Published: Friday, June 23rd 2017 4:26 am

Jummah Mubarak!!!

Chapter Two

February 5th 2018

I used to always want a job. To me it always seemed like freedom to do whatever you wanted, if that makes any sense. Say you wanted to go to the mall or even buy yourself a nice dinner. Say you wanted to just not feel broke, left out, or a burden for asking your parents and siblings for different things.

Don't get me wrong, I will gladly be their long lost child that they can spoil any chance they get. But there is something about feeling secured by yourself and able to manage your life the way you want. It was around last year that I decided to do something about it and show others I could. Being the youngest comes with being underestimated. No matter how well of a plan I have to succeed, I always feel like I've failed after talking to most of my family members. The others are sometimes too busy with their own lives to take account of their youngest sisters.

But then it hit me. I'm about to be twenty-one years old and I'm still waiting for opinions. I'm still looking for the approval I never saw growing up. I wish I could say that I am over that and that I have a new mindset, but I can't. Sometimes I still feel like the girl from Riverside; the youngest and misunderstood child. To anyone else, me, Jamila, had many more issues than meets the eye. The choices I made were always questionable and warranted a disapproving glance by those who knew.

        One of the biggest ones had to be when I ran away to New York. The backlash and disapproval was bigger than I thought would come out of it. Ayah and a little bit of Jafar tried to reason with my parents and explain why. That didn't help any. My parents were furious and they had a right to be. I may be older and living a completely different life than three years ago, but sometimes I feel like I'm there. I feel like that seventeen year old girl who didn't know what she wearing the next day, let alone a plan for life.

        In some ways I wasn't really prepared to leave home. The plans I came up with were just brainstorms that I somehow reasoned enough to make them reality. If it hadn't been for the first year I took classes to feel everything out, I would still be in the same position I was in two years ago. Going back to that girl I was is the last thing I want to do. I didn't have my life together and was messing up left and right. One would think after watching my own siblings grow up that I would have some idea. Sadly, that was not the case.

***
To me, Monday always seemed like the uninvited guest to the party that calls the police because of some basic reason. No one knows who invited Monday or how Monday knew the times or showed up. All anyone knew is how badly they wanted Monday to leave. The sad thing about this analogy is that Monday is a person and is here to stay. No matter how badly we want it to leave, it will always be basically invisible and able to roam around causing problems.

Today Monday, the uninvited guest, decided to show how displeasing it is. Because of the intense pain my pain had been in this morning, I couldn't go into class and take a very important exam that counted for a large percentage of my grade. I had to eventually call up to the school explaining my absence, but for some reason my professor could care less about my pain and only cares about the exam. He had claimed that my pain was an excuse to take the test, and also that other students would do the same if he let me slide.

I almost didn't feel bad that Tehreem was late to work because she had spent over an hour on the phone yelling at the said professor. Me knowing how much of a hard ass he is knew that his heart is nonexistent, but somehow Tehreem had gotten me a retest later this week. Let's just say that the Dean and ACLU was involved.

I spent most of the day home alone and drugged up on painkillers and binge watching Friends on Netflix. Somewhere in between one of the thanksgiving episodes I had fallen asleep only to be awaken by a little girl in pigtails. Mina stopped shaking me when she realized I had half of an eye open and began waving enthusiastically.

"Hey!" She chirped once she finally let her hand down. Instead of sitting all the way up, I turned over and squinted at the clock before gasping. "You have work in seven minutes," Mina declared what I had just realized. "I would hurry if I were you."

"Yeah, okay."

Reluctantly, I pulled the covers from over me and used my good arm to lift myself up. My vision is still a little blurry from the medicine I took earlier causing me to ease back down on my bed. That is the worst thing I could do. If I have learned anything from school, work, and needing to be somewhere on time, it is to not under any circumstances lay back down. Yet I did.

        "Did you get her up yet?" My eyes involuntarily opened at the sound of my brother in laws voice and I pulled the covers back over my face. "Mina?"

        "I'm doing it now!" Mina yelled back and began tugging on my blanket, yet I could still hear footsteps coming down the hallway. "C'mon. Ummi said you can't be late again!"

        "Has the thought ever occurred to you that I'm not covered?" I groaned through gritted teeth. If it wasn't for the fact that a seven year old was on the other side of this tug of war, I would be very exposed right now. But I was at a disadvantage with only one hand, so we are even.  Mina had immediately stopped pulling and rushed to close my door and giving me the go ahead to get dressed. As I stood up and gestured my niece to the outfit that was only permissible for two people to see–me and my future husband–her mouth formed an 'O' shape along with a nod. I tugged down my shorts and pulled my tank top straps up before the situation got any worse.

"Ummi said that I have to help you get ready," She disregarded my earlier question and went to stand in front of my closet. I followed her. "Your closet is really messy. Ummi wouldn't like it."

"Who says she's going to find out?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow in her direction. Tehreem has a certain way that she likes her home, and that way is clean. I honestly would be surprised to even see one spec of dust anywhere in the house. Because of this she has a strict policy that everyone must keep their rooms and all rooms of the house clean. She once flipped on me for eating half of my sandwich in my room even though I was containing the crumbs.

