Burning Beneath

I was watching a Ramadan series today. One of those Kuwaiti shows that take place in the 1970s and 1980s. I always find myself drawn to them because they reflect a different time and a different social world that am trying to understand as a grown woman.

In one of the scenes, a young woman risks her reputation just to ride in a car with the young man she loves. Something so simple carried enormous weight in that society. A woman’s reputation could be questioned over something that small.

That scene triggered a very distant memory in me.

It took me back to my university days in Baghdad around 1995.

At that time there was a colleague who had a crush on me. Eventually I reciprocated that feeling. But love in those days and in that environment looked very different from what people might imagine today. The most that could happen between us was sitting next to each other or walking beside each other across campus. No touching hands, no intimacy, nothing beyond presence.

I raised myself with strong religious values and lived in a very strict society, especially for women. Growing up in a household where I had seen the consequences of people stepping outside those expectations, I learned very early how to protect myself. I learned how to become a shadow.

Quiet. Unnoticed. If questions were asked, my answer was always simple.

I don’t know.

But one thing about me has always remained constant. I have always been honest about my intentions. When I say I will do something, I do it. Because of that honesty my family trusted me. Even the families of my friends trusted me. When their daughters said they were going somewhere with me, the answer was always yes without hesitation.

One day during my university years I spoke openly to my family. I told them that I had feelings for a young man and that we were thinking of getting married after finishing university.

They probably did not take it seriously. Everyone knew how focused I was on my studies and my career. I had rejected every marriage proposal that had come my way before that.

Then one day at the university I became very sick. Dizzy, nauseous, barely able to stand. He offered to take a cab with me to make sure I arrived home safely. Normally we used crowded communal buses that were almost impossible to get into.

So we took a cab.

He sat in the front seat and I sat in the back. I was so dizzy that I even vomited on the way home. When we reached my house he stopped at the door and I went inside. He walked away.

My uncle happened to be there and asked me who that man was.

I answered honestly. I told him that he was the young man I had already spoken about, the one I intended to marry after university.

My uncle asked for why would he bring me home.

I told him I was sick and he wanted to make sure I arrived safely.

He said that this was not acceptable. What would people say if they saw this.

I reminded him that I had already told the family about him. I was not hiding anything.

He replied that honesty does not change how society will see the situation.

I apologized and told him that it would not happen again.

The next day at university I told the young man what had happened.

His response surprised me. He said very casually, “Finally, he said something.”

Those few words opened my eyes immediately.

I asked him what he meant. Did he mean that he had always known that this situation could damage my reputation in the eyes of the society we lived in, yet he continued anyway because he wanted it.

In other words, he believed it was wrong according to his own values and the values of the society around us, but he continued doing it.

Not protecting me.

Not protecting my reputation.

That realization ended everything for me in that moment.

I told him something very simple. If you truly loved me, you would protect me according to the values you believe in, not take advantage of the freedom that I personally allow. I am an open-minded person and I do not live according to society’s restrictions, but that does not give someone the right to silently judge me while benefiting from that openness.

That is not love.

That was the last conversation we ever had.

When I reach a conviction like that, something inside me turns completely one hundred and eighty degrees. No hesitation. No negotiation. No regret.

I simply walk away and the chapter closes.

Many years later I experienced something similar again in my marriage.

After seventeen years of dedication. After giving everything to that household and to that family. After losing parts of myself inside that life.

There came a moment when deceit stood clearly in front of me. Not something I was chasing or investigating. Just something undeniable.

At that point I told him something very simple.

I will stop being the hotel that houses you, feeds you, provides for you and allows you to exist in my space.

Once that decision was made, it was finished.

There was no screaming. No revenge. No drama.

Just a clean end.

Even in the first year after the separation it felt as if a razor had passed through that part of my life and removed it. I did not look back. I did not revisit it. Perhaps because the real separation had already happened inside me long before the physical one.

Sometimes that part of my personality even scares me.

It is very decisive. Very firm. It does not forgive.

But reaching that point takes time. It takes endurance. It takes many attempts to hold on, to understand, to repair.

So when that moment finally arrives, I trust it.

Because by then, the truth has already become impossible to ignore.

And when truth becomes that clear, walking away is not cruelty.

It is simply clarity.