Chapter 15
‘I can’t believe that bastard said that to you,’ Yasmin is appalled when I relay what happened to her later that night. As relieved as I am to have realised how nasty he is before anything truly bad happened, now that the shock and anger has worn off, I feel quite shaken by the whole thing.
‘I know,’ I reply, unable to meet her sorrowful stare. ‘I can’t believe it either. I mean, I knew he was a bit of a bad boy and there were parts of him that reminded me of Tariq, but I don’t know why I kept overlooking it.’
‘Overlooking what?’ Amina asks, ambling into my room like it’s her own. ‘Can I borrow your new lippy please? The Huda Beauty one?’
‘Yeah, take it,’ I reply. I don’t have the strength to retell the story for a second time, so Yasmin gives her an abridged version and Amina is beyond horrified. She is livid.
‘Give me your phone,’ she demands, snatching it from my bed before I consent, and opening up MuslimMate. ‘I’m gonna report his bastard arse.’
‘Be my guest,’ I mumble, burying myself further under my duvet.
‘His profile’s gone. Look.’ She hands my phone back to me and sure enough, his profile has completely disappeared from the app. I check our WhatsApp chat and find that I can no longer see his profile picture, either.
‘He’s blocked you,’ Yasmin the Wise says gravely.
‘I’m glad,’ I reply brightly when, inside, another part of my heart withers away.
I know it shouldn’t bother me, but the fact that he rejected me first (in the virtual world at least) plays on my mind for the rest of that evening, and the following day at work. Once again, I seek refuge in the prayer room where I can gather my thoughts in peace. Since when did human interaction become so transactional? Forget chivalry and good manners; where the hell had common decency gone?
‘But am I any better?’ I ask Francesca in the kitchen as we make our third teas of the day.
‘What do you mean, babe?’ she replies, grabbing the box of Yorkshire Tea and depositing two bags in our mugs.
‘Look what I did to Hamza. He basically got ambushed by two other guys at the event, and I haven’t even called him to apologise. I mean, I texted him, but when he didn’t reply, I should have called. But I didn’t know what to say.’
Francesca makes a face and remains silent as she pours the boiled water into the mugs.
‘What?’ I ask. ‘What’s that face for?’
‘What face?’
‘The scrunched-up, constipated-pug face you just made,’ I say rudely, yanking my mug towards me and adding a generous splash of milk to the brew. She laughs.
‘My mate’s always telling me off for making that face.’
‘Just come out with it, Fran!’
Francesca takes a deep breath, giving her tea one quick stir before pulling the bag out, barely giving the flavour a chance to develop. ‘If you ask me, you’re the one that was ambushed.’ She turns away as she says this, as if looking at me is too discomfiting for her.
‘I don’t get it,’ I say slowly. ‘How was I ambushed?’
She sighs loudly and then turns to face me. ‘Your man Hamza, he said he wasn’t going to come, right? And then he did? Why didn’t he tell you?’
I pause as I digest this. ‘I guess he wanted to surprise me?’
‘Maybe,’ she says, her tone suggesting anything but ‘maybe’. ‘Or maybe he wanted to catch you off guard?’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know the man, do I? But think about it. Does he often say one thing and do another? Or just ambush you in other ways? Push you into things?’
I think back to our interactions. ‘Well, the first time we met he made me take an Uber home .?.?. and since then I always have to, and if I don’t, he threatens to book it for me. And there was one time when he said I could pay the bill and then sneakily paid for it behind my back.’ Hardly incriminating stuff, in my opinion.
‘There you go,’ she says smugly, folding her arms across her chest. ‘That’s got control written all over it.’
‘Um, I think he was just being a gentleman, hun,’ I respond as gently as I can. Francesca, I decide, has had too many bad experiences with men and now even the nicest gestures come across as narcissistic to her.