Loving him is ill-advised, she told herself for the thousandth time as she looked at the picture of herself standing next to the one she loved the most. They were too different, she reminded herself. Yet from the first time she laid eyes on him in that Sociology class in September 2011, she couldn't stop thinking about him. In the eyes of most people, she was strange and she knew it. The quiet and fun Carleton University campus in Canada's capital was quite diverse. Lots of students from places like Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Yet Nabeela Marzuq was painfully aware of the stares she got everywhere she went. Simply because she was a short, slender Arab gal wearing a modest hijab along with her T-shirt and jeans. To most people, she would never be more than that. So many people seem to forget that Muslim women who dress conservatively are still women. Nabeela was used to being invisible, or, to put it mildly, her hijab was visible and she wasn't. Not the person she was underneath. And she was resigned to her apparent fate, until she met...him.
The first day of classes, he showed up late. Tall, dark and handsome. Clad in a bright green T-shirt featuring Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics, black jeans and boots. The sight of him set her heart afire, and she felt her cheeks redden. Of course he had to come sit next to her. She sat alone in a row meant to seat six students, and felt more than a bit alone. She was the only hijabi in class. Her other friend Farah, a tall and slender Somali gal, never wore the hijab. That day Farah wore a red tank top, short black skirt and black leather boots. She sat next to her boyfriend Hoffman, a blond-haired and blue-eyed student from Heidelberg, Germany. Nabeela shook her head at Farah as she gently touched Hoffman, then kissed him right there in front of everybody.
How Nabeela admired and feared Farah's boldness, even though she occasionally chastised her friend for being too upfront about everything. Being female and Muslim meant a life of discretion, that's what Nabeela's mother and grandmother taught her back in Yemen. However, living in Ontario was slowly changing her. Somalis and Yemenis were both present in large numbers among the immigrant populace of metropolitan Ottawa, Ontario. Yet they couldn't be more different, in spite of the relative proximity of both nations and the usually friendly relations between them. Most Somalis living in Canada were living their lives the western way. Very few bothered with wearing traditional clothes from the Somali motherland, and quite a few indulged in western vices like drinking, having casual sex and partying hard. Farah Muhammad, Nabeela's best friend, was such a gal. and she was by no means unique among the Somali people of Canada's capital.
Nabeela's thoughts returned to the towering young Black man who took her breath away. He seemed different somehow, and unlike just about every male student on campus, he seemed to notice her. Really notice her. He smiled politely as he sat just one seat away from her, wished her a good day and asked her what he missed. Her silence didn't deter him, not one beat. He asked her if she was shy and told her that he was new to the school. In spite of herself, she found herself puzzled by this talkative young Black man. He had an accent which she couldn't place. He didn't sound like the African immigrant students she knew, nor did he sound like the ones from the Caribbean. She looked him in the eyes and asked him where he was from. The stranger grinned from ear to ear and introduced himself. Sylvester Vector, from Boston, Massachusetts. He proudly pointed to the Boston Celtics logo on his T-shirt, and she noticed the oversized cross hanging around his neck. So, he was a Christian. Okay.
Sylvester Vector looked at the short, hijab-wearing Arab gal. So she could talk, cool. He was beginning to wonder if she was a mute or if she had taken a vow of silence or something. He didn't know much about Muslims, at least not those Muslims he ran into in Canada. He knew Arabs and other Muslims in the United States. The ones he knew were VERY different from the Canadian Muslims. The Arab chicks he knew in Boston didn't wear hijabs. They wore western clothes, and did all the things that normal western women did. They went to parties, dated whoever they liked, smoked cigarettes, and totally owned their sexuality and were bold and confident women of the world. The Muslim chicks he ran into during his first sixty days in Canada lived as though they were still in the Middle East or Africa or wherever the bulk of them came from. Wow. It's almost as if the clock had stopped for them. Oh, well. Whatever floats their boat, he thought. Different strokes for different folks and all that.
Sylvester was quite surprised when the young Arab woman sitting one seat away from him smiled shyly and introduced herself as Nabeela. He smiled politely, and refrained from shaking her hand. From his time among the Canadians, he learned a bit about the cultures and norms of Middle-Easterners. They weren't a touchy-feely group, especially the women. He seemed to be in for an afternoon of surprises, for the young Arab woman extended her hand for him to shake. Hesitantly he shook her hand, and she nodded. She looked at him with those big brown eyes of hers and asked him what an American was doing in Canada. Sylvester smiled and told her the tale he'd been telling his Canadian friends ever since he got to Ottawa. His father, Boston Police Department sergeant Stewart Vector banished him to Ontario, Canada, after a lackluster year at Boston University. Sylvester joined a fraternity, and developed bad habits like smoking, drinking and skipping class. He ended up on academic probation and his dad felt that something drastic had to be done. That's how he got shipped off to Canada. The most boring place known to man. Talk about reverse Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Damn.