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There was exactly fifteen minutes left until Iftar*, which meant fifteen minutes until Sana and her family would break their fast. The first day of Ramadan was always the hardest seeing as your body wasn’t exactly used to not eating or drinking for 10 hours or more. Sana had spent the day indulging in some Quran reading, she had read two of the first surah’s* in the Quran* today and had decided to read the entirety of the Quran in Ramadan. If she were to distract herself in any way from all the things that were going on in her life, she might as well do it with something that comforted her.
The Bakkoush household were in a slight panic which was a characteristic of it soon being Iftar time. Sana’s mom was busy in the kitchen finishing the dinner while commandeering the rest of the household to set the table.
“Younes, did you remember the forks?” Sana’s mother asked. Younes, Sana’s father shook his head and quickly picked the forks up and continued setting the table. Sana’s mother joked about how the one thing he always forgot, was the forks. Her father rolled his eyes in mock annoyance while they both continued joking to each other, resulting in Elias letting out a small laugh.
Sana’s mother looked over at Sana and Elias and said, “Don’t think you two are getting off the hook. Go get the nice tableware, we’re having guests as well.”
Sana furrowed her brows in response. What guests?
Sana’s mother, Faiza noticed the furrow in Sana’s brows and said, “Salim* and Jamilla are coming.”
Sana lifted her eyebrows. It had been a while since she had seen Jamilla. Ever since the karaoke night, she had contemplated talking to her, but she had felt that too much time had gone by. Jamilla had always taken care of her, but all Sana had done was push her away. She felt guilty, she didn’t deserve Jamilla’s forgiveness. But she couldn’t help but hope. Maybe, just maybe, Jamilla would forgive her and she could have someone to confide in.
Sana nodded in response and left to get the tableware her mother had asked for, and behind her steps were Elias.
“Sana,” he said. Making her halt in her steps. “What do I have to do in order for you to not be mad at me anymore?”
Sana didn’t respond.
Elias sighed and said, “Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was your friend. Please, what can I do?”
“I’m not mad at you for getting into a fight with Isak.”
Elias furrowed his brows and responded, “Then why?”
“Well…I’m mad at you for that too. But…I’m mad at you for getting into a fight at all. You’re not a violent guy, this isn’t like you.”
Elias opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He rubbed at the nape of his neck as he started to sweat. He looked sorrowful as he went into deep thought.
“I- I know,” he answered some time after as he looked down at his feet bashfully.
“Whatever’s going on, you shouldn’t be going through it alone, you should talk to someone.” as soon as Sana had uttered those words, she realized how truly hypocritical she was being. She needed to talk to someone. Someone she knew she could trust.
Elias smiled fondly at his little sister and nodded.
Sana and Elias walked into the kitchen, and she realized that today had been the first day in quite a long time she had truly smiled. First when she was playing basketball with Yousef, and now with Elias. For the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful.
“Oh also, the boys are coming too,” Elias flashed a cheeky smile directed at Sana.
Sana’s breath quickened, rolling her eyes as if she didn’t care, even though they both knew she did. She left the room to go into her bedroom and put on her hijab. And while she was at it, she fixed her makeup and put on a fresh layer of her peach colored lipstick. Her eyelids were bare without any eye makeup and she contemplated putting some on, but decided not to. She didn’t feel like it.
Sana studied herself in the mirror. She was wearing a dark shirt over her dark jeans. She noticed a stain on her shirt and rolled her eyes. How had she managed to stain her shirt without having eaten all day? She decided it had been stained as she was playing basketball with Yousef. Sana’s heart warmed at the memory.
She took of the stained shirt and looked around in her closet for a different one. She found a grey shirt and put it on and reevaluated her outfit in the mirror. Much better. Sana looked at her phone to check the time and it was 10.14PM, two minutes until Iftar. She entered the kitchen and was once again welcomed by the smell of food, her senses magnified by her thirst for water and her hunger for food. She could smell legumes, ginger and herbs. This could only mean one thing; her mom had made Harira. This instantly made Sana’s mouth water.
Sana helped Elias set the last few items on the table, namely the water and the dates. And as clockwork, the doorbell rang just as the Adhan* on all of their phones rang at the same time.
Sana’s father opened the door and in came Salim and Jamilla hand in hand. Loud laughter and collective smiles were seen and Sana embraced Salim in a big hug.
“Ramadan Mubarak!” Salim said.
Sana made eye contact with Jamilla, but looked down at her feet instead of in Jamillas eyes. Did Jamilla not like her anymore? Was she mad at her? What if Jamilla would never forgive her?