"I'm not going to tell her," She shrugged, then scrunched her nose. "But the smell inside might. What is that?"

"I don't smell anything," I frowned, then moved forward to sniff around the front where my clothes and scarves sat. "I'm positive it's not me."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know," I frowned, and I really didn't. Even though my room sometimes finds a way to become messy, I always make sure that the smell is at least pleasant. The last thing I want to smell before getting comfortable is an awful, annoying stench. "Maybe you should go check while I'm getting dressed."

"Good idea," She covered her nose and began to walk towards my door. "I can't believe she can't smell this," She mumbled while walking away.

"Not all of us have bionic noses," I called back and began to take out a few outfits to wear. It's true. Even the doctor Tehreem took her to described her ability to smell as unique and one in one thousand. It took me all of a few minutes to find a simple maxi dress, pants, cardigan, and a matching scarf and then went down stairs right in the middle of Mina and Zak arguing...again. Amna was sat in the living room with a girl I recognized from her school.

"I found the smell," Mina shrieked and held up a sandwich that pointed towards being Zak's. "He is eating onions," Mina scrunched her nose. "I hate those."

"I'm guessing that is why your nose alarm was going off?" I teased, but she nodded her head quickly and moved her hand away from Zak trying to take his sandwich back. "I have to go to work. Where is your father?"

"Outside fixing the grass from Amna's incident," Zak cooed.

Amna stopped what she was doing and turned around on the couch to glare at her younger brother. Not again. This is not what I was expecting to do again after having to be hospitalized. How I even made it downstairs without tumbling down them is unknown to me.

"You want to talk about incidents, Zak? Really? Take a look at Jamila's arm and see your work!"

"Okay that's enough!" I stood between their line of sight of each other and placed my good had on my hip. "I am seriously not in the mood to argue with you both. Mina, give your brother back his sandwich. Amna, continue studying. Zak, go do something instead of arguing with your sisters and getting me involved."

"But–" He began to protest, but stopped upon looking me in the eyes and seeing the glare I was throwing his way. Eventually everyone decided to go their way–the way I told them to go–and I took out my lunch from the refrigerator. "Amna," I spoke up on my way to the door. Mina had sat down on the chair in the living room with her tablet and Zak had gone upstairs. "Can I trust you all not to fight while I'm gone?"

"Probably not," She smirked and sent a knowing look to her friend, Emily. "But I will say I will try not to."

"That's all I asked for," I sighed and opened the front door. Unlike most days, the sun hid behind a group of dark clouds and a small breeze blew through, causing me to close my eyes and take it all in. I haven't done this in a while. Just relaxing and taking in outside after a nap seemed like heaven to me. The neighborhood made it even better.

"Enjoying yourself there?" A voice I recognized as my brother in law pulled me out of my trance. I nodded with a wide smile and slowly opened my eyes to find that he wasn't alone. His nephew, Adam, stood besides him in a full tuxedo and slicked hair. While Noor watched me in amusement, Adam stood watching me in a mixture of confusion.

"I've been waiting for a day like this all year," I confessed. "Thank Allah I finally got it."

"Thank Allah," Noor laughed.

"Well I'll be going," I said after a whole minute of awkwardly standing there and trying to find a way to break the silence. Adam had now adverted his eyes into his phone instead of me and my moment.

"Is someone picking you up?" Noor asked, and I'm guessing me just standing there and looking at the neighborhood was obvious enough that I didn't have a ride anywhere, and I was now almost an hour late to work. "You're not taking the bus are you? Tehreem would never forgive me."

"No...I...um, am waiting for Inayah," I lied through my teeth and waved him off. "She'll be here any minute."

"You sure?" Noor raised an eyebrow and looked left and right at the empty road on our street. "I can give you a ride or have..." He paused and turned to Adam who was twirling a set of keys around his finger. "Adam. You're not busy."

Adam looked up from his phone with the same look of confusion. "I'm not?"

"Nope," Noor shook his head with a closed lip smile. "We both know you're not going anywhere. I need you and Zak to give my sister here a ride."

"But she just said she has a ride," Adam pointed out, but Noor began to narrow his eyes at his nephew. "Okay, geez," Adam held his hands up in defense. "I'll go get him," He said and slipped by me and into the house.

"You didn't have to–" I began to protest as Zak had done earlier, and just like him, I got interrupted.

"Inayah isn't coming and you're too groggy from painkillers to take an uber or bus," Noor pointed out all of the reasons I knew but didn't admit.

        "You got me," I flatly laughed. I folded my arms over my knees and set my head on top, but that was cut short by the sound of the lawnmower. "Really, Noor?!"

        "Sorry, but I have to do this and you need to wake up," He called over the noise and offered me a thumbs up.

        Instead of returning the gesture, I placed my head down and waited for the day to be over.
***

It's been a while but I'm back. This chapter is more of a filler for the next one than an entertaining one. Hopefully the next one is more exciting with different people and situation coming up. Let me know what you think in the comments!

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