Within these walls

Chapter 33

Please, guys, ignore the mistakes, all the chapters are unedited. 

Traditional rites? Done. Breakfast? Eaten. Shower? Taken. I sat down on Khadijah's chair, so, she could perform her magic on my face.

The beauty of having Khadijah make me up is that she is very familiar with my face, so, I am not paranoid that I will turn out looking funny.

An hour later, I was halfway dressed, so, here is the thing, Mum insisted I sew my lace for the wedding fathia into a wrapper and a blouse. Mind you, I can't even tie a wrapper but this woman was not having it any other way. So, we came to a compromise, I will sew the first outfit for the day into a wrapper and blouse but the second outfit will have to be a skirt. After a lot of back and forth, she agreed.

So, I am sitting here waiting for her to come and help me tie this wrapper, it turns out my friends and I are all children of skirt and blouse, so, nobody knew how to knot a wrapper.

Tell me why she started crying after seeing me all dressed, I was trying so hard to hold back my tears but I couldn't so, we hugged and tried to console each other. Just for me to turn and see Ini, Basma and even hard girl Khadijah wiping their tears.

"You guys, come on. I don't want to end up with swollen eyes, everyone needs to stop crying please," I said.

After the crying session, I was summoned into the house for what I thought was a picture session, boy was I wrong. I was made to sit down in the middle of a lot of women, while they advised me about marriage.

If we are being honest, I didn't hear half the thing they were saying, I zoned out. I was made to go back and change my outfit because apparently, the wedding fathia was about to commence. Up until that moment, my heart was full of excitement, zero nervousness.

The outfit for seeing my husband for the first time was a silver cotton lace, sewn into a nice skirt and blouse. I wore a blush pink veil over my head as per somebody's wife.

"They are here," announced Basma who came into the room. The men, more of the groom and his friends are here after the wedding fathia to take pictures.

I just finished praying my nafila (voluntary prayer) as is recommended for a bride to after the wedding fathia.

That was when I started feeling nervous. It just hit me that I am somebody's wife, oh my goodness. The first thing I did after the initial shock was to gulp down half a bottle of water.

"Is my veil okay? What of the makeup? Should we go out now or waste time a bit? Omg, I am somebody's wife," I kept rambling.

Ini busted into a fit of laughter.

"You that has been disturbing us since about your husband, why are you suddenly nervous? "

I just eyed her without answering.

"Calm down Salima, it is just AbdulJalal. The man you love, the person you choose, take a deep breath and let's go knock his socks off," Aisha tried to calm me down, even though I could see her trying hard not to laugh.

The walk from the room to the living room was nerve-wracking but the moment I set my eyes on Jay, every nervous bone flew out of me. I was filled with excitement.

"Our bride is here. Whoop whoop" shouted one of his friends and all the men started clapping and cheering.

"Hello everyone," I gave a slight wave and walked towards Jay.

So, AbdulJalal is a calm person but he is never short of words. However, for some strange reason, he was just looking at me and smiling like a goofball without saying a word. It was so funny.

"Hey," I nudged his shoulder with mine after standing close to him.

"Hey," he said breathlessly.

"Aww, he is short of words," exclaimed AK and the men started laughing and teasing him.

He turned towards me completely, clamped his palms together in front of his mouth and crooked his neck to the left, and then to the right.

"Guy, you are being weird," I laughed.

He sighed, leaned in and kissed my forehead and finally said, " I love you Lee. Thank you for agreeing to do life with me."

It was now my turn to be flustered and short of words. After our little exchange, the photo sessions started

"I need to get that on camera, go back and kiss her forehead again," said the photographer.

"Okay, I need you both to put your foreheads together, yeah, just like that," and he snapped away.

We were sitting on the couch waiting for the photographer to change the light settings when I leaned over Jay to gossip with AK.

One moment I was talking to AK and the next moment I was laughing my heart out. AbdulJalal was tickling me and being a very ticklish person, I was laughing so hard.

"Jay, stop, st....oopppp.... it" I kept saying in between laughs.

He stopped after a while and I leaned my head on his shoulders to catch my breath.

"What was that for?" I asked.

"You said you were not ticklish, the one time we were talking about being ticklish, so, I decided to put it to test," he replied.

"You are a mess. Don't tickle me in front of people again, what if I farted?"

"That would have been epic and one of the books," he laughed.