“So,” he said, leaning back like a man at an auction, “how much are we thinking here?”
I arched an eyebrow. “You’re the one paying. You tell me.”
He flicked his gaze around the room, then inched a little closer—a charming smile curving his mouth like he was saying something adorable just for our parents’ benefit.
“Weren’t you bragging about making more money than ahistory teacher?”
“And?” I countered, matching his whisper. “Your money is still my money. Besides, I’ve only been an OB for a few years. I’m still aggressively haunted by student loans.”
“I thought you got a full ride.”
“Yeah, forundergrad. Medical schools don’t offer full rides—only lifelong financial trauma.”
“Maybe they do, and the admissions committee wasn’t as dazzled by your ego as you are.”
My left eye twitched. For a brief, vivid second, I wondered if a quick slap across the face could pass as an affectionate, pre-marital gesture. Like a love tap. With intent.
“Don’t throw a hissy fit,” he said before I could test the theory. With exaggerated patience, he leaned over the paper and added two more zeroes, like he was feeding a feral animal and hoping it wouldn’t bite.
I plastered on a sugar-sweet grin anyway. “You’re too generous, habibi.”
His jaw worked like he wanted to respond, but then he remembered both our mothers were watching. He swallowed the retort and nodded stiffly, as though he hadn’t just beenfinancially outmaneuvered by his future wife in front of his entire family.
We signed the paperwork under the approving gazes of everyone who thought this was love, or close enough to it. His hand brushed mine briefly as we passed the pen, and the smallest spark traveled up my arm—unwelcome, confusing, but quickly extinguished.
Then came the henna party—a blur of perfume and laughter, gold dust and noise. The house pulsed with women’s voices I’d never met, singing ancient songs that somehow made the walls feel closer and my heart hammer louder. My hands were propped in someone else’s lap while careful fingers painted vines along my skin, like they were giving my anxieties their own decorative trellis.
Everyone kept telling me I was glowing, which felt generous considering I was mostly just overheating and extremely overwhelmed. I felt a little floaty, like I’d accidentally stepped into someone else’s life and was trying to be chill about it. I smiled anyway because that’s what brides did—smiled and nodded and pretended that the shimmer in their eyes was joy, not suffocation.
I lifted my arms when they asked. Puckered my lips when the makeup artist said to. Laughed when people watched. Saidyeswhen they expected me to. “Yes,” I’m happy. “Yes,” I’m in love. “Yes,” this is what I want. Every yes carved me smaller, every chuckle pushed me further from myself.
I thought of the girl I’d been before all this—the one who thought escape meant control, who believed a signature could buy her freedom. I wanted to reach for her, to shake her, to beg her not to do this. But she was already gone, and I was what remained.
The zeffah came next—drums, ululations, a flood of color and sound so relentless it swallowed me whole. I stood at thecenter of it, surrounded by celebration, by a happiness that didn’t belong to me. My cheeks ached from grinning, my throat tight from pretending I could exhale beneath the pressure. Every gesture was practiced, rehearsed to perfection, my body moving through the choreography while my mind lingered elsewhere.
The weight of it all, the vast, inescapable truth of what I’d agreed to crashed over me all at once. My chest constricted under layers of silk and lace, lungs refusing to obey. Each inhale snagged, fragile and uneven, as though the air itself had turned against me.
My fingers found the corset, clawing desperately at the seams. The lace bit into my skin, but I couldn’t stop. If I just pulled hard enough, I could undo everything—the life waiting to be lived, the promise I’d made to become someone else.
The door behind me burst open. I spun around, pulse hammering, expecting my mother, Sarah,anyone—but not him.
Khalifa stood in the threshold, his usual controlled composure shaken just enough to make him seem impossibly close, impossibly present, impossibly human. His dark gaze swept over me—calm, unreadable—and for a moment the room shrank until it was just the two of us and my wildly unhelpful heartbeat.
“Making a run for it?” he asked, stepping inside.
“What?”
“You look like you’re about to bolt,” he said, walking toward me. “Your hands are shaking.”
A tightness bloomed beneath my ribs, not just from the dress or this day, but from himobservingme, already knowing me too well, and daring me to admit what I hadn’t even admitted to myself.
“I’m not,” I said briskly. “And even if I wanted to, I can’t. I’m already your wife.”
He tilted his head slightly, the tension in his stance betraying a hint of disbelief. “You could still disappear. You already have my money, my ring on your finger. Maybe this was what you meant when you said you wanted freedom,” he murmured, closer now, close enough that I could see the faint pulse at his temple, the subtle clench of his jaw.
I hated him for making me feel so exposed, for making my heart race in a way that had nothing to do with anger, and everything to do with proximity, with the weight of him so near.
“I’m not the nicest person in the world,” I said finally, “but I’m not that mean.”
