“You can’t be serious, Leila. That’s not a lot of time.” Hannah frowned as she tucked a strand of thick red hair behind her ear. Liv muted the television and shook her head with a worried look on her face.

I sighed heavily. If anyone understood how crazy this sounded, it was me; however, the last thing I needed was for my closest friends to point out how cracked I was for agreeing to go through with it. In fact, I needed them to come to my aid and find some sort of solution to this burden of a problem that I had been carrying around for the last seventy-two hours.

“So, what are you going to do?” asked Liv, her brows knitted together.

I shrugged.

“Maybe an arranged marriage isn’t such a bad idea,” Hannah offered. “At least you’re guaranteed you won’t end up alone.”

I glanced at Tania, who watched us silently from the armchair. She was one of my few Muslim friends, and although she was more outwardly conservative—she wore a hijab—I could already tell that her opinions about my situation were a lot less optimistic than Hannah’s. “You know, you’re never going to be happy if you just do what your parents say,” she finally said bluntly.

Tania’s lack of trust stemmed from her own past experiences. Her parents had pressured her to marry a distant cousin back in her homeland of Bangladesh when she was just eighteen years old. They divorced four months later—and the “shame” associated with her choice ultimately caused her parents to sever their relationship with her. Despite being subjected to the “log kya kahenge” epidemic that often infested the South Asian Muslim community, Tania remained intent on never falling victim to traditional expectations again. She had moved out of her parents’ home, went back to school, and managed to carve out a fairly successful career for herself in public relations. She also made certain to steer clear of all romantic relationships and kept a healthy distance from the clutches of prying aunties. While I was not in the least bit surprised by her sentiment, I also knew that no one could truly understand the mess I was in better than her.

Although my parents weren’t by any means suggesting a forced marriage, like Tania’s, their idea of an arranged marriage, which “generously” offered both the prospective bride and groom a say in who they would spend the rest of their lives with, was still a scary proposition. Just the image of that awful black portfolio racked my body with a shudder as I tried to shake it away.

“I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.” I was sitting upright on the carpet with my back against the couch, knees bent up toward my chest. “That’s the reason I need your help,” I pleaded, burying my chin into my knees. “At this point, I’m open to any suggestions as long as they’re legal and don’t involve fleeing the country.”

As soon as I gave them the green light, they began brainstorming; however, it was only a matter of minutes before I realized they weren’t the greatest of ideas.