Normally, no one attended classes, but everyone showed up for this one: the lesson on reproduction.
The classroom was packed.
Students from other classes even joined our class for the lesson.
Apparently some boys made it their mission to attend every one of these lessons.

After a certain age,
A girl no longer has the freedom to choose a suitable person to marry.

Why is he treating me that way?
A question I never found an answer to.
His mood changes almost every day.
Whenever he feels that I’m attached to him through my actions or through wanting to be with him all the time,
He suddenly changes.
romantic relationships

“When I told my friends that you refused to hold my hand they asked me why I was still with you.”
“Then leave!” I exclaimed.

“When do you plan on getting married?” my father, aunts, uncles, and cousins always ask me.
Or if we’re at a wedding, they always say ou’balik [may you be next].
I wonder how the elders of the family would react if I walked around at funerals and poked them, saying “Ou’balik!”

Every time I felt agonizing loneliness
Even when lying next to him.
Every time he promised me he’d be a reliable source of support, and he wasn’t.
Every time I told myself that I’m living this life alone
Even though I’ve got a man, supposedly.
romantic relationships, divorce, marriage

We would sometimes look at each other and not say anything.
We knew what we did, but we didn’t talk about it.
It’s funny how the whole thing passed smoothly just because we didn’t talk about it.
But if the same thing had happened with other people and they talked about it,
It could have made a huge difference in their relationship.

I know that a lot of women unknowingly enter into marriages with similar types of men, and that I was lucky and all that.
But I never imagined that something like that could ever happen to me.

She’ll welcome you with a wide smile: “Hair or beard?”
Then she will burst out laughing: “We’re barbers too, but female barbers!”.
Most probably this is how you’ll get to know Hayam, through her “hair or beard” question.
She won’t care if this is your first time or your hundredth.

I went to her place.
Her mom greeted me and let me know that she was going to run some errands.
Until she was back, we had the house to ourselves.
Her and I.