More Then Sister

Chapter 1

The first time Ayaan Carter met Lina, she was standing at the top of their staircase in a too-big hoodie, clutching a stuffed rabbit and looking like she might bolt at any second.

She was three. He was five.

She had just lost everything. He didn’t understand loss yet, but he knew how to share.

From that moment on, Lina became part of their family. His “sister.” Everyone said so—neighbors, teachers, uncles at the masjid. “Masha’Allah, they’re like twins.”

They weren’t.

As children, they were inseparable.

She wore her hijab like armor; he became her sword.

She was quiet; he spoke for her.

He was bold; she grounded him.

But by the time they turned 14 and 16, something dangerous had started to bloom. A look held a second too long. A hug that lingered. And silence… filled with things they couldn’t say.

Because Lina wasn’t his real sister—but she might as well have been.

“We can’t do this,” she whispered one night in the treehouse, the place that had once been their escape.

Ayaan looked at her like she’d just torn a hole in the sky.

“Do what?” he said, voice trembling, even though he knew exactly what she meant.

“Feel this. Want this.”

She was crying.

He wanted to wipe her tears.

He didn’t.

“Lina,” he said, carefully, like her name was sacred. “You’re not my sister. They just say that because they don’t know how else to explain us.”

“But Allah knows,” she said, eyes dark and sharp. “And you know what that means.”

That stopped him cold.

Ayaan was always the confident one—the captain of the basketball team, the boy everyone smiled at. But not with her. With her, he was always a little off-balance. Because she wasn’t just another girl. She was his Lina. And wanting her wasn’t simple. It was haram, or almost. It was messy. It was dangerous.

But God, it was real.

So he made a choice that night. He left.

He stopped coming to the treehouse.

He stopped walking her home.

He stopped looking at her.

Lina thought she hated him for it.

Until years passed. And she was 18, standing at her high school graduation, when she saw him again—taller, broader, beard coming in, and looking at her like she was the moon and every prayer he’d ever made.

Their parents had no idea about the storm that used to live between them. To them, they were just family friends. To the world, they were “basically siblings.”

But standing under the stars that night, as fireworks lit up the sky, Ayaan said quietly:

“I asked Imam Haris. About us. About what’s allowed... if we aren’t blood.”

Lina’s heart stuttered.

“What did he say?”

“He said… it’s not haram. If it’s marriage. If it’s love.”

He took a step closer.

“And if you still feel what I feel—then I’m ready to stop pretending.”

Her breath caught.

“Even if it breaks everything?”

He touched her scarf like it was something holy.

“I’d rather break rules than break us again.”

And just like that, the treehouse promise they once buried—came back to life.