Chapter 26
The next day, after a long day at the office and a hearty meal of home-cooked ratatouille (which I managed all on my own, thank you!), Aashiq and I settle in my bedroom to get back to work on the book.
Emily’s on night shift, so we don’t have to speak in hushed tones.
I even turn on my writing playlist, so the music plays softly in the background.
I’ve changed into my comfiest pajama bottoms and a BTS T-shirt with a cardigan on top, which I’ve found myself reaching for a lot more lately when the cold nips at my bones.
Yes, it happens to be the same one Aashiq helped me into when we went on our first brainstorming walk together.
Ever since then it feels much warmer than it used to.
It’s about a week until Christmas, so work has finally started to slow down in the lead-up to our closure for the holidays.
Now that I have a bit more free time, I’ve outlined some scenes and come up with others I think I want to go in the book, but the problem is I don’t know which order they should go in.
I think part of the issue is I can’t think of a way to connect all the scenes because my main conflict still feels kind of weak.
I voice as much to Aashiq, who is currently stretched out on top of my bed, his arms folded and resting behind his head.
Unlike me, he’s still in the clothes he wore to work today, which is a pair of black dress pants and a thin white button-up that shows off both his muscular upper arms and a thin slice of skin above his belt with the way his arms are positioned.
I can’t look at his face without my eyes straying to his rippling biceps, and I can’t stare at his chest without my gaze traveling downward, so I force myself to focus on the slit in his eyebrow.
“Okay, let’s get into some details,” he suggests.
I nod eagerly. Good, that should help me avoid ogling because it’ll keep my brain occupied. “Sounds good. What are we thinking?”
“Well, Manahil wants to be a writer again, yes?” he starts, and when I nod, he continues. “But what’s stopping her? What’s the conflict?”
I tap my pencil against my chin. “Are we talking internal or external?”
He fixes me with a stare that suggests I should know better. “Both, obviously. They can be related, but they don’t have to be.”
“Externally, I guess it’s her current career,” I think aloud. I use my foot to twist my seat, the chair oscillating side to side. “Her job as a publicist makes it hard for her to find time to write. Internally… I’m not sure. What do you think?”
He squints his eyes and, with his arms still draped over his head, points a finger at me. “What do you think?”
I quirk a brow. “You’re literally here to help me brainstorm and bounce ideas,” I remind him. “I can’t be doing all the work on my own.”
Aashiq draws one of his legs up so it’s bent at the knee, and the action shifts his shirt farther up, and it’s taking everything in me to keep my gaze on his face. “Okay,” he allows. “So, what do you not want the internal conflict to be?”
I chew my cheek. “I guess I don’t want it to stem from anything that has to do with her family,” I finally say. “Because I’m going to make her Pakistani and Muslim, and I don’t want it to fall into stereotype territory. That’s always a danger.”
“What’s a stereotype to you?”
I draw my legs up onto the chair and cross them.
“Like the parents value the son more than the daughter, or they don’t think the daughters can work successfully in male-dominated fields and should be in traditionally feminine spaces.
” A shudder wracks my body. “Or even worse, using Islam as any kind of internal conflict.” I tilt my head to the side.
“The whole reason I started writing seriously is because I wanted to combat those stereotypes, to show different kinds of stories.” I grit my teeth.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like anyone wants those stories.
It’s like they think the only Muslim stories that have value are the ones where we’re suffering or we have to teach the reader something.
We’re more than our pain, and we shouldn’t have to teach people why we matter. ”
“If that’s how you feel, then this is exactly what you should be challenging in your work!” Aashiq gushes.
Despite his enthusiasm, I scoff. “Yeah, that’ll work out.”
He wrinkles his nose. “What do you mean?”
I grit my teeth, trying to hold my irritation back. “I mean our stories about joy tend to be overlooked.”
“Write it anyway,” he insists. “You write for yourself before you write for anybody else.”
