Asiya's leg had begun to shake the minute her mum started reversing the car into the driveway.

Once her mum had parked, Asiya pushed the button of her seat belt, tore it off, jumped out of the car before anyone else could and sprinted into the house.

"Where's Yusuf?" Asiya questioned her dad urgently.

"Upstairs," her dad replied. "What's the matt–"

Asiya couldn't have been any faster if she had tried. She practically teleported onto the first floor of her house.

Her room door slammed against the wall as she exploded into it.

Asiya threw herself onto Yusuf, who was adjusting the collar of his thobe in the mirror, causing him to stagger backwards.

Asiya pushed all her energy into their hug and squeezed Yusuf so tightly that she could feel his bones rubbing against his skin.

Yusuf had always made Asiya feel as though she was his everything. As though the pages of his story only had sentences that started and ended with her name.

Asiya wanted to go back and give Yusuf the same privilege. She wanted to pull on the hands of time and overwrite her story like it was an old cassette tape. Asiya wanted her pages filled with Yusuf's name and all her sentences to be punctuated with it.

But that wasn't possible. So, she tightened her arms around Yusuf, hoping that eventually, maybe, by some scientific miracle, Yusuf would physically feel how potent Asiya's love for him was and believe her when she said it had always been there.

That was the truth because Asiya couldn't pinpoint the exact moment she had fallen in love with Yusuf.

Even if she could become the author of her life and edit that detail into it, Asiya didn't know what chapter to start from.

It was as though Asiya's love for Yusuf had snuck into her heart and buried itself deeply, silently making a home for itself. It had always been there, but just like a fly on the wall, it attracted no attention until it was touched or challenged.

"I love you," Asiya proclaimed.

"I love you too," Yusuf chuckled. The words rolled off his tongue like they were shaped like spheres.

"No." Asiya placed her hands on Yusuf's cheeks. "I. Love. You," she repeated with more force and ferocity.

"I. Love. You. Too." Yusuf copied Asiya's bullet point rhythm with a smile. "What's wrong?"

Asiya dropped her hands from Yusuf's face and held them at her chest. "I realised...I've never told you that I love you. I've never said it back."

"Yes, you have." Yusuf looked up as he thought. "You've texted it to me before. At least once or twice, I think."

Asiya weakly punched Yusuf's arm. "Yusuf! A text message is not the same! That doesn't count!"

"It came from you. It counted to me," Yusuf said.

"You know what I mean, Yusuf," Asiya said lowly as she shut her door. "I love you. I swear. I've loved you for ages. I'm sorry I've never said it to you or said it back when you have."

"It's alright," Yusuf said as he folded his collar.

"How are you so okay with this?" Asiya asked.

If their roles were reversed and Yusuf confessed his realisation to Asiya, she would be simmering with self-doubt and hurt. It would take her days, possibly weeks and a few counselling sessions to get over it.

"Like I said, you've said it to me before. You've said it so many times, just not with your words. All those moments counted to me," Yusuf replied.

"All those moments...they've been enough?" Asiya questioned Yusuf quietly. She couldn't let go of enough of her breath to push more volume into her voice.

Asiya was hearing what Yusuf was saying, but her words were so late that they didn't feel enough to her. Her first, simple, verbal I love you didn't seem solid enough to fill the debt she thought she owed.

Yusuf adjusted Asiya's scarf, hiding parts of her hair that had escaped her hijab in her flurry. "Asiya, everything you've done and not done. Said. Not said. Just you. You've always been more than enough for me. If you never say it again, this is enough for me. Enough to last me a lifetime with you."

"But how?" Asiya pouted slightly, secretly in awe. Yusuf had shown he had the patience of an ant carrying a grain larger than it.

"Asiya, how can someone perfected by Allah not be enough for me?" Yusuf whispered against her forehead.

"Why are you always outdoing me?" Asiya joked as she leaned her head on Yusuf's chest.

"It's not a competition." Yusuf's laugh vibrated through him, the notes rubbing against Asiya's cheek. "Not when I've already won," he added quietly.

