The Not-To-Do List

His car is old, a gray Toyota station wagon from the 90s, the kind where you still have to crank the windows down by hand.

The evening air smells faintly of dust and gasoline. I sigh in relief that he brought the car on such a hot day instead of his usual motorcycle.

In my lap, I’m holding a small shopping bag—a gift for him, a dark striped, purple shirt I bought for Eid. I’m excited. I’ve always wanted to give him something purple, my favorite color. But he always scoffs at anything he thinks looks “light” or “feminine.” Which never makes sense to me—because purple can be so deep and luscious.

So I searched carefully and found this one: dark, almost black, with just enough purple to feel special. I thought it was perfect for him. For us. To match on Eid.

I hand him the bag and start telling him about the shirt, about how it’s purple. 

Before I can finish, he snaps. His jaws clench. He slams his fists against the steering wheel, hard, over and over. The sound of it is loud, brutal.

I’m frozen, stunned. I don’t understand what’s happening. I feel my heart trying to escape my ribs.

He’s yelling now— “Mimi! Stop trying to change me! Stop trying to force your tastes down my throat!” His voice is full of rage I don’t recognize yet but will soon learn to acquaint myself with.

Then the car jerks. He starts swerving violently, left and right, braking hard without warning. I almost slam my head against the dashboard. The seat belt cuts painfully into my hips. 

I clutch the edge of my seat, too shocked to speak, or cry. 

I am not sure if I had learned by then that his anger could come without warning. A small thing—the wrong word, the wrong joke—could unleash it. And when it came, it was like standing in the middle of a storm you could neither predict nor run from.

I tell myself it is just a bad day. He is just tired. Maybe I’ve pushed too hard, made too much of a fuss about the color, not thought carefully enough about what he would want.

I silently add “don’t buy anything purple” to the running list of “don’ts” I’ve learned to keep in my head. This is how it always is — something inside me folding itself smaller, tighter, until it felt safer not to exist at all.

Sitting there in that battered old car, holding a gift he might never open, I didn’t know yet that love wasn’t supposed to feel like fear.

But I would learn.