I know he’s trying to be helpful, and most of the time I find his inspiration endearing, but right now, it ignites the embers in my stomach I thought I put out when I decided to try writing again.
“That’s a lie,” I retort. “We write for ourselves, yeah, but the whole point is to get our stories out there. We’re writing with an audience in mind, and unfortunately before we can reach those audiences, we have to go through gatekeepers who don’t understand us and thus can make decisions about the worth of our stories without truly seeing how much they can mean to people. ”
Aashiq drops his arms and straightens up, turning his body so his feet hit the floor. “Who cares?” he says.
“ I do!” I implore. My eyes suddenly burn, and I press my palms into them for a second.
My voice wobbles as I choke out, “I care because I can’t keep putting my blood, sweat, tears, hopes, and dreams into stories with no guarantee anything will even happen with them.
Yeah, I love writing and I write for myself, but what I love so much about books is they connect me to people I’ve never even met, who can make my day better or make me feel less alone, and I want to be that writer for someone else.
I want to share my joy and my pain and my thoughts.
” More tears thicken my throat, and I inhale deeply, hoping it’ll keep them at bay, but they slip down my cheeks anyway.
“But I’ve shied away from writing my own experiences because that’s not what people want.
How am I supposed to pour everything of myself into a book people won’t even consider?
It’s like opening myself up for disappointment and pain on purpose. ”
For a long moment, Aashiq is quiet. I turn away from him, running the backs of my hands against my face to brush away the tears and sniffling to stop my nose from running.
I drop my hands back into my lap, and by the time I turn my attention back to Aashiq, he’s still silent.
He regards me with a strange expression, one I can’t quite decipher.
I’m used to him having only two moods: happy and occasionally confused, especially when he’s trying to use technology, like the time he tried to use my laundry machine and accidentally flooded the apartment with bubbles.
He’s usually quick to respond, so the fact that he hasn’t said anything creates a ball of anxiety in my gut.
Finally, he breaks the silence. “You don’t get it, do you, Ziya?”
This time, I wrinkle my nose at him. “What?”
He stands. In a few short strides, he’s in front of me.
I’m still in my chair, and now I’ve lost all feeling in my body, so I can’t bring myself to rise to meet him.
All I can do is tip my head back to stare up at him, and that takes all the energy I can muster.
His Adam’s apple bobs. “ You are what makes your books unique,” he stresses.
His eyes, twin pools of daylight blue, roam over my face.
“Believe me when I say I know you. There is no perspective like yours. No one sees the world the way you do. No one else has the passion and drive you have. Even though you know what it’s like, and you know the pain that can come with this process, you still want to try because you know it’s what you need and what you’re good at.
” Slowly, cautiously, he raises his hand and gently curls a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You’re capable of so much more than you think. ”
I’m not sure what it is—the way his fingers linger over the shell of my ear, shooting tingles down my spine, or the way my heart drums so hard against my ribs I swear it’s going to stop, or the overwhelming feeling of his belief in me that covers me like a blanket—but whatever it is, I abruptly shoot up to my feet.
My hands stay clenched into tight fists at my sides.
With my heartbeat in my ears, I step forward and press my lips to Aashiq’s in a quick, abrupt kiss.
I pull away as fast as I do it, so I see Aashiq’s reaction right away.
His brows are slightly raised, and his eyes widen a bit.
He blinks once. Twice. “Oh,” he says, but not in an airy whisper or a shocked breath.
It’s a statement, like I just told him that actually, the earth circles the sun, not the other way around.
Oh? Is that a good thing? It must not be, because his voice seems devoid of any emotion.
Embarrassment instantly flames my cheeks, flooding my face with so much heat it feels like my skin is going to melt off.
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe I did that,” I say.
My hands cover my face, and my next words come out muffled.
“I’m so sorry, I have no idea what came over me—”
All in one motion, Aashiq reaches up, grabs both of my wrists, and moves them down. He pulls me to him and slants his mouth over my own.