Asiya bit the inside of her cheek, shortening her smile. "Okay. Let's go downstairs, and no hugging. Kulthum has already complained."

"Wait." Yusuf picked up a gift bag that Asiya hadn't noticed was on the foot of her bed. "You haven't opened your Eid present yet."

"No. No. No." Asiya shook her head as she stepped back. "I'm not taking it. I was joking about you saving something for Eid!"

"I know, but I got you something anyway," Yusuf said as he stepped forward.

I already feel guilty enough. Asiya hadn't gotten Yusuf anything. "I thought we weren't doing gifts this year!"

Yusuf stalked forward until Asiya's back was pressed against the door.

Yusuf was so close to her. His breath was tangling with hers, which was quickly thinning under Yusuf's smug stare.

Asiya's heart slapped itself against her chest as Yusuf tickled his fingers up her waist. His touch lit small fires on Asiya's skin like a match, bringing her breath to a standstill.

Yusuf kept on going. Asiya squashed her eyelids together as Yusuf's fingers continued to find a path up her body until she grabbed his wrist. "This is basically blackmail," she hissed.

"Yes, and this is your present," Yusuf smirked as he lifted the gift bag in his other hand.

Yusuf stepped back. The other side of his smile stretched across his face. "I didn't tell you about it because I wanted you to receive a gift, not exchange one."

"Fine," Asiya exhaled. Finally, she could breathe now that the air around her had dropped to a safe temperature.

Yusuf gave Asiya the mint green gift bag, and they both sat on Asiya's bed.

Asiya pulled a wrapped box from the bag and teasingly shook it near her ear while Yusuf nibbled on his bottom lip.

She peeled back the wrapping paper and lifted the lid off the box, revealing the wonky jar Yusuf had created in their pottery classes.

The jar looked good. The messy streaks of gold painted across the white background had been glazed over, and they twinkled in the light like the stars people drew next to their wishes as Asiya shifted it in her hands.

"Don't focus on the jar. Please," Yusuf squeaked as heat coloured his face. "There's something inside it."

Asiya lifted the lid off the jar and stared. It was filled with folded pieces of paper.

Asiya had scrolled through enough Pinterest boards to guess what Yusuf had made her. Still, she clamped her lips together and looked at Yusuf expectantly, in case she was wrong, and the little pieces of paper were a substitute for tissue paper or confetti burying something else.

Yusuf coughed. "The papers...They open the-You can open them, I mean."

Asiya carefully unfolded a piece. Her eyes ran across the inky letters scribbled across the paper strip before she put it down and opened another one.

The first strip had a compliment, whereas the one in her hand had a short poem.

Asiya unfolded another piece. Then another one, and another one.

Yusuf's handwriting covered each piece of paper. He had used the alphabet to create emotional declarations, descriptions, compliments, poems and love-filled letters.

Yusuf's writing was faded and blotchy on some papers, as though the ink in his pen had been running out, struggling to keep up with his thoughts.

Some pieces looked worn, as though Yusuf had crumpled and thrown them away, fearing he was sharing too much before retrieving them, deciding he hadn't shared enough.

Other pieces were folded a thousand times over. Like Yusuf was hesitant to let Asiya know his true thoughts and feelings. Asiya had to run her fingers on the edges of the paper, find a gap or crease that Yusuf's fear hadn't pressed and folded shut, and pry the notes apart.

Asiya binged Yusuf's notes until tears lined her eyes and she felt like she was about to choke.

"Do you find it...corny?" Yusuf asked.

Asiya placed a hand over her mouth while Yusuf rambled.

"I got you something else. In case you find this cringe. Dawood said it might be, but Adam said it would be okay. I don't know why I listen to Dawood; he's not married and likes to tease me, but I wanted you to have something from me. Something that constantly reminds you of how much I love you and how I feel because sometimes I can-don't say it, I can't find the right words, or I don't think they're good enough–"

Asiya cut Yusuf off with a kiss.

It was the only way Asiya could communicate how she felt. The only way she knew how to say thank you.

