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Sana closed the curtains on her bedroom window and wrapped herself up in a black shawl. It was late and she knew she should be sleeping, yet her mind kept racing with a hundred different thoughts as she thought about tomorrow when she would be marrying her best friend and the love of her life.
It seemed to her like only yesterday that they had gone on their first official date during Ramadan, the night before Yousef had to leave for Turkey for two months. That summer had been filled with daily text messages, late night phone calls, and impromptu FaceTime conversations, in which they had constantly updated each other on their lives. The geographic distance couldn’t keep them away from each others’ minds and hearts. All the while the intimate connection between them had begun to blossom into something more. When he finally came home from Turkey, they wasted no time in admitting their feelings for each other.
The past three years that Yousef and her been dating had flown by so fast. When he proposed to her last winter she felt like the happiest and luckiest person alive. Yousef understood her in ways no one could or ever would. He was supportive and smart and funny and kind. He knew how to make her smile bigger and make her laugh louder than she ever thought she could. It was hard for her to believe she was going to be Yousef’s wife in less than 24 hours.
An abrupt ringing noise startled her out of her reverie. She looked over at her phone and picked it up. Yousef was calling her. A radiant smile erupted on Sana’s face as she shook her head in surprise and answered on the third ring.
“Yousef what are you doing still up, don’t you need your beauty sleep?”.
She heard Yousef snort on the other end as he replied, “Sana you know I don’t need sleep to be beautiful. And anyway I just wanted to call and remind you that this is your last chance to back out.”
Sana smirked and replied, “You know I’m actually glad you called because now that I think about it, I’m having some doubts and I don’t think I can marry you. I need to follow my heart and tell Stephen Curry that I’m in love with him and always will be.”
“….Wow, I’m just….wow. I know you’re kidding but don’t even joke about that. You know I cant compete with big man Stephen Curry,” Yousef remarked in mock hurt.
Sana laughed wholeheartedly at that. “You know there’s no competition, just as there’s no one else I would rather marry. Not even Stephen Curry could compete with that cute face of yours,” Sana admitted.
“You think I’m cute?”, Yousef asked excitedly.
“Alright calm down, a lot of people are cute, you’re not special,” Sana answered rolling her eyes but grinning to herself.
“It’s too late. You revealed your true feelings for me at last. And it only took three and a half years of dating for it to happen” Yousef quipped.
She laughed as she reflected back on all the moments she spent with him these past few years.
“When was the first time you realized you were in love with me?” she asked quietly.
She heard Yousef chuckle to himself over the phone before saying, “Sana Bakkoush, who knew you were so sentimental?” And then, “It was that evening we were playing basketball together with Elias near the courts behind your house. You were so confident and determined and I kept missing the basket for some reason---“
“---the reason being that you suck at basketball, just admit it Acar” Sana interrupted in a teasing manner.
“Um excuse you, I’m amazing at basketball, my hand-eye coordination is out of this world. The only reason that I kept missing the basket is because everytime I was about to take the shot, you kept glancing over at me and I couldn’t look away from your distractingly beautiful brown eyes….”
Yousef hesitated before continuing, “I remember thinking that I could see my future in those eyes.”
Sana felt her cheeks burn at his confession. She remembered that day vividly and was glad that it had meant as much to him as it had to her.
“What about you? When did you realize you loved me?” Yousef asked.
Sana smiled tenderly before saying “It was back in my first year of high school. I had just come home and I was upset and overwhelmed and you and the boys were there goofing around in the backyard. You came into the kitchen and saw me sitting on the table with my books and laptop out trying to do some homework. Somehow you could tell that I was stressed, even though I was trying to hide it, and you came over and made me laugh with one of your stories and then you showed me this meme on your phone. Then you smiled at me and said ‘whatever it is Sana, it’ll pass’. I kind of knew then”.
She heard Yousef laugh before he said “you know I was actually worried that Elias would come in and start to wonder where I was since I’d left the boys out there for so long. But it was worth it. Anything for you girl, I meant it”
Sana felt her cheeks flush.
“Speaking of Elias, you know he actually came over earlier and had me sit down while he tried to give me ‘the talk’,” Yousef jokingly admitted.
“What talk?”
“You know, the one where he told me that if I ever hurt you, he would kick my ass. But then he got kind of teary-eyed at the end because he realized after the wedding, we would officially be brothers, and he ended up hugging me for five minutes so it was a bit of a mixed message.”
Sana burst into laughter at that. “Awwwww. Also Elias knows that I can take care of myself.
“That’s exactly what I told him. Also he doesn’t have to worry about me hurting you Sana. You know I would never do that right?”
She looked down and smiled so widely her cheeks hurt. “I know.”
“Good”
They sat in silence for a few moments, each of them listening to the other one breathing, neither one wanting to hang up first.
Finally Yousef said, “We should probably go to sleep now unless we want to fall asleep in the middle of the ceremony tomorrow”
“You’re right. Goodnight, Yousef”
“Goodnight, Sana”
Sana hung up and put the phone down. She laid down and closed her eyes.
Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.
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Yousef heard the click as the call ended and he put the phone down on his bedside table. He laid in his bed and smiled to himself as he thought about tomorrow.
He couldn’t believe he would be Sana’s husband in a matter of hours.
Sana, whom he had known for years, first as his best friend’s little sister, then as an intelligent and strong woman with tremendous ambition and an even bigger heart.
He wanted to tell her a million things.
How she reminded him of the sun; warm, full of light, and necessary for survival. That when she smiled at him, it lit up a place inside of him he didn’t know existed. How hearing her talk about something as simple as cockroaches could take his breath away. How her eyes were the first ones he looked for when he walked into a room. That when he thought of things that made the world a better place, she was one of them.
But he knew he would have a whole lifetime to tell her everything he felt for her and to show her just how much he loved her.
They were soulmates after all.