Much Ado about Nada

There's nothing more human than being wrong," she said quietly. "Or being persuaded one way and then regretting your decision. I would argue that learning to live with that regret is the most human thing of all.

Always begin with a salutation. After you have finished your complete thought, place a period thusly. Commas are your friends but must be treated with respect and used to distinguish clauses separated by a conjunction. Remember that grammar is like a complicated math equation, except no one really understands the rules, because they were all made up long ago by dead white dudes.

I don't think we really talked about what our life would look like afterward. I had these expectations, and she had other expectations, and in the end, we just stopped... working toward the same goal, the same sort of life.

My parents want to leave a legacy. We want to create our own. We're all just making it up as we go along.

I haven't known you for that long, but I can confidently say that your parents will be disappointed no matter what you do. You might as well make yourself happy.

Doesn't it just come down to faith?" she asked. "When you make a decision and stick to it, you're showing that you have faith in yourself, in your path, or in someone else. Right?" She looked from one to the other like an eager puppy seeking validation, and Nada wanted to cry, because even a stopped clock is right twice a day; somehow Firdous had hit on the truth exactly.

Was this how Haleema saw her? A woman with no agency. A staid, timid singleton too set in her ways to ever take a chance. Someone who waited for the vagaries of fate or an unseen hand to land the perfect partner in her lap. Her mother and her best friend seemed to think that Nada was content. She must be a better actor than she thought. So what if her heart was filled with regret?

He didn't want anything to change, ever. And so nothing changed for anyone in her family. Ever.

Life really was bizarre on occasion.

Honestly, Narjis Aunty, I don't know what to do with this one! I even have tickets to the matrimonial speed-dating event, and your daughter tries to back out at the last minute." Nada contemplated making a run for it. "When was the first minute?

Nada will marry when she's ready, Aunty. She has excellent judgment and has never rushed anything in her life. She has her engineering job, she has her family and friends, and for now, that's enough. When the time is right, she will find her match.

Joy, found and lost and then found again, which made it that much sweeter.

She was just a girl who should be happy with the foam from other people's waves.

A world doesn't exist where I don't choose you, Nada beta, over everyone else. I will always choose you.

You're looking for the same thing as everyone else. You want me to blame her, or for her to blame me. You want someone to be wrong and the other person to be right, and marriage... my marriage, at least, it wasn't like that. We just fell apart, and then we had to pick up the pieces and move on.

Regrets, piled in heaps all around her. The biggest one standing tall before her, an unreachable ice giant.

But she also understood him finally. He could not forgive her for the past, but at the same time he could not be cruel.