In the midst of her thoughts, she felt an embrace coming and it was from none other than Jamilla. As Jamilla pulled her into a big warm hug she said, “Ramadan Mubarak, you look beautiful Sana. How are you doing?”
Sana felt a strain in her smile as she said, “Ramadan Mubarak, thank you. I’ve been doing good,”
Jamilla narrowed her eyes, but merely nodded and didn’t push the subject any further.
Salim and Jamilla joined the rest in the kitchen and had their first cup of water after Iftar and a few dates as well. They spent the next few minutes catching up, but then all went their separate ways to pray Maghrib*.
Before finishing her prayer, Sana wanted to, or rather needed to feel even closer to God. She let out a sigh and thought about everything that had happened to her these past weeks, all of the difficulties she had gone through and continues to go through. She thought about the actions she had taken following them, she thought about how she had distanced herself from Noora out of pure jealousy, simply because she felt like crying everytime she saw her. She had distanced herself from Yousef after he had told her he wasn’t Muslim. She had taken pictures of the texts between Isak and Sara, behind Isak’s back. She knew she shouldn’t have. Ultimately she knew it wouldn’t help her achieve what she wanted. Sana felt her eyes well up with tears and as she tried to blink them away, a single tear escaped her left eye. Sana thought back to when she was in middle school. She thought back to the messages she had been sent. She thought back to the fear and paranoia she had every break that someone would come up behind her and yank her headscarf off of her.
And suddenly, multiple tears left her eyes. Her heart felt heavy, only to feel surprising lighter merely seconds later.
The bad memories and thoughts had left her mind, much like the tears from her eyes. She had only one thought in her mind; “Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear.*” Sana repeated those words in her head in Arabic and for the first time in a long time, she felt relief.
Sana didn’t know for how long she had prayed, but as Sana entered the living room, they had all seated themselves and were already eating. Sana also recognized the boys sitting together, but Yousef was nowhere to be seen. Sana went inside the kitchen to get some more water and found her mom about to serve the well awaited Harira.
Sana hugged her mom and said, “I’m starving, it smells amazing,”
“It does,” Yousef entered the kitchen with a smile.
Sana’s mother smiled at him and said, “Well I hope it tastes as good as it smells, how did you think of the first day of Ramadan, Yousef?”
Sana noticed Yousef uneasily pressing his lips together as he shared a nervous glance with Sana. Sana wondered if his parents knew of his lack of beliefs. He responded, “Uhm- I actually didn’t fast today,”
Sana’s mother furrowed her brows and said, “Oh? Why not?” “I-uh I was just feeling sick,” shrugged it off in an attempt to sound casual.
Sana’s mother looked concerned and said, “Well I hope you feel better. Would you two like a carrot?”
Both Yousef and Sana accepted the carrot and Sana tried to ignore the electricity in their touch as they both tried to take the same carrot.
Sana looked up at her mother and she bit into the carrot and saw her narrowed eyes studying them both. And if Sana wasn’t mistaken, she even saw a small smile linger at the corner of her lips.
Sana walked out of the kitchen feeling particularly flustered. She entered the living room and joined the rest. She seated herself beside Elias and gave him a soft smile. He lifted his eyebrows in momentary surprise but a small smile fell on his lips in return.
“Why doesn’t this Harira contain any meat,” Elias said with a disgruntled furrow in his brows.
“Because I’ve been reading Hadiths* and supposedly Prophet Muhammad has said that we should eat less meat, or avoid it as much as we can,” Sana’s mother replied.
Mikael lifted his eyes from his food and looked as though he was interested in the conversation and said, “It actually hurts the environment more than transportation combined, but of course companies pay a lot of money for that information to be kept away from the public eye, purely for the sake of capitalism.”
Sana’s mother nodded in agreement while the boys collectively teased him for being such a smart ass.
Yousef pitched in with a side ways glance at Sana and said, “Yeah animals do have more purpose on this planet, and they aren’t just here for us to eat,” and with a confident smile, he continued, “Did you know, biology says that in the brains of cockroaches, there are nine types of antibiotic molecules? And they’re actually stronger than any type of penicillin we have today.”
Sana almost choked on her food, making the rest of them all collectively look at her in confusion. She looked up at Yousef with a grin and of course, he was sporting an innocent smile. Dork.
For the entire duration of the dinner, Sana and Yousef spent it glancing at each other. Even when she tried to have a conversation with someone, she could always feel those eyes on her, making her breath quicken as soon as it had slowed down.
When they had finished eating, to say that Sana felt bloated was an understatement. She always made me mistake of promising herself not to eat more than needed, because there was the inevitable bloating waiting to happen.
