Layla stared at him.
Then Zayd said something that made Samira lower her eyes.
“And if Layla is supposed to be ashamed because she isn’t a virgin…”
He paused.
“…then perhaps everyone should ask whether I am.”
Nobody spoke.
Zayd’s mother looked embarrassed.
Marriage
His father said quietly,
“That is different.”
Zayd immediately turned toward him.
“Why?”
His father didn’t answer.
“Why is it different?”
The room became painfully quiet.
Zayd pointed toward Layla.
“If I had told you this morning that I spent the night with a woman, you would have laughed and told me to settle down after marriage.”
Then he looked at Samira.
“But because that same woman is your daughter, suddenly her entire worth disappears?”
Layla felt tears running down her face again.
People & Society
Not because Zayd had saved her.
He hadn’t.
The truth was still out.
Her parents knew.
Everything she had hidden was sitting in the middle of the room.
But for the first time, somebody had said aloud what Layla had never dared to say.
She had spent years terrified that one fact about her private life would erase everything else she was.
Her kindness.
