Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 150968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
My gaze lingers over my blank canvas. “What’s your greatest regret?” I ask Maryam, who picked the easel beside me. While the six of us have gotten close, we’ve somehow put ourselves into pairs of friendship.
Steffy and Eun-Jung.
Olivia and Millie.
Maryam and me…
I guess it works. Maryam and I have a good understanding of each other, and I think the reason why we have gotten closer is because we share the same bleeding wound.
We’ve both brought shame to our families…
Maryam is quiet for a second, before she finally answers, “Moving to live on campus.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother was adamantly against it,” she explains quietly. “I got into Yale, my dream university, but the commuting was too long, two hours there and two hours back. I thought it would have been exhausting. My father agreed that I could live on campus. He has never refused me anything. He used to call me his Malika. I was his little princess and his pride. So he let me go, even though my mother was against it. And now, I wish I had listened to her.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I defend vengefully.
Maryam shakes her head. “Do you blame yourself for what happened?”
When I don’t respond, she smiles despondently. “When I arrived there, I instantly got along with my two housemates. They seemed to have respect my boundaries, or I thought they did. When they would bring their friends and guys over, I’d just stay in my room. But sometimes, they would ask me to join, and I’d feel bad to always refuse. So I would join them, sitting in a corner and watching them get shit-drunk. I hated the smell of alcohol and weed. I didn’t realize they were spiking my drinks and food.”
She pauses and then shakes her head, letting out a small humorless laugh.
“Wait, no that’s a lie. In the back of my head, I knew something was off. Something was wrong. But my exams were coming up, and I was so stressed. I was taking sleeping pills, because I was struggling with insomnia. So, at first, I assumed it was the side effects of the sleeping pills. The mental confusion, the drowsiness and everything that came with it. It took me three weeks before realizing what was really happening. But you know what the worst part is? Three weeks was enough to get me addicted. That’s crazy, right? I mean, that’s how fast it can become an addiction? Saying that out loud is crazy enough, I still can’t wrap my head around it sometimes. So, yeah, I regret going to live on campus. I regret not listening to my mother. I regret being so naive and stupid, and trusting the wrong people.”
Maryam dips her paintbrush into yellow paint and then spreads it across the canvas. “But do you know what’s worse, Riley?”
I stare down at my palette of colorful paint, trying to figure out where to start. I can’t pick a color; I don’t even know what to paint.
“Facing my parents’ disappointment,” Maryam tells me, and my heart slams against my rib cage so hard, I fear it’ll leave bruises. “When I told my dad, he didn’t even say a word. He was so…quiet. But I could see the life fading in his eyes, his pride for me — replaced with silent disappointment. I had never seen my mother that angry before. But she didn’t yell at me. She was screaming at my dad. For letting me go. She blamed him. The next day, they dropped me here, at the facility. I wish they had told me that they weren’t angry with me. I wish they told me they didn’t hate me. And I really wish my dad had hugged me.”
“How do you deal with it?” I choke out, the lump in my throat growing heavier than I can possibly bear. I can’t breathe. “The feeling of uselessness, their disappointment, the guilt and the fear. God, Maryam. The fear of not being enough. How do you deal with it?”
She touches the hem of her hijab, but it’s almost like an unconscious action. “Everyone is on their own journey with their faith. I believe that God always finds us at our lowest, and then shows us the path that’s right for us. We believe in Qadar, in other word, divine fate, or I guess destiny, you can say. My mother used to say that believing in it would keep us from being excessively proud or excessively miserable. Because, whatever good, or whatever bad happens to us is the will of God. Sometimes we can have everything at the tips of our fingers —money, fame, richness and respect. Everything we desire. But then, in the blink of an eye, it’s all gone. That’s why believing in Qadar has us acknowledging the bad with persistence and humbleness, as opposed to sadness and disappointment.”