At last the beautician is done working her magic onto my face. ‘I have to say, Nadia,’ my sister Sadia gushes softly at my reflection, ‘she’s turned you into an ethereally enchanting version of yourself. The make-up is not hiding you under its cosmetic weight, it’s…bringing you out, somehow.’ She places a reassuring hand on my shoulder and meets my eyes in the mirror, a sheen of pride swimming in her orbs. All I can do is smile lightly as I blink to push the tears away. I have no words to describe how much I’m going to miss her.
I’m getting married tonight. To a man who found me to his liking in an online picture of his cousin in which I figured. I’m ashamed. I’m not talking to that friend of mine anymore; the one who’s his cousin. One Snapchat story and I’ve caught someone’s fancy. If that isn’t a stupid enough reason to marry, I don’t know what is.
My face was out there in the open for I don’t know how long, and that terrifies me somewhat. Marriages don’t happen this way; they shouldn’t happen this way. If fixed in this Haram manner, their very basis is a prevalent but abhorrent practice. Who knows when another friend off his cousin’s Snapchat story or WhatsApp status catches his fancy, and I’m left fending for myself?! I pray that that doesn’t come to pass. My thoughts of the future, however, are exceptionally grim. The internet’s a dangerous place. Doesn’t even take a second to lift your pictures off it. My privacy is busted one day and I can’t take back my photo from a stranger’s phone, sitting a thousand miles away. God knows I may find it one day stuck onto some licentious body, floating around on the World Wide Web, just like that.
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