I wasn't asked.
I was never really asked anything, but this time… it hit different.
There was no sit-down. No "What do you think, Layla?" No moment of dignity or choice.
By the time I found out, the engagement had already been arranged. My father had shaken hands, made promises, smiled with his full set of teeth like he'd just sold one of his cars — except this time, the product was me.
I found out from Reema.
"So, I heard Friday night's going to be… sparkly," she said with a teasing grin, flipping through a magazine on the couch.
"What are you talking about?"
She looked up. Blinked.
"The engagement? To Noah? Mama said the cake is already ordered."
My throat closed like a vice. I stood there, frozen, while she kept flipping pages.
The decision was made. The deal was done. And I didn't even know.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
I just walked quietly to my room, closed the door, and locked it.
And then I started to pack.
Not neatly. Not calmly. Not like someone who had a plan.
Just… stuffing clothes into a tote bag. Shirts, underwear, socks. My school books. A granola bar from my drawer. Anything.
I was halfway through pulling a sweater over my head when I heard it.
The knock.
Not the gentle one Lina would give. Not the hesitant tap of my mother.
It was heavy. Loud.
Authoritative.
"Layla," my father's voice boomed from behind the door. "Open the door. Now."
I didn't answer.
"Layla. I said open the goddamn door."
My heart pounded. My fingers shook. But I slid the tote bag under my bed, crossed the room, and unlocked it.
As soon as I turned the handle, he pushed it open hard, and I stumbled back.
My brother Kareem was right behind him, arms crossed, mouth tight.
"What the hell are you doing?" my father snapped, eyes raking the room.
"Packing."
"For what?"
"I'm not going to that engagement."
There it was. The words I'd been too afraid to say. Out loud. They tasted bitter in my mouth, but they were mine.
His expression didn't change.
"You're not going anywhere."
"You can't force me."
"You're my daughter," he said coldly. "That's all the permission I need."
I turned toward the window without thinking, maybe to open it, maybe just to breathe — but before I reached it, Kareem grabbed my arm.
"Don't make this worse," he said under his breath.
"Let me go!" I shouted.
But he didn't.
He dragged me toward the bed and shoved me down onto it, not hard enough to bruise — just hard enough to humiliate.
"You're embarrassing us," he growled. "You think you're better than us? Better than Mama? Than your sisters?"
"No," I hissed. "I just want to live my own life."
My father said nothing. He turned and walked out.
Kareem followed, but before he closed the door, he looked at me like I was a stain.
"You'll thank us someday."
They locked the door.
From the outside.
I heard the click of the key, followed by their footsteps fading down the hall.
I didn't move.
I didn't scream again.
I just sat there. Heart pounding. Fingers clenched in the bedsheet.
There was no bathroom in my room. No phone. No escape.
Only the knowledge that my future had been signed away behind my back. And my body — this thing I had never even been allowed to call mine — was a receipt passed from one man's hand to another.
I don't know how long I sat there.
Long enough for the sun to crawl across the floor. Long enough for the house to grow quiet. Long enough to feel the world tilt.
I curled into a ball on the mattress, still in yesterday's clothes, still tasting the dust of betrayal in my throat.
I thought of Lina. I wondered if she knew. If she'd tried to stop it. If she was outside the door now, listening.
But she never came.
No one did.
Not until the next morning — the day of the engagement.
The door creaked open.
I sat up fast, heart racing, ready to run — but it was just my mother.
She stepped in quietly, holding a pale blue dress across her arms.
Her face looked tired. Older. Like she'd aged a decade overnight.
"You need to get dressed," she said.
"You locked me in."
"We did what we had to."
"You knew I didn't want this."
She didn't answer. Just smoothed a wrinkle from the fabric in her hands.
"This was mine," she said. "When I got engaged to your father."
"Then you know how it feels."
She looked at me then. Her eyes were wet.
"It doesn't matter how it feels, Layla. It's what's expected."
"You're giving me to a man twice my age."
"He can take care of you."
"I don't want him."
A long pause.
"I didn't want your father either," she whispered. "And now I don't know who I'd be without him."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No," she said quietly. "It's supposed to help you survive."
She laid the dress on my bed and left the room.
This time, she didn't lock the door.
But I knew better.
There are prisons you walk out of only to find yourself in another.