I forced my jaw not to drop open, shocked by his brazenness. Soft beneath that prickly exterior? How dare he! Like I was some sort of ripe jackfruit. He probably expected me to swoon at his charm, but I rolled my eyes instead. What a load of codswallop. So what if what he said was spot on? Anyone could have figured that out.
‘But what I’m really curious to know –’ he continued, staring at me with a half-smile on his face ‘– is why you’re pretending that we haven’t already met?’
‘Because I wish we hadn’t!’ I blurted out, unable to contain myself anymore. ‘You didn’t exactly leave a good impression!’
‘What did I do?’ he asked, looking genuinely confused, which irritated me further.
‘Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.’ I sighed and looked down at the floor.
It had been such a long week. I had put my blood, sweat and tears into preparing for this visit. I let my parents create a marriage CV. I cleaned every inch of the house. I bought a new outfit. I gave it my best shot and what happened? The guy turned out to be a judgemental git that I had already met before. How was that for bad luck? I was exhausted. Physically, mentally and everything in between.
‘It obviously does matter because whatever it is, it’s impacting the way you’re behaving towards me today. You’re not going to give this a chance, are you?’
‘Of course not. And who cares? You might think you know me after poking around my room for five minutes, but you don’t. So why don’t we call it a day and stop wasting everyone’s time?’
‘Are you serious? Just like that? I don’t know what I did that was so terrible.’
‘Like I said before, it doesn’t matter. Forget it.’
‘You know what? Fine. Let’s forget it. We’re obviously incompatible. But can you tell me what I did?’
‘You really want to know?’ I finally looked at Zakariya again and I was surprised by the intensity of his expression. It felt as though he truly did want to understand why I disliked him so much. I had no idea why he cared, but maybe he was one of those guys who couldn’t deal with rejection.
‘Yes!’
I took a second to gather my wits, before letting him have it. ‘You made a comment about being surprised that a “visibly Muslim girl like me” was at the class. Do you know what it’s like, being a brown Muslim woman in London? I get judged everywhere I go, from white people to our own people. I can’t win either way! You judged me without knowing me, or why I was at the class, even though you were there yourself to support your naked friend!’
By the time I got all this out of my system, I could feel my cheeks burning and I was waving my hands around like a lunatic. He looked surprised and then incredulous as he digested my revelation.
‘Well, it was a valid observation,’ Zakariya said after a beat, his voice a lot calmer than mine. I tried to take my own volume down a notch, reminding myself that our families were downstairs.
‘Seriously?’ I hissed from between clenched teeth, crossing my arms like a child and then uncrossing them when I realised it probably made me look immature. ‘It was judging a woman, without knowing her, because of the colour of her skin!’
‘OK. Fine. If you insist. So that’s it then? No point in talking further?’ His voice still quiet, he stood up and stepped closer to me. Uncomfortably so. I inhaled deeply and his expensive, manly scent went straight to my brain and made me feel lightheaded. Why did he have to be so bloody good-looking? This would be so much easier if he wasn’t. I tried to take a step backwards, but my bed was right behind me and if I moved back any further, I would fall onto it. And Lord knew what sort of invitation that would have been.
I contemplated his question and I hesitated for a second before saying no. I looked away from him because suddenly, staring into his eyes made me feel funny. There was something about the way he was looking at me, the intensity of his stare, which was making my legs turn to jelly. Swallowing nervously, I lifted my eyes again to meet his. ‘There’s no point.’
‘Right. I’ll go back downstairs then.’
With one last long, hard look, he turned around and walked out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him. And as soon as he did, I didn’t feel triumphant like I thought I would. I felt horribly deflated. And alone.
Chapter Twelve
It had been a fortnight since the disastrous dekha dekhi meeting and the atmosphere in my house had become so tense that I had started avoiding going home straight after work. Instead, I was going running, occasionally with Malik, meeting Lucy and trying (and usually failing) to see Dina.
Ma and Baba couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to progress things with Zakariya. Apparently ‘there was no vibe’ and ‘his older sister is hard work’ weren’t good enough reasons to say no. Whenever they got the chance, they would try to persuade me to meet him again, listing all the ways he made sense for me.
‘He ticks all the boxes!’ Ma insisted the day after the meeting, as I got in from work and was taking off my coat. ‘Not only is he good on paper, but he’s also tall and good-looking. You can’t figure a person out from one little meeting. You need to see him again!’
‘Ma, please let it go,’ I said, trying to squeeze past her and upstairs to my safe space. ‘We didn’t connect at all. We’ve got nothing in common.’
‘Do you think your dad and I had anything in common when we met?’ she argued. ‘And we’ve been married for nearly thirty years!’
‘I need to go and change. I don’t want my clothes to smell of curry!’ This tactic didn’t work though, because as soon as I came down to set the table, it started up again. Then again through dinner. And again while clearing up. It was unbearable.
What was I supposed to tell my parents? That I had met Zakariya before at a nude drawing class? And that I didn’t like his holier-than-thou attitude? And that I was too busy getting through Noah’s list to waste time and energy on a man I wasn’t interested in? And speaking of Noah . . . what if I did run into him again? I didn’t want to be committed to someone I had settled for when Noah was still out there, somewhere.
I desperately wanted to talk it all through with Dina, but I hadn’t heard from her since the day she blew me off. Lucy was great . . . as great as someone who wasn’t Muslim, or at the very least, South Asian could be. She didn’t get the whole family pressure thing, about upholding traditions, fulfilling societal expectations. She – and most of my social-media feeds – were all about self-love, self-care, setting boundaries, putting yourself first, living your truth, prioritising your mental health.
HA. As if it was that simple. I tried saying this to my parents and not only was I scoffed at, but I was also told that ‘living your truth’ was a selfish person’s way of saying ‘do what you want with no consequences’. ‘Putting yourself first’ was another way of saying ‘to hell with everyone else’. And as for ‘setting boundaries’ . . . they laughed at that one. Well, Baba did. Ma rolled her eyes and said that if we wanted to live like shada manush, then how about she started with charging me rent and board?
Malik was also on at me about rejecting Zakariya. It was during one of our morning runs and after some probing about why I had rejected a perfectly decent ‘catch’, that I finally spilt out the sordid truth.
‘Is that it?’ Malik stopped jogging so abruptly that I knocked into him and the two of us almost toppled onto the tarmac. ‘You’re offended because of that?’
‘Malik, you don’t get it,’ I replied tersely. Because he really didn’t. ‘You’re an Asian boy, the only son, a good-looking, fair-skinned success, with clout akin to royalty. You don’t know what it’s like being me, the stick I get for merely existing. The way Zakariya made me feel that day at the art class . . . It just wasn’t good, OK?’
‘Look, Dimple,’ Malik replied, his voice gentler this time. ‘Take it from me, as a red-blooded bloke. He spoke to you because he was interested in you. But he obviously didn’t know what to say. He probably wanted it to sound like banter but it came out wrong. Don’t shut this whole thing down so hastily.’
One Friday morning during work, Dina finally texted me:
DINA: It’s been too long and I know it’s my fault. Please come round for dinner tonight, I miss you x.