Chapter 3
When my alarm goes off, my headache is infinitely worse.
I fell asleep crying, so it shouldn’t be surprising I’m in pain.
My face is swollen and my eyes ache. I rub my cheeks, trying to get rid of the numbness.
A groan slips through my teeth as I detangle my blanket from my body and slither out of bed.
My heartbeat picks up, thumping in my ears.
Oh, my God—it’s an intruder. Someone is in my apartment.
I grab the thing closest to me—which turns out to be Emily’s hair straightener—and peek over the doorframe.
Anxiety curls my stomach. With careful movements, I sneak over to the kitchen.
One of the floorboards creaks under my weight.
I wince and press myself against the wall.
After a few tense seconds where I’m sure I don’t hear anything else, I continue to creep along the walls until I reach the one leading into the kitchen.
With each step I straighten my back more and more until it’s ramrod straight.
I raise my chin, trying to force some courage into my veins.
Even though my mouth is dry and my hands tremble around the straightener and I’m barely five foot three with thin arms like E.T.
and the upper body strength of a newborn baby, I’m not going to go down without a fight.
Whoever decided to mess with my apartment is going to regret their choice.
I tighten my grip on the straightener in case I have to immediately swing.
With one firm nod, I peep cautiously around the wall.
A man is standing in front of my open fridge.
He’s wearing a black turtleneck and soft brown slacks.
His tousled russet hair and green eyes nicely complement his smooth brown skin.
In his hands is the chocolate syrup I bought for our sundaes yesterday.
He tips his head back, then squirts the syrup into his mouth straight from the bottle.
Oh, my good God. A strange man is in my apartment. He is in my apartment , where I am alone and groggy and have a headache from crying all night. And the only thing I have to defend myself is an unplugged hair straightener.
I have to call the police. I have to get help and protect myself against a man who is…
drinking my chocolate syrup. Shouldn’t he be rifling through my things until he finds anything of value (which he won’t, because I’m a legal secretary and Emily is a nurse and we’re both paying off student loans)?
But no, he’s just drinking liquid chocolate and licking his lips with relish.
What would a main character in a book do?
They probably wouldn’t call the police until they confronted the intruder themselves, because they’re the protagonist and need to act.
They’d probably knock the intruder out themselves, then tie him up and wait for him to return to consciousness so they could ask him what he wanted.
Depending on the genre, this could be a wide range of things: if it’s an urban fantasy, the intruder could be any kind of supernatural creature who acts as the call to action in the hero’s journey.
If it’s a romance, the intruder might be someone who thought my apartment was actually theirs through some kind of comical mix-up.
If it’s horror, the intruder could be a serial killer who was being chased and managed to take refuge in the first apartment they could break into.
And if it were extra messy, I’d fall in love with him à la Flower of Evil .
I hope it’s not the last one, even though the angst factor would be amazing. No matter which genre the story of my life is, the first step is knocking him out, so that’s what I have to do.
When he suddenly turns to me, I almost forget I might actually be in danger. Now that he’s facing me, I can clearly see the slit in his left eyebrow. He gives me a huge grin, brown syrup staining his white teeth. He holds up the bottle. “Hey, have you ever tried this? It’s delicious !”
His voice kick-starts a rush of adrenaline in my body. I scream, and he jumps about a foot in the air.
“Get out of my apartment or I’m calling the police!” I wave the hair straightener clutched in my hands. “I’m not afraid to use this!”
He frowns. “What do you mean, get out? You’re the one who called me!”
Once again, confusion overtakes fear. I lower my arms slightly. “What are you talking about? I did not call you.”
“I’m Aashiq.” He holds his hand out to me, though he makes sure to hold on to the bottle of syrup. “I’m your muse!”
“Oh.” I stare at his outstretched hand. “Okay.”
And then all the adrenaline leaves my body and I promptly pass out.
* * *
The crackle of something frying in oil is the first thing I hear when I wake up. I open my eyes slowly to see I’m lying on the couch with a blanket tossed over me.
I lift my head off one of the throw pillows, confused. The last thing I remember is tears decorating my comforter as I curled over in bed last night.
