. . .

. . .

~

"On that day you will be brought to judgment and none of your secrets will remain hidden." (Qur'an 69:18)

~

Before going to their respective offices, Zoya and Haroun enter a coffee shop to eat breakfast together. She settles at a table while he orders at the counter for them. Zoya is about to call Sameer to ask him a couple things when she feels a peculiar, prickly feeling at the back of her neck. As if she is being watched.

Zoya Zameer is used to being watched. To being scrutinized and pigeonholed from every angle. Under cameras, in written words, all in microscopic detail. But this? This strange feeling? It makes her uncomfortable in a way she can't describe.

She turns around.

And everything in her stills. Not a temporary kind of quiet. A loud, deafening silence. One that makes you want to itch your ears until they are raw.

When she sees him, everything in her freezes. Time stops. Her blood stops. Her pulse seems to stop. The air, before alive and bustling with sound and commotion, is now still and frozen. As if suspended in time. As if gravity has stopped and physics has stopped and the world is one still, deadly kind of silent.

When she sees him, everything in her trembles and threatens to collapse. She is unable to form words on her lips, unable to even move to back the hell away from him. Everything she has done, every recognition on the news, every trade show she has went to, every campaign she's released, everything that she is, disappears. She seems to have fallen off a very high ledge, scrambling around in the suffocating blackness to grasp on to something.

Because everything that she is is fading away. Every accomplishment, every success. One look in his eyes and she is back to nineteen-year-old Zoya Zameer. Poor and helpless. Powerless. She feels as if somebody has tackled her fortressed walls, the ones she has so precisely been building the past couple of years. So many times she has felt that people have itched and scratched at her walls and given up when they've received no entry, but one look at him bulldozes all of her carefully built walls down. Everything she is comes crashing down, and she is left standing in debris as the ghost of who she is to the world. While inside she is back to being nineteen-year-old Zoya Zameer, watery eyes piercing the man in front of her.

Her ex-husband Farhan Hussain.

He smiles. In that way young Zoya used to be wary about until eventually growing to fear it. "Well, well." His voice is exactly as she remembers it, and she fights to keep her insides from combusting. "Zoya."

Speak, Zoya, she urges herself. Say something. But words fail her.

"How have you been?" There is no genuine concern in his voice, no actual regard for how she has been. His tone is full of silent mockery, laughter in his eyes. In front of this man, she is nothing. Zameer Co. is nothing. Zoya Zameer is nobody.

Zoya wills herself to speak. "Fine" is all she can muster because she fears her heart may stop working, and she cannot display any sort of weaknesses in front of this man.

Farhan tilts his head around the coffee shop, as if searching for something. Or someone. When he finds whatever it is he's looking for, a slow smile spreads across his face. Zoya doesn't dare take her eyes off of him despite the tremors rolling throughout her body.

"Who are you here with?" he asks nonchalantly.

"Nobody," Zoya replies quickly.

"Really?" he muses. "I remember seeing something about a new boy toy on the news — "

"Will you never change, Farhan?" Zoya all but spits out, regretting it immediately when his smile widens. He is provoking her. And he is enjoying it.

"I see that you certainly have." His eyes rove over her once, and Zoya's insides squirm uncomfortably. This man is not Haroun, and he is looking at her in the most disgusting way.

"Does your Islam not teach you to lower your gaze?" Zoya barks. At this, an emotion flares in his eyes. Anger. But it vanishes as he turns away. "Get away from me, Farhan. Or I won't hesitate to call my guards. Or 911. You see, they respond to my beck and call now."

"Ah, yes, I have heard of your . . . influence."

Zoya cannot believe his abrasiveness, his cockiness. His open declaration that he doesn't believe he has done anything wrong. She continues to tremble with fear and rage.

Then she feels a tug at her hand, and fingers slips through hers. Her head allows just enough mobility for her to turn and see Haroun with confused eyes darting between the two of them, and that is enough. He is enough. The debris she has been trapped in begins to flatten away, the fallen walls begin to reconstruct, and suddenly she is erect again. Whole.

And the intrusive thought makes an appearance again. I think you have an unhealthy attachment towards me.

Haroun holds out his hand, still confused as to who he is greeting, but Zoya pushes him back with a force that causes his eyebrows to furrow in perplexity. "No," she says, voice shaking.

Farhan throws her that awful smile again. His eyes flick to Haroun. "Nice to meet you, Mr. . . . "

"Haroun," he prompts.

"Haroun." Farhan holds his hand out, but Zoya blocks him by standing in front of her husband. She shakes her head, fists clenching and unclenching.

"Zoya," Haroun whispers in her ear. "What are you doing?"

Farhan chuckles. "Don't mind her, she's still angry at me for something she believes I did."

"If you truly think you did nothing wrong, Farhan" — she feels Haroun tense behind her when he realizes who the man in front of him is — "and that I don't have any proof because nobody was watching . . . " Zoya turns to look at Haroun, and merely his face gives her the strength she needs. She wonders what she should say that will strike Farhan more than anything. Something he may actually fear despite the shameless person he is. Something that will shift the ground beneath his feet.