Sana’s mother was about to clean the dishes, but Jamilla objected and wanted to do them instead.
“Sana will you help me? Please.”
“Yea- yeah of course,” Sana answered Jamilla and followed her to the kitchen.
They spent a few minutes putting the dishes in the dishwasher, not one of them said anything.
“So I heard you started your nurse studies,” Sana started.
Jamilla nodded with a small smile and said, “Yeah I feel like I finally found something I want to do, you know?” she stopped herself and looked up at Sana, rolling her eyes and said, “Oh wait, you wouldn’t. You’ve wanted to be a surgeon since you were 9.”
Sana smiled at the memory. It was true. Sana and her mother had picked her father up from work one day and she got to witness the atmosphere and since then, she knew. She knew she wanted to help people, she knew how gratifying it would feel to have physically removed the sickness from a human body. Sana smiled at Jamilla. “I’m happy for you,”
They spent a few seconds just looking at each other fondly with smiles that matched. They didn’t have to verbally express how much they meant to each other, but they both know.
“So how are things going at school?”
Sana’s eyes dropped at the mention. She was hesitant to share what had happened. After all, Jamilla had warned her of it all.
Jamilla in turn studied her at the lack of response. “Sana. You know you can trust me,”
Sana looked into Jamillas understanding eyes and felt bad for doubting her. She had always been there for her before, how could she possibly doubt?
“I- it’s just…a lot has been going on. Too much.”
Upon seeing Sana in distress Jamilla immediately put down the plate she was holding and put her hand on Sana’s shoulder.
“Is it- as bad as at Urra*?”
Sana shook her head. “It’s been bad lately, but I think I’m getting a hold of it. I know what to do now,”
Jamilla narrowed her eyes at her in wary. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Sana busied herself with the dishes once again. There was a question lingering on the tip of her tongue. “Jamilla,” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “How…how did you know you were in love with Salim?” Jamilla lifted her eyebrows in momentary surprise but then her lips fell into a soft smile. She gave Sana a sideways glance and a knowing smile. “Well, he could always make me laugh and smile, even at my worst. He’s always been respectful of my boundaries, which of course, is very important. But the moment I actually knew I was in love with him was when I had to spend time away from him. I was miserable, and so was he. We just…work better together. Like soulmates.”
Sana’s breath hitched. She seemed deep in thought. Jamilla’s words resonated with her, much more than she’d like to admit.
She narrowed her eyes at Sana and said, “Is something going on between you and a certain long haired, cockroach lover, friend of Elias?”
She lifted her eyes in shock and stuttered, “Why would you say that?”
“I mean we’ve all known something was going on ever since you were kids, but tonight. You two were…different.”
“Since we were kids?”
Jamilla tilted her head and rolled her eyes in amusement. “Come on, you two have been making eyes at each other ever since I can remember.”
Sana couldn’t help but let her lips form a big smile at the thought. They had. She just wasn’t aware that others had known. Sana was perfectly aware of the stolen glances, the short conversations and the basketball playing in their small yard of the apartment for years.
“I didn’t know we were that obvious.”
“Actually the first time I really noticed something going on was at mine and Salim’s wedding.”
Sana furrowed her brows in response. She couldn’t remember her and Yousef even having a conversation at their wedding. Jamilla explained, “You remember that soft pink dress you wore? Well I wasn’t the first person to notice how beautiful you looked in it,”
She continued, “I even saw him picking some roses outside, thinking he was going to hand them to you. Next thing I saw was him throwing them in the trash.”
She furrowed her brows in confusion. “Yeah but, that could have been any reason,”
“Or maybe it had to do with Leyla’s brother chatting you up and dancing with you,”
Sana gaped with lifted eyebrows. She didn’t know what to say.
“Hey, mom told us to bring the chebakia* to the table,” Elias said as he and Yousef entered the kitchen. Sana looked up at Yousef with surprise as her heart palpated. He narrowed his eyes in confusion as a smile exclusively reserved for her lingered at the corner of his lips.
Jamilla directed Elias to the chebakia and handed him some plates.
Sana felt a blush nearing her cheeks, so she turned around busied herself by picking up some forks and putting them in their place.
“By the way, what are you and Salim going to name the kids?” Elias asked Jamilla.
“I’m not even pregnant yet,” Jamilla responded in mock annoyance.
“I know but when it does happen,”
Yousef smiled to himself with a glimmer in his eyes he said, “I like the name Airtafa.*”
Jamilla smiled smugly as she glanced over at Sana. “I like that, but I think you should keep it,”