When they stopped kissing, Asiya wrapped her arms around Yusuf's shoulders and pressed her ear against Yusuf's chest as though she could hear tiny whispers from his heart.

"Do you like it?" Yusuf asked breathlessly.

"Like it?" Asiya echoed.

On every single note, Yusuf had expressed his love for Asiya. He had told her how she made him feel, like how he couldn't breathe when she wasn't around but was breathless when he was with her, but also how he felt, what he prayed for and hoped for.

Yusuf had said 'I love you' over and over again in so many different ways that no matter what happened, Asiya would never forget it.

They were just words on paper. For most people, they would mean nothing. But they had come from Yusuf, so to Asiya, they meant everything. 

Asiya pressed another kiss onto Yusuf's lips. "I love it," she said.

This is enough. More than enough.

"Why did you even get me another gift?"

Yusuf shrugged but didn't follow his action with an answer.

Asiya's eyes traced over the pieces of Yusuf's heart scattered over her bed. You also thought it wasn't going to be enough? You thought it was too late, too, right?

"It's in the jar. If you want it," Yusuf said.

Asiya picked up the jar she had propped up against her pillow and tipped it over.

A small mountain of notes and a black box landed on Asiya's bed.

Asiya popped the box open. A diamond wedding band was nesting inside.

"It's beautiful," Asiya said as she removed it from the box to admire it. It felt like a gem dropping amongst the other gems Yusuf had already given her.

Asiya held it next to her finger where her engagement ring sat. "Wait," she murmured.

Asiya squinted and held the ring close to her eye. Tiny cuts had been made on the inside of the gold.

"What is that?"

Asiya looked at Yusuf. The side of his lips were twitching with an infectious smile.

"What does it say?" Asiya asked, smiling.

"It's a date from the Hijri calendar," Yusuf informed.

"Is this our nikkah date?" Asiya squealed. She pouted her lips in preparation for the aww she was ready to release before Yusuf placed a hand on her thigh.

"No. It's the date of the day we met," Yusuf replied.

"Oh gosh, that day at the office?" Asiya giggled.

"No." Yusuf's thumb tapped on the inside of her leg rhythmically, as though he was caressing her memories, gently prompting her to remember.

With tight brows, Asiya read the date once more. When she converted the Islamic date to the Gregorian calendar, the inscription read the 6th of September.

"Asiya," Yusuf continued, "It's the day you crashed into me. The first day of term."

Younger Asiya had tried her best to erase that memory. Younger Asiya had found that day mortifying, so she had allowed the memory to fade. Asiya hadn't hesitated to throw the memory in the bin of her brain when her mind needed space for others.

It had been easy at the time because Asiya had never planned to revisit it. She had never thought she would see Yusuf again, let alone marry him and have an opportunity to match the memory with new feelings. Ones that made her lips curl instead of cringe.

Asiya could laugh at the memory now. So, she dug through her mind and recycled it.

"You really need to stop saying I crashed into you. Think you're exaggerating what happened," Asiya grinned.

"Maybe." Yusuf stuck his tongue out. "Maybe not. It's your word against mine, and you still owe me an apology."

His eyes danced all over Asiya's face as though he didn't know which feature to take in first and couldn't decide what physical detail of hers deserved his focus.

"You have so much audacity," Asiya jabbed playfully. "That's why you never got one in the first place."

Asiya placed a hand on Yusuf's cheek and lifted his head slightly. Their eyes locked, and Asiya's breath briefly faltered before snapping into place and matching Yusuf's.

"So, it's the first day of school? The beginning," Asiya confirmed as she tilted her head.

"Yes." Yusuf used his thumb to massage circles into Asiya's skin. "The first day of school. Of term. The day all my duas changed to include you. The day that when you picked up all your things and shoved them into your bag, my heart had been one of them."

- 

Chapter Glossary

Dua: To call out to God. It is an act of worship, prayer.

Hijab: A head covering worn by Muslim women. Hijab is meant to cover your hair, ears, neck and chest.

Allah: The One God.

Hijri calendar: Islamic calendar. Based on the lunar months. (The moon).

Nikkah: The marriage in Islam.