I turn to the direction of the kitchen, where I assume Emily is making breakfast. Instead, a man in a black shirt and brown pants whistles happily as he moves about the space preparing food.
Then it all comes crashing back. I woke up to this man—Aashiq, I think it was—in my kitchen before blacking out. And he’s still in my kitchen, except this time he’s cooking and not just eating my groceries straight out of the containers.
I’m still a little fuzzy, so I raise my hand to press the heel of my palm to my eyes. “What are you doing?” I grumble.
Aashiq stops whistling long enough to look over his shoulder.
Emily’s pink apron, the one with tiny strawberries printed all over it, is tied around his neck, and even though he’s some intruder who just appeared in my kitchen, I can’t help but admit he kind of rocks it.
His eyes light up when he sees I’m sitting.
“Oh, good, you’re awake!” He glances at the frying pan.
“You can’t write on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. You need breakfast.”
He puts the food on the plate and then brings it over to me, along with a glass of orange juice. He places both on the coffee table. “Once you have some food in you, I’m sure you’ll have a clear head for writing.”
The sight of the perfectly puffy scrambled eggs, the crispy halal chicken strips, and the buttered brown toast makes my stomach growl loud enough for the entirety of New York City to hear, but I’m not about to let it distract me from whatever…
mental breakdown I appear to be having. And I must be having one, because I don’t know how I’m sitting calmly while a strange man makes me breakfast in my own home.
I stare at the plate of hot food for a second, then finally lift my stare back to Aashiq.
“Who are you?” I demand. “And why am I not calling the police to get you out of here?”
Aashiq sits down on the couch next to me, barely leaving an appropriate amount of space between us. He folds his hands together. “I told you already. I’m your muse. You needed me, so here I am.”
“My muse? For what?”
“Your writing muse,” he clarifies. “You decided to quit writing last night. I’m here to help you get back into it.”
I regard him for a long moment. “I’m still ninety-five percent sure I hit my head and I’m hallucinating you.”
“Okay.” Aashiq nods. “I think you need convincing.”
He rubs his hands together and points to the window. The curtains, closed before, pull apart, allowing the morning sun to stream in through the window.
I jump, my hands coming up to cover my eyes. “What did you just do?!” I screech. That cannot have happened. It did not happen. I did not witness my vivid hallucination open curtains without touching them.
Maybe he’s a djinn. I need to get rid of him. I start mumbling Ayatul Kursi under my breath. “Allahu laaa ’ilaaha ’illaa hu…” I recite the entire dua’a, but when I slowly lower my hands and peek my eyes open, Aashiq still sits in front of me.
“If you need more convincing…” He turns toward the coffee table and splays his hands out, so his palms face downward. After a few seconds, a typewriter materializes out of thin air and drops onto the table with a light thud .
Aashiq ignores my squeak of surprise as he picks it up and jostles it around like it weighs absolutely nothing. He holds it out to me with a wide grin on his face. “Happy birthday!”
I scrunch my brows. “Happy birthday?” I repeat, and with a jolt, I remember I’m turning thirty today. With all the chaos of the morning, it had slipped my mind.
“Yeah.” He sets the typewriter back onto the table. “Maybe writing doesn’t work for you on a computer, so you need another tool to work. A typewriter could help.”
I stare at him again. “I still think I’m hallucinating.”
“Alright. If you need to make sure I’m real…” He spreads his arms out and flexes the muscles in his arms. “Go ahead and touch me.”
I narrow my eyes at him, but when he doesn’t move, I lean forward.
I stretch my hand, then curl the rest of my fingers inward until only my pointer finger is out.
Slowly, carefully, I bring it close to the spot on his chest just below his shoulder.
My finger hovers in front of the space for a second, and then, before I can lose my courage, I poke him.
And Aashiq feels real. His shirt is soft, and his shoulder is warm, and I can feel the material of his turtleneck on the pad of my finger. Intrigued, I shift closer and move my hand, so my palm rests against him. He’s surprisingly firm and strong underneath my touch.
If he’s really who he says he is, he’s not a person. But he can’t be a person who’s just screwing with me because no real person can do the things he did.