“Okay, I guess.”
“Rafi, it sounds like you suffered a terrible loss and are navigating what it’s like to get back into the dating world again, and that’s gotta bring up all kinds of conflicting feelings.”
“I guess I’m just so afraid Asadi will think I didn’t love him enough if I’m moving on so quickly.”
She points to the couch in front of her desk, and I realize I’ve been hovering like a weirdo. I take a seat, my posture a little stiff and my feet not quite touching the floor. She smiles and waits until I roll my eyes, slip off my shoes, and lean against the high arm, tucking my feet under me. She opens a notebook and takes out a pen.
“I’d like to challenge your perception that this is too quickly. Everybody has their own time frame, and if this is too quickly for you, that’s fine. I’m curious, though—do you feel that this would be too quick foryou,or does it seem like not enough time has passedsocially?”
I bite the inside of my lip and think about it. “I’ve never considered that. The difference between the two, that is. I just… I don’t want people to thinkfor a secondthat I don’t still grieve my husband and that I wouldn’t somehow wish for a better outcome. Because I do.”
“And it’s important what other people think of you?”
“Less of me, personally, and just more of…” I pause, thinking about the process of bringing him to this country, of the little cousins he loved and would never see again, a serious dearth of decent Middle Eastern restaurants, of the fact that, as soon as we started to feel settled, we had a diagnosis that there was no shot of defeating. “He had to give up so much to be with me. I couldn’t bear it if people thought I didn’t adore him. He was such a special guy, and losing him, knowing I was going to lose him…it was the worst thing that ever happened in my life.”
She hands me a tissue; I didn’t realize I was crying.
“And what do your friends think of this new guy?”
The sound of her pen scratching across the paper is barely audible but oddly soothing. “They like Everett a lot.”
“But you still hesitate.”
“I…uh. I acted like a lunatic around his friends. They’re a pretty tight-knit group, all ex-military, and I went and beat up a crowd favorite.”
This causes her to pause and place her pen on the desk, steepling her fingers. “You assaulted someone?”
“We have a history.”
“Were you arrested?”
The question shocks me, though it shouldn’t. I’d given him a concussion, and he’d have been well within his rights to have me charged. I shake my head. “He never pressed charges.”
She pops her thumb up and down on the desk for a few seconds, then signals for me to continue.
“I don’t really want to go into it right now.”
She raises her brow at me, gesturing at her office as if to remind me that this is, in fact, the place where we go into things.
“Okay, fine. This guy—Roly—he was partially responsible for my husband being kidnapped and tortured.”
She stops taking notes and eyeballs me. “Way to bury the lead there.”
Okay, so…we’re goingallin. Got it.
“It’s—it’s actually how Asadi and I met. He lived in Iraq, and I was an Air Force language analyst. After the kidnapping, Asadi started working with us to dismantle his father’s organization.”
The pen loudly pauses again. “Your husband’s father had him kidnapped and tortured?”
“Well…that was a mistake. But Roly is the guy responsible for putting Asadi in the line of fire.”
She puts down her pen and leans forward, her face concerned. “In what way?”
“Roly was making jokes about the rich, fat guy in front of the people who, as it happens, were planning on ambushing Roly’s team. They decided it’d be funny to take the rich, fat guy, too.”
“So, this Roly guy was also held and tortured?”
“No, just held. They beat Asadi for three days, and he did nothing but look on.”
