Page 9 of The Love Match

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to scream as our mothers maneuver us close together. Harun stands rigid next to me, while Amma, Arif, and Resna hover at my other side—the latter rubbing her eyes with a chubby knuckle—and his parents pose on his side.

Then Zoey chirps, “Say chhena!”

Harun doesn’t bother to smile, and he beats a hasty retreat the second we’re done. Well, fine. I’m hardly about to fall swooning into his arms either.

Glaring daggers at his back, I tug at the veil of my mother’s shari, summoning her away from where she’s squealing over the photos with Pushpita Khala. “Amma, it’s getting late.” I incline my chin at Arif, who has lifted a drowsy Resna into his arms. “If we’re going to catch a bus home, we have to leave now.”

“Bus?” Pushpita Khala lifts a hand to her chest.

Between her scandalized expression and the warning glance my mother levels at me, I get the sense I’ve made some bhodro society blunder, but Amma just flaps her hand. “I told you about my late husband, didn’t I? He was the one who drove… before.”

“Oh, you poor things,” Pushpita Khala tuts.

Amma’s smile stiffens. “It’s fine. Please don’t fret, Afa.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Pushpita Khala. “Mansif, we can’t let these children take thebushome so late.” She wrinkles her pierced nose like the very notion stinks. Amma opens her mouth to protest but stops in her tracks when Pushpita Khala adds, “Perhaps Harun can drop them off?”

Her husbandhmms in concession.

My jaw hits the carpeted floor. I wait with bated breath for Harun to decline, but he simply frowns at my sleepy siblings and consents with a shrug.

Amma beams. “Are you sure it won’t be a bother?”

“Of course not,” his mother says. “We’re also returning to Paterson, and Harun drove here in his own car. Go on, Zaynab dear. I’ll WhatsApp you the pictures soon.”

“Thank you, Pushpita Afa,” Amma replies. “For everything.”

They share a hug and kiss each other on both cheeks. Harun observes them with practiced boredom, hands in his pockets. After a quick sidebar with his mother, she gives him something from her purse—a pair of thick-framed black glasses, which he immediately puts on.

Wait, is that why he’s been glaring at me all night?

Narrowing my eyes in suspicion at his back in return, I start to follow him toward the parking lot, then notice Arif’s struggle to see around Resna’s sleep-mussed pigtails. As I stick out my arms to take her, I grumble, “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

“Um. I plead the Fifth?”

I glower. “Wewillbe talking about this.”

When we don’t have a gloomy, looming tagalong, anyway.

The valet drives Harun’s car, a sleek silver BMW, up to the curb and tosses him the keys. Harun holds the door open for us, eliciting another charmed giggle from Amma. “Such a gentleman. Isn’t he, Zahra?”

“A regular Sir Lancelot,” I mutter too quietly for her to hear, but Harun’s forehead creases like he has. Entering the backseat with Resna proves to be much less of a Herculean labor with his help, however, so I reward him with a reluctant, “Thanks, dude.”

As he observes me, his big, dark eyes seem to swallow the twinkling fairy lights strung all around us. My own eyes dart away, unwilling to be complicit to the abrupt racing of my pulse.

Harun’s voice prompts a reluctant glance back, so soft, like a secret between us, that I have to strain to pick it up over the whistle of the wind. “You’re welcome.”

Half an hour later, he pulls up to the sidewalk in front of our run-down multifamily house. I unlock the door and scoot out of the BMW as fast as humanly possible with Resna still hanging on to me like an octopus, not giving him the chance to repeat his earlier display of gallantry.

Not giving him a chance at all, perhaps, but I push that thought out of my mind.

“Good night,” I call over my shoulder.

Without waiting to gauge his reaction or to see if Amma follows, I hoist Resna into the building and scale the creaking steps, my brother at my heels. Inside our apartment, my legs almost buckle, but I prop myself against the doorjamb, clinging to my sister.

“Never grow up,” I breathe into her hair.

Maybe then, she can just keepbeingwithout having to worry about making herself smaller, prettier, quieter, for everyone else’s sake but her own.

---