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. . .

~

"Say, 'O Allah, Owner of Authority, You give authority to whom You will and You take authority away from whom You will. You honor whom You will and You humble whom You will. All good is in Your Hands. Surely You alone are Most Capable of everything.'" (Qur'an 3:26)

~

At night, Zoya takes a different route through the manor. Circling back to one of the older rooms, one she doesn't usually frequent. When she enters, there are storage boxes piled in one corner. She drifts over to them, opening the flap to check the contents.

Pictures.

Pictures on pictures of the prestigious Zoya Zameer in all her extravagant, eye-catching clothing. Clothing that forces the onlooker to keep their eyes on her. To undress her with their gaze.

Zoya shivers looking at these pictures now, wondering how she ever felt comfort in these clothes.

She realizes how brazen she had been! How she took every opportunity to sidle up to every man she met just to prove her own sick perceptions of humanity to herself. To prove that every man was as Farhan had been: lustful and manipulative.

And then Haroun had walked into her life and made her stumble upon her every breath, upon every thought she had ever had about the male species. He never did any of the things she believed were innate in every man, never expressed the desires she believed were innate in every man, never showed even an inkling of the destructive lust she believed every man couldn't control.

She had deprived every man of human emotion and spirit, but Haroun Suleiman had stumbled into her life and silently objected on every perception she had of the male gender as well as her perceptions of Muslims.

Honestly, she thinks, how stupid I've been. In testing mankind's lust meter, she had flushed her dignity and self-respect down the toilet, shamelessly batting her lashes and tiptoeing closer to every man she met. Using their muddled senses as an opportunity to walk closer and place a finger at her chin and cock her head to the side — the way she knew drove men crazy.

How insanely stupid she had been.

Zoya lifts one picture in particular, which is from the Desi World Fashion Show, seemingly ages ago. Zoya is talking to a distressed-looking Haroun, whose gaze is lowered to the ground.

His posture brings tears to her eyes. How she had mocked him for his morals and ideals! How she had thought it comical to test his patience by walking closer to him every time they met and saying borderline indecent and flirtatious things.

It's a wonder he even agreed to marry her.

And the countless times he told her that the environment he worked in just was not right for him. Zoya had thought this was humorous. Who wouldn't love a lively, vibrant, and action-packed life of entertainment and flurry?

But Zoya finally understands why Haroun had been this way. He had been lied to by his father and had such a hard time finding faith again — life hadn't been easy on him either — but he had stayed steadfast on his path.

And yet Zoya manipulated him as well.

As she stares at the picture, she begins to finally understand. She recalls he had worn a casual t-shirt on the day of his interview, probably hoping that he wouldn't receive the job because it was not the kind of life he wanted.

When he got the job anyway, he had been aloof and distant for the first few days, probably hoping this would make people not like him and thus he would be told to take his leave.

But when he had realized that there probably was no other way out, he threw himself as much into his work as he could without testing his morality, saying that if he must do the job then he might as well do it properly. He worked as hard as he could to secure money for his mother's operation and tried to maintain all the dignity and morality that he could.

But even while throwing himself into his work, he had been aloof with his CEO, hoping she would neglect and dislike him because of this reason. But Zoya hadn't. She recalls that this had been the very reason she had been so interested in him in the first place.

So he stayed. Yet even while staying, the bags under his eyes became considerably darker, the depth in his eyes never left — explaining why his promotion didn't cause him too much exhilaration — the exhaustion and fatigue exuding from him more apparent than ever.

Because this work — this idle work that lacks purpose — went against his very core, his very being. It went against what he stood for and what he wanted the purpose of his life to be, what the driving factor of his existence was. And he couldn't take it.

And Zoya only now understands.

She wishes she could hear his voice. Just once. She wishes she could tell him how sorry she is for being so selfish and not understanding his position. She wishes she could stroke the hair away from his tired eyes every time he tried to explain to her — in guarded and concealed words — that he needed something more invigorating, that his life's purpose was not being met.

She wishes she could see Haroun Suleiman just one more time.

. . .