And suddenly, a lightbulb flares to life over her head.

"If you think you did nothing wrong, then I won't meet you in any court here." She pauses for effect, knowing how this will unravel him. "I'll meet you on the Day of Judgment, in the court of God. The only day I will be provided full justice." She smiles in satisfaction at the taken aback — then horrified — look on Farhan's face. She has hit him where it hurts, and nothing has ever felt better. Zoya feels Haroun's fingers at the small of her back, gently guiding her away from Farhan. But she doesn't turn away before one last look at the astonishment on his face.

Outside the restaurant, however, she doesn't feel nearly as brave as she wanted to become around Farhan. She feels weak and tattered. Ripped apart and upended. The ground beneath her seems to waver, teetering her off the edge of a precariously high cliff.

So many times. So many times she has wondered if she will ever see him again. And if she will, what display of power she will make that will leave him baffled and her satisfied.

She had wanted to make him feel helpless. She had wanted to make him feel powerless and reduced to nothing around her.

Instead, she has succeeded in nothing but reducing herself to powerlessness.

"Zoya?" Haroun says. "Let's go home, okay?"

She nods, unable to form words. Haroun heads back inside to collect their food order before coming back out to wrap an arm around Zoya.

But she shrugs it off. She feels repulsive. Disgusting. She heads into the car before Haroun can say another word.

At home, she calls Sameer and says she won't be coming to work, hanging up before he can ask why. Moments later, her phone rings with Bill Nye The Science Guy flashing across the screen but she hurls it onto her bed and rushes into the bathroom. Turns the shower on hastily. Grabs a new bar of soap. Enters the shower — fully clothed — and scrubs at herself until her skin is red and raw. Haroun continues to bang on the bathroom door but she pays him no heed. She slips down to the floor, water pooling around her feet and drumming against her skin insistently, and she wishes she could make the disgust roiling through her disappear.

And as she hears her husband worriedly knocking on the door — the pure and gentle man — she realizes she can make it disappear.

. . .

That night, Zoya has the manor decorated in soft colors, petals strewn everywhere leading up to their room. She waits with baited breath on the bed, surrounded by candles and flickering lights and more rose petals, suddenly unsure of why she's so nervous. She's done this before; why is she scared?

Maybe because this time, it will actually mean something to her.

Footsteps tread the stairs and Zoya's heartbeat quickens.

"Zoya?" Haroun's voice is confused, and Zoya covers her mouth to hide the giggles erupting at his confusion. It feels good to laugh again. The whole day has been spent with quiet thinking and continuous backtracking and a plethora of second guessing. And fear. So much fear and confusion and uncertainty.

When Mumtaz had heard Zoya's conversation with herself in the dining hall this afternoon, she had asked if there was anything she could help with. When Zoya reluctantly told the elderly woman, her face had lit up. She had reached forward and tucked a curl behind Zoya's ear, and Zoya had been surprised by the affectionate gesture.

"What's going on, Zoya?" Haroun says from outside the door, interrupting her thoughts. "Where are you?" And then he opens the door to their room and steps in, pausing at the entrance when he takes in the sight before him.

The bed surrounded by a canopy of flowers, every surface covered with flickering candles, and more petals are strewn across the floor. His eyes travel all around the room before stopping on Zoya, after which they widen. "Zoya?" There is uncertainty in his tone.

She steps forward, and Haroun's expression goes from uncertain to even more baffled. "What . . . what's going on, Zoya?"

Zoya stands, then reaches out for his hand. "Haroun." Her voice comes out shaky. "Please."

Comprehension dawns on his face, pure and clear. His eyes take in the room and Zoya's appearance in a new light as he understands the meaning behind it all.

"You . . . really?" he asks shakily.

As confirmation, Zoya steps forward and places her head against his chest, embracing him tightly. Then she steps back, eyes wide with both fear and exhilaration.

Zoya nods.

Awaiting his response, she finds his eyes. They are thoughtful, surprised.

And then he gives her the smallest, softest smile.

. . .

In the morning, when Zoya's eyes open a little before Fajr time, she lifts her head to look up at her husband. He's fast asleep, chest rising and falling with the pressure of each breath. She smiles softly, watching him in this peaceful state. She didn't think her love for Haroun Suleiman could have increased, but seeing him asleep with his arms unconsciously wrapped around her changes her mind. He gives her new reasons to fall deeper in love with him. Every day.

Zoya reaches up and places her index finger under his chin, tickling back and forth. His eyebrows furrow and his eyes open, darting around in confusion. When he sees his giggling wife, a smile adorns his face before he snuggles closer to her. His fingers roam in her hair as she rubs soothing circles onto the crook of his elbow.

"Love you," Haroun says almost absentmindedly as he stands to make his way to the bathroom.

It takes Zoya a few moments to recover from her shock. Her eyes are wide, heartbeat racing at the words.

Then she grins.

And it feels as if everything in the world has been set right.

. . .