Love At Last Sight

011

"God, can you guys shut up? I'm trying to pray here."

I shook my head as I voiced out to my cousins in the kitchen.

Arisha and Zara were sprinkling cheese over the pizza dough, Wareesha was on her phone with her prayer scarf loosely hanging around her head, while Fahim and Ahad were animatedly talking about football.

It was one-thirty a.m and only Rahim and the elders were asleep.

I watched as Zara placed the pizza in the microwave, and leaned against the kitchen door frame, watching them.

Halfway through Ramadan, there were major changes in me. I was praying on time, and was mostly always seen on the prayer mat.

I prayed whenever I could, no matter what time or place, all I ever did was pray. Talking to Allah was the only cure and the only thing that filled the void in me, it helped me keep myself at peace with my own heart, the restlessness in me easing everytime I surrendered myself to my Creator.

These things had made my parents more than happy, and while usually at night everyone was up doing stuff while I prayed till fajr, this time I noticed that the elders were nowhere to be seen.

My cousins would usually be stuffing their face with leftover food and junk from outside, but today,they were all in the kitchen and try as I might, I couldn't help but feel something was up.

"What's up?" I narrowed my eyes at Zara.

She shrugged, "Making pizza. Hey, Naysha, can you go read the eighteenth juz on my behalf? Please?"

I raised my eyebrow but wordlessly nodded and walked away. There was no denying that something was up, and I racked my brain but couldn't reach a conclusion.

Halfway through reading Quran, my dad barged into the room.

I flinched as I completed the Ayah I was reading, there was no such thing as knocking before entering anyway.

I turned to my dad as he smiled broadly,

"Naysha, my favourite daughter, come here!"

I raised an eyebrow, "Dad? Did you burn mom's dupatta again? Or have you-"

"Oh shush, I love you and I'm proud of you."

I was shocked to say the least. Me and dad joked around, and we were each others go to person, but as he pulled me in a hug, there was something open about his little confession, which was actually very know to everyone, but realization dawned on me as my dad kissed the top of my head,

"Happy twentieth birthday, Naysha."

I couldn't believe I'd forgotten my own birthday!

After hugging my parents and getting all their blessings, I made my way out,  knowing full well that the pizza and all their weird behaviour was for me.

As soon as I reached the hall, there was a loud scream of HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I looked around at awe at all the decoration they'd done.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAYSHA!"

Itilted my head and aww-ed at their efforts. As I cut the cake, Zara sprayed cream on the side of my face.

"Happy Anniversary?"

I looked down at a sleepy and grumpy Rahim, who had woken up to the our noise and laughed, feeding him some cake,

"It's birthday, baby, not anniversary."

Selfies and pictures were thrown everywhere, and I made sure to keep the huge helium ballons of the number 20 in the background visible.

As Wareesha fed me a piece of the cake, I furrowed my eyebrows at the taste

Just then, Zara leaned in and whispered,

"That cake's from Baker's Bistro. They're the only ones who had fresh pineapple cakes available at this time."

I nodded and gulped down, feeling the void in my widen and I shook my head, focusing on living in the moment.

After having a mini party with my family, we were full a bit before sehri, but on dadi's insistance, we ended up having a bit more food before proceeding to pray fajr and sleep.

The simple act of praying had made my life so much more peaceful, and no matter how much I ha dto wait, I would continue to pray as hard as I'm praying now, just for that one wish to get accepted.

I was stubborn, even more so when it came to my beliefs, and if he was just a mere reason for the strength of my imaan, then so be it. But I was going to pray until the last strand of hope was snapped away from me.

And even then, I wouldn't break, because with the way I was going, I was certain I had Allah with me, in my heart, and there was nothing more I'd probabky ever need.

And inshaAllah, Allah never dissappoints His believers.

Laylatul Qadr was beginning from the next night, and as I lay down to sleep after fajr, when my restlessness got the best of me and I pulled the covers off me.

Grabbing a paper and pen, I sat down beside a fast asleep Zara and held the tip of the pen to paper, before muttering a Bismillah and pouring my heart out,

Dear Omar...

Six in the morning, I held my phone and logged into my instagram account after ages, there were posts of all kinds awaiting me and I couldn't believe for a second that this was just me. If you would've asked me whether I'd change so much in just three months, I would've laughed.

But now as I deleted all my posts and checked my messages, and found mo sign of a reply of him, I threw my phone back on the bed.

And that was when, my mind stopped dead at the sudden hit of a new idea.

I grinned to myself and typed down the entire thing I'd written on the paper an hour back.

Once done, I called up Shanaira.

She picked up on the third ring,

"Hello? Salaam?"

I smiled through the call, "Hey Shanaira, it's me, Naysha."

That seemed to wake her up,

"Oh my god, FINALLY! Girl, HOW ARE YOU? You good? Bro where are you? Can we meet? When will you-"

"Calm down, Shay. I'm fine, alhamdulillah. Listen, I actually have some work for you. Can you tell your boss to check his message requests and..."