The One in Which We Get Caught Up In Some Deep Shit

The day had started off normal. But it didn't end that way unfortunately. Astur and I got up, ate breakfast, went to our classes, and tried to come back home. Our attempts were useless.

As I grabbed all my stuff and my umbrella, making my way to Astur as we planned to leave together, a frenzied Ismael rushed and immediately wriggled himself between us.

"Who are you running from dumb demon from hell?" I grunted, freeing myself from his iron grasp.

"That girl right there, she won't leave me alone!" He wailed and Astur stifled her chuckles with the back of her hand. As if on cue, a blonde girl ran up to us abruptly, her face in smiles. Then those smiles turned sour.

"Oh, Ismael! You didn't tell me that you had any sisters!" She glared at us.

Ismael stammered a quick "They're not my sisters" as Astur and I shared a glance.

"I'm his girlfriend."

"I'm his girlfriend."

Astur and I looked at each, both wide eyed and cringing.

The girl made a face. "You're both his girlfriend?"

"No, actually, this is my girlfriend," I motioned towards Astur. "And that's her boyfriend, Ismael."

"Like that's any better." The girl turned on her heel and left after spewing something about polygamy and how disgusting we were. I turned around, putting my hands up for high fives, which Astur and Ismael granted.

"That was perhaps the weirdest thing we've ever done, but if gets you away from whatever that was then it was worth it." Astur shook her head in annoyance.

"Thanks you two, I really needed that. She's been after me for weeks and I'm not getting caught up with another Caroline Fisher." Ismael responded.

I stilled, remembering the hardest day in my life. I backflipped the thought out of my head and turned to face my friends.

"Yeah, Astur and I were going to go home and eat, but if you're planning to hang out we could go get some halal food or something. I heard there was some gyro place just close to here." I racked my memory trying to conjure up an address but then decided to just use google.

"It's not like I have anything better to do, so okay." He shrugged his shoulders and took out his own umbrella, and we began to make our way to his car, discussing our haram antics from a couple minutes ago.

As we piled in, we soon discovered that his car wouldn't start.

And that was the start of our turmoil. What made it worse was that we were super hungry and decided to walk to the restaurant and that was strike 2.

"Is this the part where we get mobbed?" I glared at no one in particular, as the sound of thunder stretched across the sky.

"For the last time Ahlam! Stop being so negative or else I'm going to gag you!" Astur violently warned and I shut my mouth remembering the day i was annoying her by dancing on the sofa she was sitting on as she was trying to submit an essay. She had tied me to a chair.

"You two need to shut up, look we're almost there!" Ismael pointed and we directed our attention towards the little light up sign boasting halal shawarmas.

We all groaned in unison, relieved that we had finally reached our destination and could satisfy our hunger. We stepped inside to discover it was one of your dingy little diners, with minimal places to sit and some scary looking men with behind the counter frying some chicken. There was this lonely looking man silently munching on a french fry and I almost felt bad for him. Almost. At least he had french fries. I was beyond jealous.

We walked in and i immediately recognized the men t be from Peshawar as they started screaming at each other in Pashto. One of them beckoned us closer and we obliged, gulping nervously.

"So, what would you like?" The man spoke in a heavy accent. He proceeded to scrutinize Ismael from head to toe.

We placed our orders and the man continued to creepily gaze at Ismael and we could see Ismael visibly start to sweat. We made our way to a small circular table and gazed around in uncomfortable silence.

A couple minutes had passed when a young girl, with thick brown hair woven into a braid, and downcast eyes approached our table with our food. Her name tag read Palwasha and I racked my brain thinking of where I remembered her from. No conclusion came to me so I left it be.

The food tasted pretty good, and the man from earlier approached our table and we all hesitantly stopped eating. I took a better look at him and saw that he was medium height with a happy looking face despite our earlier conclusion of him being creepy. He seemed to be very merry and his eyes twinkled. Half my brain was like hey! This is the nice uncle who always has your back. The other half told me to run.

"You, my son, look like a very good boy! You see, my wife and I have been searching for a good husband for our daughter, and you seem suitable. Please tell me your father's phone number and I will call him."

Ismael choked.

The man, who's name-tag read Jibran, roughly pounded Ismael's back and offered him water which Ismael refused as his coughing fit subsided.

"Um, I'm not really looking to get married, I'm quite young actually, just in my 3rd year of college and all-" Ismael began awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

"Nonsense! That's the perfect age! Now tell me your father's number!" the man named Jibran insisted and we watched in amusement as Ismael recited the number.

As we left the restaurant later on, we realized what type of shit we got ourselves into.

"Did you even get a good look at the girl?" Astur questioned as I grumbled something about ibuprofen.

Ismael's cheeks only reddened and that was the answer to her question.

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"Be not afraid of going slowly. Be afraid only of standing still"-Chinese Proverb