Emeralds

Twenty.

Twenty

[Adam]

I wake up on Friday, take a quick shower and get ready for prayer. I get downstairs and wait for Omar and Malek so we can go together. The doorbell rings, I go open it and Ahmed comes in.

“Is Omar ready?” he asks.

“I am,” Omar says coming downstairs, followed by Malek.

Malek is five now, which means he’s old enough for us to handle. We decided to take him on Fridays for prayers with us, so it doesn’t require a lot of effort to make him pray later on.

“I’m so excited to pray Al-Jum’a!” he says jumping the last couple of steps.

“You’re a grown-up man now,” Ahmed says. “Oh, take care.”

After Al-Jum’a prayer, we decide to hang out with the family today. Omar calls mom, while Ahmed calls his mother and we leave to pick them up. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant later,” Ahmed says getting in his car.

“Okay, don’t be late,” I say.

As I’m driving, the sunlight reflects on my ring and it sparkles, I look at the plain silver ring and smile to myself. Remembering yesterday’s nervousness, and joy builds up so many emotions in my head and I keep smiling like an idiot.

“I was like that too when I first got engaged,” Omar says glancing at me, then he smiles.

“When do you think the wedding should be?”

“I don’t know,” he thinks. “A year from now maybe?”

“W-WHAT?”

“What?”

“That’s too much!”

“You must know each other first,” he says. “Marriage is not a game, it better takes time than rushing things and disagreeing later.”

“But how am I supposed to wait for that long?” I ask. “I can’t even talk to her!”

“You should learn to wait, it’ll help you a lot later, I’d be a liar to say you’ll have a 24/7-love-story life.”

“I know, but I can tolerate any problems, I just want to talk to her, and go out with her, you know, be her husband!”

“Adam you just knew her like two months ago?” he laughs. “Oh my God, this is gonna be hard.”

“What’s gonna be hard?”

“You just had to wait for two month and you’re like this, now you’ll have to wait like twelve months more.”

“She might have other plans at last,” I say. “Maybe she wants the wedding sooner than that.”

“Maybe,” he shrugs.

Omar’s phone rings and he picks up. A minute later his face tensions and he shouts; I guess there’s a problem at work. “What is it?” I ask.

“They just won’t do anything right!” he snaps. “I have to be there and take care of even the smallest things! This is unbearable!” And with that we arrive at home.

A minute later, Omar gets out of the car and gets in his own car parked. Hend comes out of the house carrying Aysha, and Malek dashes to his father’s car.