5. Choices

2.5K 321 258
                                    

And seek help through patience and prayer, and indeed, it is difficult except for the humbly submissive (to Allah). Who are certain that they will meet their Lord and that they will return to Him.

[ Al Baqarah : 44 - 45 ]

🗞🗞🗞🗞🗞

Ibrahim wanted to smack himself. What had he been thinking? Barging into the women's section without making his arrival known to anybody who could have been in there was so not him. Agreed that it was minutes past all the women had filed out, agreed that the female volunteer had had an emergency and rushed home the minute the program had gotten over, agreed that he had had to see that everything was in place and lock up the room after everyone left but what he had done was so very unacceptable to him. The girl looked genuinely upset and he felt as though it was something to do with the spiritual aspect of her life. Either way, she seemed vulnerable, oh so vulnerable with tears streaming down her eyes.

It felt too personal a moment to have been intruded upon.

He knew for a fact that if anyone else had barged into a room Eshaal had been weeping or having a moment in, he would have had a few choice words to be said to the person. He had always prided himself in treating women the way he wanted his sister to be treated. And today he had just gone ahead and made a fool of himself by seeing a sister in Islam at her most vulnerable moment. It felt a bit too intimate.

Ibrahim shook his head and pressed his back to the wall next to the door.

Not impressive Ibrahim, not at all impressive.

The door to the women's section flew open right then and he pushed himself further into the wall, not wanting to face the girl again. His eyes were cast down and stayed that way until he was sure she had exited and gone down the stairs.

Puffing out air from his mouth, he entered into the women's section again, saw to all the necessary things and walked out, locking the door behind him this time.

Tanvir raised a brow at him in question when he walked into the male's section. He shook his head in denial. Some brothers he had come to know even asked him if he was okay commenting on how pale he looked all of a sudden and Ibrahim brushed it all off saying everything was alright. Only deep down he knew not everything was. For some it wouldn't have been this disturbing but for him, those tears cascading down those cheeks and the way the girl had been sitting there looking forlorn just didn't settle well with him. He almost wanted to something about. Almost.

------

Ibrahim knew his parents had not really complied to his wish. The search for a daughter-in-law was still on, their mission in no way abandoned. They pretended to have given up after he had told them he needed time to put off some steam, that they did but he could clearly hear them conversing in whispers now and then or hear them making phone calls. Their act was not very convincing for a guy his age. Ibrahim had to try hard to not laugh out aloud whenever his parents did things like that. It was funny how they tried to keep it all away from him. Sometimes his urge to smile and comment on their acts was too strong to be ignored.

It was not the same as his parents trying to convince him when he was a kid. He was grown now, already having a kid as his niece, a very beautiful and smart kid at that who had well, obviously taken after him. His parents just had to understand that but they chose not to and he let them do as they please so long as they didn't make him undergo anymore scrutiny.

There were issues that needed solving and there were issues that he didn't want to face, not now anyway. He needed a huge amount of patience and tactics as well as the ability to make people understand where he was coming from and those were things he was still trying to inculcate. He had already undergone a few ridiculous meetings with the girls' wali and they had ended disastrously for his liking. The thought of having a few more or Allah knows how many more of them left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Tantalizing HopesWhere stories live. Discover now