Emeralds

Eighteen.

Eighteen

[Adam]

I forgot my phone in the car.

After Mr. Aly welcomes us into his house, and spending like fifteen minutes together, I check my pocket for my phone and don’t find it. I think I’ve probably forgotten it in the car, and so I ask for permission to go get it.

As I’m turning the doorknob the door opens, and I’m face to face with Leen. She says something that I don’t recognize, and freezes when she sees me. It takes her a moment then she lowers her gaze. But that moment was enough to get my eyes caught in her emerald green gaze. As soon as I realize I’ve been staring, I lower my gaze too.

“Asslamu’alikom, Leen,” I say.

“W-W’alikom Asslam,” she replies.

I get my phone and go back inside shortly after her.

This time I’ve brought the whole family because the two families have to finally get to know each other. They seem to get along pretty well, but I keep praying that things would go by that smoothly till the end, though. We find out that Aya and Abed go to the same university, but different faculties. Mom seems comfortable around Leen and her mother and that’s the most important thing to me. I’m not ready in any way for mother-and-daughter-in-law problems.

Omar and I find it really easy to deal with Mr. Aly who’s so kind and welcoming, and I can start feeling I can be part of this family. I want to know if Leen thinks the same about my family.

However, we decide that the engagement would be two weeks from now, on a Thursday.

For me, it seems like a quite unnecessarily long time.

***

During these two weeks, I travel three times, and barely have time to prepare for my own engagement. Anyway, I buy my suit and needs while I’m abroad, searching for the best quality of everything. That day must be perfect, inshallah. It would be a lot to my fiancée that her engagement goes enchantingly. Girls do care about such stuff.

Four days before the engagement, Ahmed, Omar and Abed decide we should have a men’s day before I’m engaged. Ahmed says we better spend the day shopping for the engagement and hanging out as well. And so we do.

We shop for barely an hour and we get terribly bored so we spend the rest of day between restaurants and mobile shops. While we’re having lunch, we talk a lot, Abed seems to blend well with us, even with Omar, although there’s a ten years age gap between them.

“Hey, Adam,” Abed suddenly says.

“Yes?” I look up from my plate.

“You better take care of my sister and never ever make her cry,” he says with a teasing frown.

“What would you do if I mess up?” I joke.

“I’ll smack that face of yours,” he points at my face with the fork.

I laugh, “You will see yourself what kind of life I’m planning for your sister.” He smiles. I guess I really like that kid.