Life Under the Hijab | ✔

{27} The Dinner

Zaynub Khan

"Please, Zakir. Can we please go into the bookstore?" I begged.

We were at the mall shopping with Deeliyah and Khadijah. Laila finally stopped all this nonsense with Khaliq. She realized the meaning of Zakir and her father's words. Anyway, everyone back at the house was preparing for the dinner with Aunt Yusra's family.

"Zaynub, we'll come back at the store later. I need to get some things for work," said Zakir.

I sighed. I loved books and they had the book If I Should Speak. I really wanted to read it. "Fine," I mumbled.

Zakir looked at my sad expression for a while before sighing. "Alright. You do your book shopping, while I get my stuff. Deeliyah and Khadijah are at Old Navy if you want to join them."

My eyes lit up. "Yay! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I exclaimed while hugging him.

"Down Zaynub. Down. I'll see you later," he chuckled while pulling away.

I walked into the bookstore and went straight to where If I Should Speak was. I found the book and had a little fangirl moment inside of me. This was like when a person's favorite show had a new episode that was awesome, except this was with books.

I was going to just check this one book out, but another book caught my interest. If I Stay had a nice ring to it. The story is about how a seventeen year old deals with the aftermath of a car accident. She ends up in a coma and had an out-of-body experience. She has to make a choice between life or death. If she chooses to live, she with have to deal with a far more difficult life than she ever anticipated or she could just die in peace.

That seemed like a pretty interesting book. I decided to buy it and it's sequel, Where She Went. I walked over to the checkout line. While the girl at the desk was checking out my books, I saw a familiar face coming into the store. 

I froze. 

Bahiya. 

Oh fudge, not her again. Bahiya didn't come alone. She had her group of friends. Oh Allah, please don't let them see me.

I turned my head back to the cashier. She was taking her sweet time. God, hurry up already. She might see me. Finally after what seemed like forever, I got my books. I quickly paid and rushed out of the bookstore. As soon as I was out, I let out a breath. Who knew she could make me so tense?

I then turned the corner and saw Deeliyah and Khadijah carrying a few shopping bags. She saw me and grinned.

"Looks like you two have done your share of shopping?" I said teasingly.

"Well, when your brother takes you shopping it's okay to go crazy," shrugged Deeliyah.

Khadijah eyed my bag of books and looked back at my face. "I see you did book shopping."

I smiled, "They had good books."

"Did you do any clothes shopping?" asked Deeliyah.

I shook my head. Deeliyah and Khadijah gasped.

"We need to go clothes shopping for you. Come on," said Khadijah dragging me into a store along with Deeliyah.

* * * *

After about an hour, we were finally done with the shopping. I bought two long-sleeved blouses and a long black skirt. We were meeting Zakir outside of JC Penney. When we got there, I saw Bahiya talking to Zakir. 

I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I trusted Zakir, but I did get a little tense when Bahiya was around. She really hated me. Deeliyah was glaring at her brother while Khadijah had a look of confusion on her face.