MY NASEEB

Asma'u believes in marriage the way she believes in oxygen: necessary, non-negotiable, and somehow always just out of reach. Raised by parents whose love made devotion look effortless, she has spent years searching for a marriage that feels the same. What she finds instead is a series of men that can only be described as practice for patience.

Then Yahya comes back.

The neighbour's son she remembers as patient and steady appears at her parents' door and asks for her hand before the evening is over. It feels like an answer to every du'a she has ever made. She says yes before she finishes thinking.

She does not know she has already been decided upon.

Abdulaziz has never wanted for anything. Privilege has a way of convincing a man the world is his to claim. Until the one thing he wants most is already promised to another, and wanting her anyway might cost him everything he thought he was.

Some prayers are answered. Some answers ask something back.