable, and relevant. As an author I want to leave my readers with lessons, so I hope you learn much from this version of the story because TRUST ME it's so much better. And LOL my writing (and spelling) got MUCH better

Before I leave you to read, I just want to thank all those who kept reading this and commenting they wanted me to update. You are the reason I did. I'm sorry it took so long.

I would much appreciate feedback because I'm a little nervous.

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After a grueling day at the Bakery, full of stuck up customers and having to redo an entire cake because of one mistake, Aleemah was ready to pass out in bed but not before taking a nice, long, hot shower. Her muscles ached, and there was a kink in her neck bulging with pain that refused to leave since the morning

The sun was low in the sky when Aleemah parked her car in front of her modest house in which she spent all her childhood in. Her parents should be at the masjid now for Maghrib prayer and her brother would be passed out sleeping as he usually is at this time. Aleemah was glad she wouldn't have to interact with another human, needing the break after working in America's service industry.

Which is why Aleemah is surprised, and a little more than annoyed, when her mother greets her at the door and ushers her to take a shower and get ready for a dinner party.

"I don't want to go, Ama!" She protested, stepping out of her flats.

Her mother huffs, "Aleemah, Rayeed invited us because Ahmed hasn't been home in so long. We have to go! Everyone is going." And that was the end of discussion as her mother had already started pounding at her sleeping brother on the couch to get ready.

Aleemah hops in the shower with a grimace stuck on her face. The soothing hot jets do little to improve her mood. She didn't understand why her parents always forced their entire family to go to the gatherings the Hammed family always hosted once a year in celebration of the return of their oldest son, Ahmed.

Ahmed was a doctor who lived in New York City. He moved out for college and just never came back unless it was for the holidays or Eid. Although as the years passed by, he began to come less and less. Aleemah didn't mind; she was never close to Ahmed and neither was her brother. The only reason her parents forced them to go was because Rayeed---Ahmed's father---was her father's best friend. They'd known each other since they were both newly immigrants trying to get their slice of the American dream.

Aleemah decided to wear a traditional dress from her South Asian culture. It was peach colored and reached all the way to her ankles and was covered in decorative stitches of flowers and leaves. The fabric was light and comfortable, and Aleemah decided, just the right material for her to knock out in a secluded corner of the Hammed family house.

After pinning a golden hijab around her head, she trudged down the stairs to find only her father sitting on the couch and drinking his daily evening tea.

"I didn't you realize you were home," he says in a deceptively light voice, dropping his empty cup on the coffee table.

Aleemah and her father had never been close. In her youngest years she had rarely seen her father because he would work late nights and slept the hours Aleemah would be wide awake. After Aleemah hit puberty her father felt more like stranger than ever when he started to pressure her to lean how to cook, and clean, and other domestic tasks because that's apparently what she needed to know when she gets married.